More Stories from the Twilight Zone - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765325829 ISBN 13: 9780765325822

Verlag: Tor Books, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

When it first aired in 1959, The Twilight Zone was nothing less than groundbreaking television. Freed from the censors' strict oversight due to the show's classification as science fiction, the 156 episodes explored classic, powerful, and moving human themes--love, hate, pride, jealousy, terror--in a unique style. The program sparked the imaginations of countless writers and filmmakers around the world.

With More Stories from the Twilight Zone, some of today's finest writers have written all-new stories celebrating the unique vision and power of Rod Serling's landmark series. The collection includes stories from such notable authors as Loren D. Estleman, Jane Lindskold, Peter Crowther and John Farris.

So as Rod Serling said, "...prepare to enter that fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. And it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call...The Twilight Zone."

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Carol Serling

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

More Stories from the Twilight Zone

By

Tor Books

ISBN: 9780765325822

ONE
Stealing a man’s wallet is easier than you might think. The trick is to wait for just the right moment and to make your move without hesitating.
Not convinced? Well okay, imagine your target is leaning across a roulette-table in Vegas when his trouser pocket gapes open. And let’s pretend that you’re standing beside him with a bottle of Budweiser in your hand, so that even if he feels something brush against him, he’ll think nothing of it. Believe me, it only takes a second to slip your spare hand inside his pocket and whisk his wallet away.
Maybe you doubt it can be that simple. Perhaps the most you’d concede is that it’s possible, but only if the target is a real chump. If I tried to pull that move on you, say, you’d be sure to catch me.
Well, that’s an understandable reaction, but I’m afraid it’s plain wrong. For starters, I’m good. And I don’t mean take-a-punt-and-brazen-it-out good. I mean talented good. I mean fast, nimble, experienced good.
Then there’s the psychology involved. After all, I don’t look like a pickpocket. I’m cleanshaven and smelling of cologne. I have on a sports jacket and smart jeans. My shoes are polished, my nails are clean, my breath is toothpaste-fresh. Plus, we’re in a classy venue, the Fifty-Fifty casino in the very heart of the Strip, across from Caesars Palace, along from the Venetian Hotel. And we’re at a high-stakes table in a high-roller area, separated from the hoi polloi by a velveteen rope and a raised plinth. You’ve been chatting for some time with my good friend Victoria. She’s immaculately groomed and kind on the eye, and smart and witty and a whole bunch of pleasing characteristics besides. Oh, and did I mention that we’re British? What ho! Tally pip! Hardly criminals, right?
So let’s just settle on the idea that I’d have stolen your wallet in half the time it’s taken us to get this far and that you wouldn’t have come close to catching me. And hey, don’t feel glum about it, because neither had the guy whose billfold I’d just lifted.
He was of average height with a cultured mane of dark, Hollywood hair, a wholly artificial tan and a keen awareness of his own minor celebrity. His name (if you can believe it) was Josh Masters, and he was the Fifty-Fifty’s resident stage illusionist, star of the casino’s second-string theater for twelve performances a week, forty-eight weeks a year. His speciality was in making things vanish—showgirls, tigers, the Stratosphere Tower, his own credibility—and his capped smile and intense blue eyes gazed out from billboards and flyers all around the casino complex and the wider city beyond.
My reasons for taking his wallet needn’t delay us right now, but as a mystery writer by trade, I should probably let you know that I’m not a complete cad. So allow me to put on record that I don’t make a habit out of picking people’s pockets. I’ve done it in the past, and no doubt I’ll do it again in the future, but it’s nearly always as a means to a somewhat complicated end and never for the sheer hell of it. It wouldn’t be worth my time—a man can only use so many driving licenses.
True, I’m a thief, but I’m what you might call a high-end thief. I tend to work on commission, and since I try not to work too often (in order to keep my chances of being caught as close to zero as possible), I only accept a job if I’m going to be handsomely paid. Usually, that means I steal from two kinds of people—the rich or the corrupt. And while that hardly makes me Robin Hood’s spiritual successor, I like to think that it nudges my moral compass away from the zone marked absolute scum.
But anyway, the defense rests, and you’ll no doubt recall that Josh Masters’ wallet was out of his pocket and inside my own, courtesy of a neat piece of sleight of hand that Masters himself might have appreciated, if only he’d had cause to study my technique. And with my prize secured and my Bud set aside, I fled the scene of my crime by stepping down from the high-stakes area onto the main casino floor.
The Fifty-Fifty is one of the more recent mega-resorts to have been built on the Strip. It has a theme, like almost every other Vegas casino, and the subtle clue to the theme is in its name. Fifties America was what the place was all about, with the casino floor dedicated to the gangster world of noir movies, pulp films and popular imagination.
Take the cocktail waitresses as an example. They sported pageboy hairstyles, make-up that was heavy on the foundation, blusher and lipstick, and sequined bodices of a cream shade, over black micro-skirts and long, nylon-sheathed legs. Likewise, the pit bosses were dressed in gray sharkskin suits with wide lapels and trilby hats, and the security staff were kitted out in vintage cop uniforms, with blue polyester shirts, black slim-jim ties and gold, five-pointed badges. Over by the cashing-out cage, the staff behind the gilded security bars wore green tinted visors, while the croupiers were dressed in white collarless shirts with black waistcoats, and spent their time calling the female patrons “dolls” and “twists” and “frails,” and the men “Mac” or “chum” or “buddy.”
Swing numbers were playing over the sound system, but the tunes were lost in the noise of the gaming floor—the trill and ding of the slots, the whoops and cheers around the craps table, the riffle of cards, the clack of the roulette ball, the general hum and chatter of the vast number of suckers laying down money against all odds.
With so much happening around me, it took a few moments until I spotted the security desk (which for obvious reasons had made an impact on me when we first checked in), but once I’d logged its position, I set off toward it, remembering that the main elevators were located just beyond. Sticking to my route was easier said than done. For one thing, there were a lot of people in my way, but more to the point, the casino appeared to have been designed like a maze that continually led me back to an area where I might like to risk a considerable amount of money.
I passed through corridors of kidney-shaped gaming-tables, all of them fashioned from walnut veneer, cream leather and burgundy felt. Blackjack, Blackjack Switch, Casino War, Pai Gow Poker and Texas Hold ’Em eventually gave way to the craps-tables and the roulette-tables, and afterward the video poker games and the penny slots being played by elderly women in velour jogging suits.
As I walked, my feet beat down on a gaudy nylon carpet that charged my body with a frankly inhuman level of static electricity. I’d already learned to my cost that whenever I came into contact with anything metal I functioned much like a lightning rod, and the same was true of the call button for the guest elevators. I reached out a tentative finger to press it and … zzzzzzz … a charge raced up my arm. Damn. I snatched my hand away and yelped, and meanwhile the doors parted on a nearby carriage and a tubby black man in a baseball cap and shin-length denim shorts stepped out. Taking his place in the elevator, I removed Josh Masters’ wallet from my pocket.
I slid a key card from his billfold and popped it into the magnetic reader in front of me. I selected the button for Floor 20, and as the elevator climbed and a recorded voiceover encouraged me to buy a ticket for the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765325829
• ISBN 13: 9780765325822
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 480
• Herausgeber: Serling Carol
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Braun; https://in.pg.com/contact-us/; ; Sulzbacher Str. 40-50; Schwalbach/Ts.; 65824; Deutschland