Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 65 — page 153: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ay "Sars CUE ee ee Po Se Oe <P sect, Sr: 3 >) *. 3 r ’ There wasn’t much room behind the counter with the bodies of Max and Harry _ making the place untidy. When he did find a bottle, he used it without the elegant benefit of a glass. “Come and drink with me, Lena,” he called out. There was no response from the slumped figure at the table. “So there’s nobody to drink with,” he mused. He looked at Harry, curled in his fur cocoon, the man who thought he had ideals, but in the end had been loyal only to himself. “You don’t want a drink, do you, Harry?’ said Sam. Neither did Max, he decided. He toasted him, nevertheless —Max Binder, who had been so strong in the face of subordinates but so afraid of his boss, Grossen, and so meticulously deceitful in his pursuit of profit. To Gibb and to all the little men of the world, he AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION raised his bottle sincerity. ‘And now there’s only you and me, Lena,” he said. There was still no response and he wondered if Lena had already escaped the last hours of horror, if she had flown to an unreal world where she would never see herself grow ugly in the process of dying. What was it she had called him? A no-good stinking louse? Not true, he said to himself. I started the day right and I'll finish it that way. He felt in his pockets, tugged out all his money and | stuffed it into Harry’s open- drawered till. *“T’m clean now,” he said. At last the alcohol was taking hold. “I’m clean. No debts unpaid.” Sam emptied the bottle and went back to Lena. Then he blew out the candle, put his good arm round the girl and settled down to wait. in silent | 152 CoMmicwoooks.coOln