IT'S ALL IN THE BOOK
by Mike Craven


[  Mike is a really interesting person who has numerous hobbies,
including computers, science fiction, and astronomy.  In any case, here's
his story, which we assume falls under the second category.  From what he
tells us, he's probably busy programming his computer right now, or
possibly studying for a CompSci test...  ]


     Jake could see the stars in the clear, dark sky above him as
he waited in silence.  It was cold.  He pulled his coat closer
about him and shivered.  It wasn't the cold that was bothering
him, it was the waiting--The stranger was already over an hour
late.
     Jake glanced at his watch, yellow in the dim illumination
from the streetlights.  It took a moment of squinting before he
could make out the time, 10:02.
     Damn, he thought.  I'll give him five more minutes.  This
isn't worth spending a night in a phone booth.
     He pulled his coat even tighter, and squinted at the yellow
street, surrounded by yellow buildings--wishing again that he had
worn something warmer.  He hadn't expected to wait more than
twenty minutes--certainly not the hour and a quarter he'd been
here.

     "Dammit, Harry..."  said Jake, peering through the
wilderness he liked to call his desk.  "Would you answer the
friggin' phone!"
     Harry sat back in his chair, looking quite comfortable in
the racket of the news room.  Without opening his eyes, and
without changing his position in the slightest, he reached his
hand out and unerringly picked up the phone.
     "Hello...?"  A brief silence.  "It's for you, Jake."  Harry
hadn't open his eyes once, and Jake hadn't seen him move anything
but his arm.
     Jake grunted irritably, and got up to answer it.  He picked
it up where Harry had left it on his desk, glaring at Harry all
the while.
     "Yeah?"
     "This Jake Craven?"
     "Yeah.  What do you want?"
     "Come to the phone booth at 45th and Red Grove at nine
o'clock," the voice said, and then there was a dull click,
followed by a dialtone.  Jake jiggled the receiver.
     "Hung up on you, eh?"  said the somnolent Harry Perelman. 
Jake didn't say anything.  Harry finally opened his eyes.  "Well,
it wasn't a crank call, was it?  You would've been cursing if it
was."
     "No."
     "Well, don't leave me hanging."  Jake didn't say anything as
he walked back to his desk, a perplexed look on his face.  He
moved a pile on his desk so he could see Harry more clearly.
     "Some character wants me to meet him at 45th and Red Grove
at nine," he said after a moment.
     "Who was it?"
     "Didn't say."
     "But you're dying of curiosity, aren't you."
     Jake said nothing.
     "You're gonna go, aren't you?" said Harry, just a little
surprised.  Still Jake said nothing.
     "Can I come?"
     "No."
     "Oh, well."  Harry leaned back in his chair and continued
his nap.  "Tell me how it goes."
     Jake moved the piles back so that he couldn't see Harry, and
started thinking.  He wasn't supposed to meet the stranger for
five hours, so he had plenty of time.

     At eight-thirty, Jake left to catch a taxi.  It was a frigid
night.  He didn't particularly want to be out in it, but he
wasn't going to let something like that stop him.
     Jake arrived at the rendezvous point at ten till, and waited
anxiously.  When nine o'clock came and passed, his anxiety soon
gave way to irritation then boredom.  At ten he got fed up at the
crank and was about to leave when the stranger finally appeared
behind him.
     "Jake Craven?"  The unexpected voice startled Jake, who
banged his head on the back of the phonebooth.
     "Right," replied Jake, irritably, glaring at the stranger, a
middle aged, swarthy fellow.
     "Cold, ain't it."
     Jake almost exploded, then looked at the stranger, who was
shivering violently.
     "Yeah, I noticed.  Why don't you just get to the point.  You
are only," he glanced at his watch, "one hour and four minutes
late."
     "Yeah."
     The stranger glanced back and forth, scanning the area
around them, as if he expected to be attacked any minute now by
persons unknown.
     "Heard of Corey Noyan?"
     Jake frowned.  "I think so.  Isn't he the guy that used to
forecast football scores?"
     "And got 'em all right.  That's him.  One hundred percent
accuracy.  Doesn't that strike you as being a bit odd?"
     "The first week!  That's all.  He just got lucky.  After
that he had maybe a seventy percent accuracy rate..."
     "Until he disappeared."
     "Hell...The way he was predicting, everyone just forgot
about him."
     "Well, he went underground.  He works for some 'interests'
who gamble on the picks.  From what I hear, he hasn't missed
any."
     "So maybe he's got a good computer or something."
     "Ptui!  I wanna know how he does it.  It ain't no computer."
     "Why should I care?"
     The stranger looked at him in exasperation.  After a moment,
Jake's curiosity got the better of him.
     "What do you have to do with this guy?"
     "Never mind.  I want to hire you."
     "Huh?"
     "I want to hire you to snoop."
     "Wha..."  Jake burst out laughing.  Incredulous, "I'm a
reporter, not a burglar!"
     "So?  Reporters snoop all the time.  That's your job."
     "I'm not a professional!  Snooper, anyway."
     "Ptui!"
     "Get yourself a P.I.  I don't think I'm the person you're
looking for."
     Jake started walking away.  The stranger didn't follow him,
just watched him walk off, and cursed silently to himself.

     "Jake, what's bothering you?"  Harry looked at him over his
wire-frame glasses, a concerned look on his face.  He was going
over a few of his prints, which were spread across his usually
pristine desk.
     Jake waved his hand at Harry, deep in his own desk.  He
didn't look up.
     "It's really nothing."
     "Don't tell me that.  It's that crank isn't it?"
     Jake sighed and said nothing.
     Harry looked at his watch, and stood up, grabbing his coat
from the rack nearby.
     "C'mon, Jake.  It's 11:30.  I'm going to take you to lunch. 
I still haven't heard the story..."
     Jake left it hanging for a moment then nodded.
     "All right."  He stood and took his coat from Harry.  "You
paying?"
     "Sure.  You're supplying the entertainment.  C'mon."

     Harry half-heartedly jabbed his food with his fork.
     "That's what he wanted?  He wanted you to break into this
guy's house?"
     "Yup.  That's it."
     "I take it you turned him down."
     "Hell, yes.  I haven't heard anything quite that ridiculous
since they changed the tax laws."
     "Who was this character?"
     "I dunno.  Never seen him before.  I don't care if I ever
see him again."
     "Wild."  Harry took a bite of his food, looking into space
as he chewed on the food, and digested the story.
     Jake took advantage of the silence to eat a little of his
as-yet-untouched salad.  He liked to complain about his salad,
but he always ate it anyway.
     "Jake, I think we outta look into this."
     "I'm with you."
     "What do you think is going on?  I mean, he can't possibly
be getting them all right.  That guy must be exaggerating."
     "You're hooked, aren't you Harry.  You forgot to ask the
most important questions--is the guy really predicting scores,
and is the guy really in town."
     "Hell, if that ain't true, there goes the whole ball game.
We gotta assume that much."
     "Granted.  Still, it's fun to watch you when you get started
on something.  You always get that dreamy look in your eyes."
     "Huh.  We've gotta look into this."
     "Okay.  Wanna make it official?"
     "Easier that way."
     "Okay, I'll talk to my editor when we get back."
     "All right."  Harry stared into space, thoughtful.
     Jake ate some more, and watched Harry for a while.  Harry
didn't touch his hamburger, which had a exactly one bite in it.
     After a moment Jake had finished most of his salad, and just
watched Harry.
     "You've got that look."
     "Blow it out your...  I'm thinking."
     "You're hooked."
     Harry made a big wolfish grin.
     "You bet your sweet ass I am."

     Harry hung up the phone, and looked over toward Jake...but
only saw lots and lots of paper.
     "Well, Jakie boy, he's in town here.  Lives here, that is."
     A voice emanated from the general direction of Jake's desk.
     "Oh, joy."
     Jake's editor hadn't been terribly understanding, and Jake
hadn't been too inclined to press it.  Oh, well, it wasn't the
good old days.  Harry had done most of the digging, and, as
usual, did a pretty good job.  He had a real knack for it.
     "He has a house at 77th and Park.  Nice neighborhood."
     "So what we gonna do about it?"
     Harry put on his best innocent look.
     "Whaddaya think?  Let's go visit him.  Now's a good time... 
He's outta town."
     Jake snorted, and his disembodied head hovered among the
piles on his desk.
     "We're gonna get our asses fried for this, Harry."
     "So?"
     "You know what they say about curiosity killing the cat."
     "I know, but I ain't no cat."
     "Hmmph."
     "I'm just dying of curiosity."
     Jake knew that it wasn't any use arguing.  By this time
tomorrow, he would probably phoning the office from the county
jail.  It had happened before.
     "Harry, how do you get me into these things?"
     "You started it, Jake."

     "Okay, here we go," said Jake, breathless.
     "Right."  Harry and Jake slowly crawled toward their
objective, the bay window on the north side of the dwelling. 
Luckily, they had timed their assault during the new moon, so
they were not easily visible as they approached the house.  Above
them stars shone and Orion was rising.
     After covering about twelve yards, they had made it to the
window.  Harry slowly lifted himself up and, after checking for
pressure sensors and the like with a dim, red penlight--not that
he could have done anything about them except pray--he produced a
glass cutter and a suction cup and cut out a large square of
glass, with the bottom level with the pane.
     "Go!" Harry whispered.  Jake tried to scramble into the
house, keeping as low as possible and dropping to the floor once
he had cleared the window.  But he got tangled in the blinds and
had to struggle a moment to free himself.  Harry followed after
he had stowed away his tools.  He had no trouble with the blinds. 
Jake had torn them out of the window.
     When Harry was coming through, Jake heard a soft beep.
     "Shhh!"  he whispered urgently.  "I think I heard a beep."
     Harry's pulse quickened and he looked toward Jake's voice in
the darkness.
     "There's nothing we can do about it now.  Keep going."
     Jake scrambled across the floor toward the front door, in
hope of deactivating the security systems.  As he passed from the
room with the window--the den--to the next room--the living room-
-via the main hall, he heard another beep.
     He kept going and entered the next room through a small
doorway.  Here, the floor changed from wood to tile, and he
banged up his elbows and knees on it in his haste.  For a moment,
he vaguely wondered what linoleum was doing in the foyer.  Then
he ran into a wall, banging his head rather painfully.
     There shouldn't be anything there, he though.  Then he
realized that he must be in the kitchen.  He backtracked into the
hall to continue into the living room.
     At the next door, between the living room and the foyer, he
heard yet another beep.  He kept going until he came to the front
door.  He then stood up and looked at the walls near the door.
     In the den, Harry suddenly heard slightly hysterical
laughter.
     "Hell, we tripped every sensor in the house almost, but the
bastard left the security system deactivated!  It's lit up like a
goddamned christmas tree!  Come on, it's perfectly safe."
     Through the hall to the living room, Harry saw a flashlight
shining on a table.  His heard skipped a beat.
     "Jake!  Get the curtains closed!"
     "Think I'm an idiot?  That's the first thing I checked."
     "Sorry.  You scared me for a second there.  It would have
been just perfect if some neighbor saw us, after all this."
     Jake moved his flashlight around the room and scanned it.
     "Harry, get out your flashlight and help me search."
     "Okay."
     Harry got out his flashlight and flipped it on while he
moved toward the bedroom.  Jake started to search one of the
bedrooms.  After about two minutes of fruitless searching, Harry
suddenly heard Jake say in a low voice--
     "Jesus H. Christ..."
     He quickly rushed into the bedroom to see what was the
matter.  When he arrived, he found Jake standing next to an open
filing cabinet, with his flashlight illuminating a plain grey
book.  Jake looked up.
     On the book was written, in clear block letters:
     "Football Encyclopedia -- 2026."

---
