经典科幻文学:《 再见 多谢你们的鱼》第27章2

Good ring to it. What did you say?
I may have met him. Complains all the time, yes?
Incredible! You met the Rain God?
If it’s the same guy. I told him to stop complaining and show someone his book.
There was an impressed pause from Murray Bost Henson’s end of the phone.
Well, you did a bundle. An absolute bundle has absolutely been done by you. Listen, do you know how much a tour operator is paying that guy not to go to Malaga this year? I mean forget irrigating the Sahara and boring stuff like that, this guy has a whole new career ahead of him, just avoiding places for money. The man’s turning into a monster, Arthur, we might even have to make him win the bingo.
Listen, we may want to do a feature on you, Arthur, the Man Who Made the Rain God Rain. Got a ring to it, eh?
A nice one, but…
We may need to photograph you under a garden shower, but that’ll be OK. Where are you?
Er, I’m in Islington. Listen, Murray…
Islington!
Yes…
Well, what about the real weirdness of the week, the real seriously loopy stuff. You know anything about these flying people?
No.
You must have. This is the real seethingly crazy one. This is the real meatballs in the batter. Locals are phoning in all the time to say there’s this couple who go flying nights. We’ve got guys down in our photo labs working through the night to put together a genuine photograph. You must have heard.
No.
Arthur, where have you been? Oh, space, right, I got your quote. But that was months ago. Listen, it’s night after night this week, my old cheesegrater, right on your patch. This couple just fly around the sky and start doing all kinds of stuff. And I don’t mean looking through walls or pretending to be box girder bridges. You don’t know anything?
No.
Arthur, it’s been almost inexpressibly delicious conversing with you, chumbum, but I have to go. I’ll send the guy with the camera and the hose. Give me the address, I’m ready and writing.
Listen, Murray, I called to ask you something.
I have a lot to do.
I just wanted to find out something about the dolphins.
No story. Last year’s news. Forget ‘em. They’re gone.
It’s important.
Listen, no one will touch it. You can’t sustain a story, you know, when the only news is the continuing absence of whatever the story’s about. Not our territory anyway, try the Sundays. Maybe they’ll run a little “Whatever Happened to “Whatever Happened to the Dolphins”” story in a couple of years, around August. But what’s anybody going to do now? “Dolphins still gone”? “Continuing Dolphin Absence”? “Dolphins Further Days Without Them”? The story dies, Arthur. It lies down and kicks its little feet in the air and presently goes to the great golden spike in the sky, my old fruitbat.
Murray, I’m not interested in whether it’s a story. I just want to find out how I can get in touch with that guy in California who claims to know something about it. I thought you might know.

“好一个响儿啊。你说什么？”
“我可能遇见过他。总是在抱怨，对吧？”
“难以置信！你遇到过雨神？”
“如果就是那个人的话。我让他别抱怨了，把他的本子给别人看看。”
默里?波斯特?汉森在电话另一端出现了一阵感动的停顿。
“好！你做了一捆啊！绝对的一捆绝对被你给搞出来了。听着，你知道有个旅游官员给了这个家伙多少钱让他今年别去马拉加吗？我是说，即使不算上灌溉撒哈拉之类的枯燥活，这个家伙将来也有了一个全新的工作了，只要不去什么地方就可以拿钱。这人已经变成了个怪物，阿瑟，我们甚至可能应该用他去赢赌博。
“听着，我们可能要给你做一期栏目，《阿瑟，让雨神下雨的人》。有个响儿吧，嗯？”
“挺好的，可是……”
“我们可能要在花园水洒里给你照相，不过没关系的。你在哪儿？”
“呃，我在伊斯灵顿。听我说，默里……”
“伊斯灵顿！”
“对……”
“好吧，那本周真正的怪事呢，真正实在发疯的事儿。关于那些会飞的人你知道什么？”
“不知道。”
“你肯定知道。这个是真正疯狂的事儿。这是面糊里面真正的肉丸子。当地居民一直打来电话说有这么一对儿晚上出去飞。我们已经让我们摄影室里的人去彻夜工作，好弄一张真正的照片来。你肯定听说了。”
“没有。”
“阿瑟，你上哪儿去了？哦，太空，对了，我已经有你的亲口证实了。但那是几个月之前了。听着，这是这个星期每个晚上都发生的事儿，我的老奶酪磨碎器，就在你那块儿。这一对就在天上到处飞，还开始做各种事情。而且我说的不是穿墙透视和假装称箱梁桥。你什么都不知道？”
“不知道。”
“阿瑟，跟你聊一聊实在是难以形容地味道好极了，可是我得走了。我会派人带相机和水管来的。给我地址，我准备好开写了。”
“听着，默里，我打电话来要问你点事儿。”
“我有很多事情要做。”
“我只是想问点关于海豚的事儿。”
“没有了。去年的新闻了。忘了它们吧。它们不见了。”
“这很重要。”
“听我说，没人会关心这个。你没法维持一个报导，你知道，如果唯一的消息就是这个报导相关的一切全都没了。至少在我们这里不行，试试星期日的报纸。也许几年内大概在八月份，他们会来点《无论〈无论海豚发生了什么〉发生了什么》之类的文章。可是现在要大家怎么办呢？《海豚仍然不见》？《海豚继续消失》？《海豚——离开他们的日子在继续》？这个报导完蛋了，阿瑟。它已经躺下了蹬了腿了，现在已经成了天上的行星了，我的老狐蝠。”
“默里，我对那能不能成为报导不感兴趣。我只想知道我该怎么才能联系上加利福尼亚那个宣称自己知道一些相关的事儿的人。我想你可能知道。”