FEBRUARY STRAWBERRIES
By JIM HARMON
How much is the impossible worth?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Linton lay down his steel fork beside the massively solid transparencyof the restaurant water glass.
"Isn't that Rogers Snead at that table?" he heard himself say stupidly.
Howell, the man across the table from him, looked embarrassed withoutlooking. "Not at all. Somebody who looks like him. Twin brother. Youknow how it is. Snead's dead, don't you remember?"
Linton remembered. Howell had to know that he would remember. Whatwere they trying to pull on him? "The man who isn't Snead is leaving,"Linton said, describing the scene over Howell's shoulder. "If that'sSnead's brother, I might catch him to pay my respects."
"No," Howell said, "I wouldn't do that."
"Snead came to Greta's funeral. It's the least I could do."
"I wouldn't. Probably no relation to Snead at all. Somebody who lookslike him."
"He's practically running," Linton said. "He almost ran out of therestaurant."
"Who? Oh, the man who looked like Snead, you mean."
"Yes," Linton said.
A thick-bodied man at the next table leaned his groaning chair backintimately against Linton's own chair.
"That fellow who just left looked like a friend of yours, huh?" thethick man said.
"Couldn't have been him, though," Linton answered automatically. "Myfriend's dead."
The thick man rocked forward and came down on all six feet. He threwpaper money on the table as if he were disgusted with it. He ploddedout of the place quickly.
Howell breathed in deeply and sucked back Linton's attention. "Nowyou've probably got old Snead into trouble."
"Snead's dead," Linton said.
"Oh, well, 'dead,'" Howell replied.
"What do you say it like that for?" Linton demanded angrily. "Theman's dead. Plain dead. He's not Sherlock Holmes or the FrankensteinMonster—there's no doubt or semantic leeway to the thing."
"You know how it is," Howell said.
Linton had thought he had known how death was. He had buried his wife,or rather he had watched the two workmen scoop and shove dirt in onthe sawdust-fresh pine box that held the coffin. He had known what hesincerely felt to be a genuine affection for Greta. Even after they hadlet him out of the asylum as cured, he still secretly believed he hadknown a genuine affection for her. But it didn't seem he knew aboutdeath at all.
Linton felt that his silence was asking Howell by this time.
"I don't know, mind you," Howell said, puffing out tobacco smoke, "butI suppose he might have been resurrected."
"Who by?" Linton asked, thinking: God?
"The Mafia, I guess. Who knows who runs it?"
"You mean, somebody has invented a way to bring dead people back tolife?" Linton said.
He knew, of course, that Howell did not mean that. Howell meant thatsome people had a system of making it appear that a person had diedin order to gain some illegal advantage. But by saying something sopatently ridiculous, Linton hoped to bring the contradicting truth tothe surface immediately.
"An invention? I guess that's how it is," Howell agreed. "I don't knowmuch about people like that. I'm an honest businessman."
"But it's wonderful," Linton said, thinking his immediate thoughts."Wonderful! Why should a thin