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Ray Bradbury
DRIVING BLIND
STORIES
HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB
“Night Train to Babylon” copyright © 1997 by Ray Bradbury; first appeared in the September/October issue of Ellery Queen. “Grand Theft” copyright © 1995 by Ray Bradbury; first appeared in the July 1995 issue of Ellery Queen. “Fee Fie Foe Fum” copyright © 1993 by Ray Bradbury; first appeared in Monsters in Our Midst, edited by Robert Bloch, Tor Books. “That Old Dog Lying in the Dust” copyright © 1974 by Ray Bradbury; first appeared in the October 1974 issue of Westways magazine, under the title “Mexicali Mirage.” All other stories are original to this collection, copyright © 1997 by Ray Bradbury.
Copyright © Ray Bradbury 1959
Cover design by Mike Topping. Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014 Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Ray Bradbury asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN:9780007541744
Version: 2014–07–21
With undying love to
the early-arriving granddaughters, JULIA, CLAIRE, GEORGIA and MALLORY.
And to
the late-arriving grandsons, DANIEL, CASEY-RAY, SAMUEL and THEODORE.
Live forever!
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Night Train to Babylon
If MGM is Killed, Who Gets the Lion?
Hello, I Must Be Going
House Divided
Grand Theft
Remember Me?
Fee Fie Foe Fum
Driving Blind
I Wonder What’s Become of Sally
Nothing Changes
That Old Dog Lying in the Dust
Someone in the Rain
Madame et Monsieur Shill
The Mirror
End of Summer
Thunder in the Morning
The Highest Branch on the Tree
A Woman is a Fast-Moving Picnic
Virgin Resusitas
Mr. Pale
That Bird That Comes Out of the Clock
A Brief Afterword
About the Author
Praise
Also by the Author
About the Publisher
James Cruesoe was in the club car of a train plummeting out of Chicago, rocking and swaying as if it were drunk, when the conductor, lurching by, glanced at the bar, gave Cruesoe a wink, and lurched on. Cruesoe listened.
Uproars, shouts and cries.
That is the sound, he thought, of sheep in panic, glad to be fleeced, or hang gliders, flung off cliffs with no wings.
He blinked.
For there at the bar, drawn to a blind source of joyous consternation, stood a cluster of men glad for highway robbery, pleased to have wallets and wits purloined.
That is to say: gamblers.
Amateur gamblers, Cruesoe thought, and rose to stagger down the aisle to peer over the shoulders of businessmen behaving like high school juniors in full stampede.
“Hey, watch! The Queen comes! She goes. Presto! Where?”
