"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 1 - Labyrinth of Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

time because I was down this low, and I thought that might have to be what I'd
do. Johnny Redlegs -- you remember him -- he was workin' on me when you showed up, and
I was almost desperate enough to take him up on it. You and that case were the
only things that kept me out of it."
I remembered Redlegs. He was a pimp who gave new meaning to the word
stereotypical. Pink Cadillac, fur coat, floppy hat, and a fairly big stable.
About the only thing that set him apart from his competitors was that he had a
reputation for not being violent with the girls and depending on heroin to keep
them loyal subjects. I tried to imagine Brandy out there now, age twenty-seven,
turning two or three tricks a night for her daily fix, and the trouble was, I
could imagine it.
I could also, for the first time, really understand her almost instant
attraction to me. I was a savior whose background and tastes reminded her of her
father, and I was there in the nick of time.
"I'll call Joe," I told her. "Then we'll spend the rest of the month packing up
and cleaning up the few loose ends of the business, and put the agency in
bankruptcy, where at least we'll get out from under those debts. We'll get some
new clothes and pay up on this dump if they let us out of the lease, and then
that will be that."
"Yeah," she agreed. "That will be that."
It was about nine days later and we were well along. There wasn't much
salvageable in the office, but there were old client files to either destroy or
put in a safe place -- we decided to give them to those we could find and to burn
the rest -- and a few other details to go through. The place in Delaware wasn't
finished yet, but we were welcome to come down the first of the month and they'd
put us up in a motel until the first units were ready, about twenty days after
that. It had originally been scheduled to open in the early spring, but somebody
had forgotten what the sea does to beaches in winter storms.
Brandy actually seemed more cheerful than she had in a long time. She was almost
a changed woman, but that wasn't a big surprise. She might brood and worry and
think everything through a hundred times, but once she decided something, that
was it, and she'd decided she was going to be Mrs. Horowitz by the seashore. For
the first time, she was cutting loose from the burdens of her father's dreams,
and it didn't seem so painful. I wasn't overjoyed -- I still would have preferred a
marginal business of my own in the city to something like this -- but the agency
wasn't even close to the margin.
And then, almost at the last minute, Something Big walked through the door.
Something Big was actually a skunk everybody called Little Jimmy Nkrumah. He was
actually built like a fullback for the Eagles and had a face that looked like
it'd played one too many games. I'm not sure about the Jimmy, but the Nkrumah
wasn't the truth, either. He wasn't a Muslim -- he wasn't anything, I don't
think -- but he'd changed his name to something African sounding because it helped
his image and his business.
Little Jimmy was a loan shark, or at least that was the part of him everybody
knew about. He ran the Star of Africa Finance Company, a little hole-in-the-wall
that made legitimate loans -- few -- by financing some of the little black-owned
furniture and appliance stores in Camden, but his real business was with the
folks who couldn't get credit on a bet. When those folks borrowed from friendly
and understanding Little Jimmy, they got a rate around ten percent per month and
the collateral was their legs, arms, eyes, spouses, and children. We knew that