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

"Yeah, I'm sure."
"Whitlock. Martin Whitlock."
"The banker? Well, I'll be damned.... He's hotter than the Fourth of July right
now. The feds are in. I can't do nothing about the feds."
"Screw the feds. I want him, and when I'm through they can have what's left.
I've already got a deal with them, so don't think of getting into this thing
yourself. I guarantee it'll just give you a choice between a bullet or ten
years' hard time."
"It's your funeral," he replied, making it sound more like a wish than a
warning. "All right, I'll give you a couple of names and places. You'll have to
track them down yourself. You can use my name to open the door, but after that,
you don't ever use it again."
That was fair enough. I was fascinated by the fact that although we both sat
there, he had refused not only to address Brandy but to even acknowledge her
existence. We didn't like to stay where we weren't wanted, and we got out of
there as quickly as we could.
"He don't like us much," Brandy noted. "I guess he likes the old days when
everybody was named Capone, or Banana-nose, or something or other. Well, Lone
Ranger, what we do now?"
"We park the horses, Faithful Indian Companion, and we leg it."
Joey Teasdale, Paoli's first suggestion, wasn't hard to find if you were
patient, had a lot of twenty-dollar bills, and didn't seem to be cops. We were
all three, although we must have walked three miles and spent a couple of
C-notes before we found him sitting at a table in the first joint we'd covered.
He was almost your stereotypical queen, with loud clothes, high-heeled boots,
earrings, and more perfume than Brandy had worn in a lifetime. At least you felt
reasonably safe with him; he sure wasn't any threat to Brandy, and I sure as
hell wasn't his type. He was, however, extraordinarily courteous to Brandy,
which was more than Paoli had been.
How long you been off the gooseberry lay, son?
"Paoli sent us. We're looking for somebody," I told him.
"You cops?"
"Private. The man lifted something of value from somebody you should never,
never steal from, and split. He's hot and we need him before the good guys get
him." Teasdale whistled. "That hot, huh? Who?"
"Whitlock. Martin Whitlock, the banker." "Him? What makes you think he would
come through here?"
"Look, we got no time for games," Brandy put in. "We got money 'cause the Man
got ripped and he don't care what it takes to get even. You got it? Now, those
who make themselves useful earn big brownie points with the Man. Those who
don't, well, that goes in the report, too."
That hit home. "Yeah, okay, he comes through here regularly," Teasdale said with
resignation. "Been coming down here for years. Not the usual kind, though. I
mean, I'm a man, wouldn't be anything else. No offense, dear lady. We get a lot
of those kind of guys who have a wife and kids and position because that's
important to them, and then they come down here sneaking around to make little
liaisons, if you know what I mean. He's not that kind. When he's down here, it's
total. Looks, acts, sounds all girl, if you know what I mean. Even gets the
voice soft and sultry. The drag queens, they just like the pretending. They're
good, but they're acting and they always know they're acting. Not him. It's like