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

luggage. I walked past baggage claim and noted that she was having some problems
getting rid of her entourage. The lady had no bags, and everybody wanted to
carry them for her. She finally took the last refuge of choice and walked to the
ladies' room, and when she emerged she'd removed the wig and some of the
cosmetics, as well as the vest, and stuffed them into her big purse. It wasn't
much, but the change was dramatic enough that nobody waylaid her as she walked
outside and stood next to me. Without the wig, though, she didn't look at all
terrific. In order to allow her to use any sort of wig with minimum problems,
they'd cut her hair so short you had to look close to see any hair there at all.
We caught a cab over to an airport motel that was next to a rental-car place.
The firm was closed, at close to ten o'clock, for walk-in rentals, but I was in
no condition to drive all over a strange town that night, anyway. They had
twenty-four hours plus on us; either we knew where they were going or we didn't,
and only a lot of time on the phone would tell that. I checked us in and we went
up to the room.
Brandy flopped down on the bed with a sigh and then started undressing. It
really was a hell of a tight girdle; it made impressions in her that looked more
like what you'd do in modeling clay than in human skin, and I wasn't sure if
she'd ever be able to get that thing on again. She was quickly my old Brandy
again, except for that haircut. She got up and walked into the bathroom and
looked at herself in the mirror, then sighed. "Maybe I should just shave it.
It's gonna take a year before it's lookin' decent again." She came back out and
looked at me. I'd gotten out of those lousy clothes and tossed the false
moustache in the ashtray. "What do you think?" she asked me.
"Might make you fit in real well around here," I responded grumpily.
"What's with you? Awww. . . . Don't worry. We'll buy some black hair dye for you
first thing tomorrow."
"It's not that. It's just . . . Aw, skip it."
She seemed more amused than upset, and sat there and started a back and neck
massage on me. It's one of my few real weaknesses, and one I can't deny. I'd let
Norman Bates's mother massage there, if she was any good at it, and I wouldn't
even check for knives.
"Yesssss . . . ?"
"Well, you seem to have had a pretty good time flying out here."
She laughed. "Not bad, for my first long plane trip. Oh, you mean the boys!
Hell, honey, after all this time I kinda needed that just for my own sake. It's
hard to explain -- but I'm here, with you, not shacked up with one of them. I seem
to remember that this was the place where coed showers were invented. Want to
memorialize the occasion?"
"Maybe, but they sure weren't invented here. I think they were probably invented
about ten minutes after they invented the shower."
Okay, okay, so I should have been down at a pay phone calling around, and I knew
it, but there are some things a man needs more at a given time than duty.
Besides, I never believed we'd get anywhere with all this, anyway.
Bright and early the next morning, though, I did make the calls, first finding
out the recommended way to get to this nowhere in Oregon, and then being told
that Bend was it. After that, you drove or took a local bus. There were more
ways to fly to Bend from here than I figured, though -- I never knew it was that
big a place, although for me anything under a two-million metro is a small town.
Still, using standard P.I. phone gimmicks, I had 'em in about two hours in spite