"Terry Dowling - Flashmen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dowling Terry)

“Sunny.”

Both men carried their duelling sticks in plain sight as if it truly were
ten years before and the contract shut-downs and call-backs had never
happened.

“What’s the drift?” Sam asked, falling into the old ways in spite of
himself, as if the ten years were like smoke.

“Raising a crew,” Sunny said. “Trouble out in the Landings.”

“Someone thinks,” Walt added.

“Flashpoint?” Sam asked, going straight to it. Major strike? Even: A
new Landing?

Walt studied the crowd, using a part of his skill few people knew
about. “Not sure yet.”

Sam almost smiled at the melodrama. “Someone?”

“Outatowner,” Sunny replied, which meant protected sources and
need to know and told Sam pretty much everything. Possibly no strike, no
flashpoint at all. But official. Some other reason.

Sam was careful not to smile, not to shake his head, just like on those
long-ago, never-so-long-ago days when Sam Aitchander, Wilt Senny and
Sunny Jim Cosimo belonged to as good a flash crew as you were likely to
find. “Bad idea right now, Sunny, Walt. The Sailmaker is still there.”

Telling it like it was. The Landing that could reach out. Snatch and
smash even the best.

“Need to make five,” Walt Senny said, a spade on gravel. Affectation,
most like, though how could you know? Sergio Leone and a hundred years
of marketing departments had a lot to answer for. “Figured Angel for point
and you for star again, Sam.”

But the ten years were there. Things had changed.

“Other business right now, Walt,” Sam said, trying to keep the
promise he’d made to himself. “Not sure the Landings are the place to be.”

Walt and Sunny expected it. They played their main card.

“Another crew going in as well,” Sunny said, which could very well be
before the fact knowing Walt and Sunny, a lie but a likelihood and a serious
one, what it implied. “Punky Bannas is putting it together. The Crown
Regulators ride again!”