"David Eddings - Losers, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

"Scanner," Raphael replied. "If you want to know what Spokane is really like, turn it on."

"I've heard about them. Never saw one before, though." He snapped it on. "Is that all it does? Twinkle at you?"

"District Four," the dispatcher said.

"Four."

"We have a forty-two at the intersection of Boone and Maple."

"Okay. Do you have an ambulance on the way?"

"What's a forty-two?" Flood demanded.

"Auto accident," Raphael told him, "with injuries."

"Terrific." Flood's tone was sarcastic. "They talk in numbers-'I've got a seventeen and a ninety-three on my hundred and two. I think they're going to twelve all over the eighty-seven.' I don't get much out of all that."

"It's not quite that complicated. There's a sheet right there on top of the bookcase. It's got the numbers on it."

Flood grunted, picked up the sheet, and sat on the couch with it.

"Attention all units," another dispatcher said. "We have an armed robbery at the Fas-Gas station at Wellesley and Division. Suspect described as a white male, approximately five-foot-seven. One hundred and forty pounds, wearing blue jeans and an olive-green jacket-possibly an army field jacket. Suspect wore a red ski mask and displayed a small-caliber handgun. Last seen running south on Division."

"Well now." Flood's eyes brightened. "That's a bit more interesting."

"Sticking up gas stations is a cottage industry in Spokane,' Raphael explained.

While they ate they listened to the pursuit of the suspect in the ski mask. When he was finally cornered in an alley, the anticlimactic "suspect is in custody" call went out, and the city returned to normal.

"That's all you get?" Flood objected. "Don't they report or something? How did they catch him?"

"Either they ran him down and tackled him or flushed him out of somebody's garage."

Flood shook his head. "You never get any of the details," he protested.

"It's not a radio program, Damon. Once he's in custody, that's the end of it. They take him back for identification and then haul him downtown."

"Will it be in the paper tomorrow?"

"I doubt it. If it is, it'll be four or five lines on page thirty-five or something. Nobody got hurt; it was probably only about fifty or sixty dollars; and they caught him within a half hour. He's not important enough to make headlines."

"Shit," Flood swore, flinging himself down on the couch. "That's frustrating as hell."

"Truth and justice have prevailed," Raphael said, piling their dishes into the sink. "The world is safe for gas stations again. Isn't it enough for you to know that all the little gas stations can come home from school without being afraid anymore?"

"You know, you're growing up to be a real smartmouth."

Raphael went back to his armchair. "So you've decided to stay in Spokane for a while."