"Ellison, Harlan - Pulling Hard Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

almost no hair on the left side of his head, cut away Robin's skirt with what
looked like a fish-boning knife.

The fourth man sat at the counter, his back to Charlie, a bottle of Pepsi to his
lips.

They had come in and ordered four Sunday chicken specials. Charlie had said he'd
fry up the orders, but Robin had asked him to go out back and feed the chickens.
Lumschbogen's Chicken & Bisquit shack. Out on Route 5. Charlie had kissed his
wife, and smiled at the four amiable bikers whose Harleys and an Indian and a
Moto Guzzi 750 were ranked right outside the front door, and he'd gone out back.
At first, he hadn't heard her screaming above the prattling of the flock.

The one at the counter heard Charlie come through the screen door, and swiveled
on the counter stool. He had the Pepsi in his mouth. Charlie came at him fast
and with the flat of his hand rammed the bottle through the biker's teeth,
shoving the neck through the back of his mouth. It came out just above the nape.
The man staggered to his feet, clutching his face, and fell backward into the
three trying to rape Charlie's wife.

As he fell, he struck the little, half-bald one, the one who had ridden up on
the 750 Ambassador. His flailing arms struck the little man, and he stumbled
against the table, driving the fish-boning knife into Robin's stomach. Her
scream was worse than the ones before.

Charlie grabbed up the cleaver they used to dismember the chickens for the
Sunday specials, and came around the counter swinging. In Ranger basic training
at Fort Benning they had discovered the hated nickname the kids had concocted on
the playground when he was growing up, and they tormented him with its use. They
called Charlie Lumschbogen "Charlie Lunchbucket" and he was given an Article 15
punishment for beating up two of his barracks mates.

Charlie Lunchbucket did not stop hacking and dismembering, even after the
Smokeys had grabbed him. They had to cold-cock him with their riot sticks to get
him to lie still.

Not even the extenuating circumstance of Robin, impaled and almost naked on a
checkered tablecloth, saved him from the wrath of the law and order jury. The
photographic blowups at the trial were just too grotesque. The walls of the
shack had been redecorated like a pointillist canvas.

Widowed, imprisoned, lost to his own life, Charlie Lumschbogen did not do well
in prison. He killed a cellmate, he crippled a guard, he assaulted a turnkey. He
was reassigned without trial, in this nation in balance, to the maximum security
VR wing on the Rock. Life, without possibility of parole, sharing space with
other dead sticks of furniture. *

"They don't seem particularly unhappy, Warden."

"Well, Senator, that's only because they're in virtual reality. There . . . that