"Ron Goulart - A Whiff of Madness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

nipples, mind you, measured full—"
"Did you leave your pants at the Turkish bath?"
Palma looked at his unclad lower limbs. He went over and sat on a green lucite street bench. He
rubbed at his bald head, not meeting Summer's eyes. "Well, Jack, as a matter of fact, my trousers are at
the Galactic Express Teleport station on King Waldo Skyway."
"Oh, so?"
"I went in there to teleport a basket of assorted fruit to a young lady on Malagra in
commemoration of her twenty-first birthday," said Palma, "and this brunette who was manning the fruit
desk turned out to have the most incredible set of whammos these old orbs have—"
"OK, it'll be easier to buy you a new pair of pants."
"Don't you want to hear the stirring account of how I got from the G.E.T. office to the Turkish—"
"Nope." Summer rested one foot on the bench. "I want to hear about our assignment here."
"Coming along smoothly. We've got an appointment to call at Fallen Oaks tomorrow morning."
"What is Fallen Oaks?"
The Starbuck estate, some fifty miles to the north of this fair city. We're going to interview and
photograph Mulligan Starbuck and his doting granny."
"What about our stringer? I want to talk to him."
"Yeah, he's the editor of the local paper out there, which is entitled the Starbuck Company
Town Weekly. Only a few miles from the estate; we're to see him after we call on the claimant."
Summer said, "Have you heard anything more about the Phantom of the Fog?"
"He did in another old lady last night," said Palma. "Rumor has it King Waldo the second can't
account for his time during the hours when the deed was done."
"Is King Waldo actually the phantom? For that matter, is the claimant really Mulligan Starbuck?"
said Summer. "We've got some interesting questions to answer."
"I think better with my pants on," said Palma. "Let's wend our way, unobtrusively, to the nearest
fashionable clothier."


CHAPTER 3
"A veritable fairyland, eh?" said the owlman who was sharing their first-class railroad carriage
with them. He rubbed his gloved hands together while making a satisfied hooting sound. "The lofty towers
shimmering in the glowing miasma, the pillars of fire shining like beacons for the weary traveler, eh?"
Palma coughed. "Hard to see the fairyland through all this smoke."
The chuffing steam train was carrying them through mile after mile of factories. Hunching,
soot-smeared buildings were set in a forest of spewing smokestacks and chimneys. Columns of orange
flame ripped up through the gray smoky morning, millions of sparks flickered, yellowish fog swirled
around everything.
"Smoke, sir?" the owlman's eyes went wide; his feathers bristled. "Why, that's the stuff from
which dreams are made. That, gentlemen, is the future taking shape under our very noses." From his
flowered waistcoat he took a business card "I don't believe we've introduced ourselves."
"That's true," agreed Summer.
"I am Benton Fruit-Smith."
Palma accepted the proffered card. "Work for the Starbucks, eh?"
 "Damned proud to be able to answer in the affirmative," said Fruit-Smith. "I'm with the Child
Labor Division, a position which allows me ample opportunity to exercise my humanitarian tendencies."
"Like kids, do you?" Palma rolled the business card around his forefinger, tapped it against the
sooty window.
"Dote on them, sir," replied Fruit-Smith. "It is one of the sorrows of my life, I must admit, that
Mrs. Fruit-Smith and myself have never been blessed with an egg." He rubbed a gloved knuckle at the
corner of his eye. "I suppose that's why I'm so concerned with the welfare of the tots and tykes who