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

labor for us in the myriad clean and homelike Starbuck factories. 'You're positively softhearted when it
comes to them whelps, Ben,' the foreman of the tallow plant remarked to me only last week. 'Yes, I
suppose I am,' was my rejoinder. It breaks my heart whenever one of the little darlings takes a header
into a tallow vat. One of my greatest days was the day I persuaded the Starbucks to approve the
purchase of a long pole with a hook on the end of it." He blinked at Summer and Palma. "To fish the little
rascals out with, do you see?"
Palma sneezed. "You're a very good person, Mr. Fruit-Smith," he said. "In fact, you may well be
the very type of person I'm seeking." He paused to stroke one of the cameras hanging around his neck
"I'm always on the lookout for great humanitarians to photograph for Great Humanitarians Magazine."
"Ah, sir, I don't feel I'm a great man." The owlman ruffled his chin feathers. "Is it the Great
Humanitarians assignment which brings you to our territory?"
Palma leaned across the carriage, lowering his voice. "Actually, Mr. Fruit-Smith, and I ask you to
keep this confidential—"
"You can count on my discretion, sir."
"My partner and I are here to look into the Starbuck claimant affair."
"Eh?" Fruit-Smith's facial feathers perked up. "Oh, that's a shocking business, sir; a most
unfortunate event in the annals of a great family."
"You don't think the claimant is authentic?" asked Summer.
"Not a bit of it, sir." The owlman shook his head. "Why, I once dandled little Mulligan on my
knee at a Starbuck Upper Echelon Employees and Their Immediate Families Picnic. I can tell you this
great lout is no more Mulligan Starbuck than I am. Indeed he—"
"Starbuck Company Town Station."
"Excuse us, Mr. Fruit-Smith," said the bald photographer. "We must disembark here."
When they were on the platform in front of the shingled station Summer said, "Fruit-Smith should
spread our cover story fairly far and wide."
"Let us hope," said Palma. "You know, Jack, I'm getting interested in this Starbuck claimant
thing. You think this guy could really—"
"Our main reason for being here is to talk to the editor of the Starbuck Company Town
Weekly."
"Say, have you noticed the yonkers on that young lady standing over there holding the
horsewhip? Observe how they point directly at you. That's what I call an honest tit, one which can look
you square in the eye,"
The lovely auburn-haired girl approached them now. "Would you be Mr. Summer and Mr.
Palma?" she inquired.
"We would," Summer said.
"I'm McNulty, sent from the main house to drive you to your interview with Lady Thorkin and
Mr. Mulligan," said the girl.
"Why not allow me to drive," suggested Palma. "It would—"
"Exactly as I surmised." McNulty frowned at him. "You're just exactly the sort who'd like to see
me returned to some secondary, subsidiary position ... after I've struggled long and hard to achieve the
situation I now have within the Starbuck household. I'll drive the carriage; it's my job."
The carriage was drawn by a pair of brandy-colored horses. Summer climbed in.
Palma hesitated beside the vehicle. "Wouldn't it be more egalitarian if I rode up in front there
beside you, Miss McNulty?"
 "Suit yourself," replied the girl. "You must promise, though, to make no further comments about
my breasts."
Palma bounded up next to her on the driver's seat. "What gave you the idea I was doing that?"
"The simpering expression on your silly face, the moony glint in your eyes." She cracked the whip
across the horses' flanks. "Get up there... An interest in breasts is most childish."
"On the contrary." The carriage commenced rolling down a graveled road away from the train