"Robert A. Heinlein - The unpleasant profession of Johathan Ho" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

to know why."
She made doodles with her fork. "I'm not sure that I want to know. You know
what I would like to do, Teddy?"
"What?"
"I would like to send Mr. Hoag's five hundred dollars back to him with a message
that we can't help him, so we are returning his money."
He stared at her. "Send the money back? Good heavens!"
Her face looked as if she had been caught making an indecent suggestion, but she
went on stubbornly. "I know. Just the same, that's what I would like to do. We can make
enough on divorce cases and skip-tracing to eat on. We don't have to monkey with a thing
like this."
"You talk like five hundred was something you'd use to tip a waiter."
"No, I don't. I just don't think it's enough to risk your neck -- or your sanity -- for.
Look, Teddy, somebody is trying to get us in the nine hole; before we go any further, I
want to know why."
"And I want to know why, too. Which is why I'm not willing to drop the matter.
Damn it, I don't like having shenanigans put over on me."
"What are you going to tell Mr. Hoag?"
He ran a hand through his hair, which did not matter as it was already mussed. "I
don't know. Suppose you talk to him. Give him a stall."
"That's a fine idea. That's a swell idea. I'll tell him you've broken your leg but
you'll be all right tomorrow."
"Don't be like that, Cyn. You know you can handle him."
"All right. But you've got to promise me this, Teddy."
"Promise what?"
"As long as we're on this case we do everything together."
"Don't we always?"
"I mean really together. I don't want you out of my sight any of the time."
"But see here, Cyn, that may not be practical."
"Promise."
"O.K., O.K. I promise."
"That's better." She relaxed and looked almost happy. "Hadn't we better get back
to the office?"
"The hell with it. Let's go out and take in a triple feature."
"O.K., Brain." She gathered up her gloves and purse.
The movies failed to amuse him, although they had selected an all-Western bill, a
fare of which he was inordinately fond. But the hero seemed as villainous as the foreman,
and the mysterious masked riders, for once, appeared really sinister. And he kept seeing
the thirteenth floor of the Acme Building, the long glass partition behind which the
craftsmen labored, and the little dried-up manager of Detheridge & Co. Damn it -- could
a man be hypnotized into believing that he had seen anything as detailed as that?
Cynthia hardly noticed the pictures. She was preoccupied with the people around
them. She found herself studying their faces guardedly whenever the lights went up. If
they looked like this when they were amusing themselves, what were they like when they
were unhappy? With rare exceptions the faces looked, at the best, stolidly uncomplaining.
Discontent, the grim marks of physical pain, lonely unhappiness, frustration, and stupid
meanness, she found in numbers, but rarely a merry face. Even Teddy, whose habitual
debonair gaiety was one of his chief virtues, was looking dour -- with reason, she
conceded. She wondered what were the reasons for those other unhappy masks.
She recalled having seen a painting entitled "Subway." It showed a crowd pouring