"Keith Laumer - A Plague of Demons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

A Plague of Demons



A Plague of Demons
By Keith Laumer
CHAPTER ONE
It was ten minutes past high noon when I paid off my helicab, ducked under the air blast from the caged
high-speed rotors as they whined back to speed, and looked around at the sun-scalded, dust-white, mob-
noisy bazaar of the trucial camp-city of Tamboula, Republic of Free Algeria. Merchants' stalls were a
clash of garish fabrics, the pastels of heaped fruit, the glitter of oriental gold thread and beadwork, the
glint of polished Japanese lenses and finely-machined Swedish chromalloy, the subtle gleam of hand-
rubbed wood, the brittle complexity of Hong Kong plastic - islands in the tide of humanity that elbowed,
sauntered, bargained with shrill voices and waving hands or stood idly in patches of black shadow under
rigged awnings all across the wide square. I made my way through the press, shouted at by hucksters,
solicited by whining beggars and tattooed drabs, jostled by UN Security Police escorting officials of a
dozen nations.

I emerged on a badly-paved street of starved royal palms, across from a row of fast-decaying buildings as
cosmopolitan in style as the costumes around me. Above the cacophony of the mob, keening Arab music
shrilled from cave-like openings redolent of goat and curry, vying with the PA-borne blare of Jump and
Jitter, reflecting hectic lunch-hours behind the sweat-dewed glass fronts of the Cafe Parisien, Die
Valkyrie, the Samovar, and the Chicago Snackery.

I crossed the street, dodging the iron-shod wheels of oxcarts, the scorching exhaust of jet-peds, the
stinging dust-barrage of cushion cars - snorting one almost palpable stench from my nostrils just in time
to catch a new and even riper one. Under a ten-foot glare-sign lettered ALHAMBRA ROOM in phony
Arabic script, a revolving door thumped monotonously; I caught it and went through into a sudden gloom
and silence. I crossed an unswept mosaic floor, went down three steps into an even darker room with a
scatter of gaudy cushions and a gleam of gold filigree, I waved away a yard-square red and gold menu
proffered by a nicely-rounded harem slave in a brief vest and transparent trousers. I took a stool at the
long bar. A bare-chested three-hundred-pound eunuch with a cutlass, sash, and turban took my order, slid
a frosty glass across the polished black marble. Behind a screen of gilded palm fronds, a small combo
made reedy music.

I took a long draught; from the corner of my eye I saw a man slide onto the next stool. Casually, I angled
the ring on my left forefinger; its specular surface reflected a narrow, tanned face with a bald forehead,
peaked white eyebrows, a Kaiser Wilhelm mustache, and a satanic Vandyck. A pair of frosty blue eyes
met mine for an instant in the tiny mirror.

"What's the get-up for, Felix?" I asked softly. "You traveling in hair-goods now?"

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 A Plague of Demons



His eyelids flickered. For Felix Severance, that was equivalent to a yelp of astonishment. Then he gave
me the trick wink that was service code for 'The Enemy May Be Listening.'