"Lessig, Hugh - Tough Love" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lessig Hugh)

I took the tape but I never played it. Now, looking at the sheet that covered his body, the dead hand clutching the sign, I thought maybe I should. The cops were too busy anyway.

I walked back to my apartment and found the tape underneath a Godzilla marathon I had recorded from the Sci-Fi Channel. It showed Bob walking back and forth in front of the clinic -- the time on the tape was 6:42 a.m. He always liked to catch the early commuters - the ones who hit downtown before 7 a.m. to get the good parking spots. He said the workaholics needed a dose of what mattered.

I watched the tape for about five minutes and saw nothing except Bob pacing back and forth in front of the house. I fast-forwarded it, and Bob began to move like a hyperactive duck in a shooting gallery.

I zipped past a guy who threw something. I replayed it in slow motion, but you couldn't see who it was -- just some idiot in a pickup who tossed what looked like a tomato. Bob went over to his car -- a pale blue Nissan -- and took out a flannel shirt to wipe his face.

A shadow passed in front of the camera, and suddenly I thought of this Monty Python skit:

These guys are lost in the jungle and they're cut off from civilization, all alone, ready to starve. Then they turn toward the viewer and say "Wait a minute. Who's holding the camera?" It keeps going like that for a few minutes. They find out who's holding the first camera, and then it's: "Well who's holding the camera now?" It's funny -- if you like Monty Python.

Bob had put the video camera across the street and down half a block; that much was clear from the angle. It didn't move an inch, so I assumed he set it on a tripod. It wasn't on the sidewalk, either, because you see the sidewalk in the foreground.

I allowed myself to let out some string: He asks around. He puts the camera in someone's yard. Someone has to give him permission. Someone knows Bob.

I gathered my stuff and went back to the crime scene. The scrum had started to form -- early dog walkers, joggers, a few suits with their laptop bags. The cops had put a sheet over Bob's sign as well as his body. The pale blue Nissan was parked nearby, and a cop stood guard. Maybe they had found the camera, too.

I passed the corner and kept walking until I stood near the spot where Bob would have stuck his camera on September 25th -- the angle seemed about right looking back at the murder scene. Behind me was a vacant lot, and I cursed my luck. He might not have talked to anyone.

In the house to the left, I caught a woman watching me through a window.

She disappeared so fast it almost made me jump. She had white hair, a pale blouse. Her house was sturdy brick. Her front yard was guarded by gnomes.

A siren whooped behind me as an ambulance joined the fray. A telescoping antenna began inching toward the sky from a TV truck -- this one from Channel 28. An official media event was coalescing during rush hour. The crowd would start to grow by layers pretty soon. A police flak would soon arrive to sanitize the story, talking about a "white male victim" and "ongoing investigations."

One detective had started a canvas. He was on the opposite side of the street, knocking on doors. A man answered the door in his bathrobe and the detective pulled out his notebook. Good, I thought. Take your time.

"Hey."

The white-haired woman stood in her doorway.

"You. Come here."

I walked past the gnomes to her door. The screen hid her face.

"Are you with them?" She was grinding her teeth. You could see the muscles in her face as she did it.

"With the police? No ma'am. I'm a -- "

"No, no, no, no, no, no. With the abortion people. Are you with them?"

"No. Were you expecting them?"

She reached behind her and pulled out a brochure. "This is them. They're some kind of group."

She gave me a yellow brochure with black lettering. The group called itself Cease Abortion Now (CAN.) The front panel had a bad photocopy of an aborted fetus. The inside panels had longish quotes from right-to-lifers and something on the exercise of civil disobedience. The back had a telephone number and a post office box in Newport News. Bob had written his name on the back: Robert Gale Abbott.

"Ma'am, did you know the victim?"