"Montague, Art - George Broozner - Redezvous in Swift Rapids" - читать интересную книгу автора (Montague Arthur)

"Botticelli Gourmet Pet Food And Meal Fertilizer, Chicago." The clerk looked up at the subject, truimphant as hell, and said, " Good you've got a four o'clock departure, Mister Georgee-O, `cuz your pilot's only VFR rated."

In an unmodulated, patient, but not the least bit friendly voice, the subject replied, "Chicago's lights are hard to miss at night. In any case, Botticelli has a private well-lit air strip in Cicero beside our main rendering plant. Not that we'd ever violate federal regulations anyway. Can I rent a car here for the day?"

"Nope. You can take a cab into the city or take the bus. The bus comes by every hour on the hour or so. I own the cab, so we can go anytime. Twenty bucks to the city limits, on the meter inside the limits."

"Very well. The cab to a good downtown restaurant. I'll find my way from there."

"That'd be the City Centre Holiday Inn. No problem." The clerk deigned to look over at Broonzer who was hovering. "You need somethin', Mister?"

Priding himself on quick thinking, Broonzer glibly requested a bus schedule and the local paper. The clerk sold him the paper and pointed him out the door to the bus stop.

"The bus schedule starts as soon as the bus gets here. Thanks for your business. The airport's temporarily closed now."

Broonzer knew his subject hadn't made him. He knew the subject's name, place of business and departure time. Plus he knew where the guy was going and why, and so far he'd done it for the price of a newspaper and a forthcoming bus fare. He was good!

The subject and clerk emerged from the quonset and walked over to a dusty Ford Explorer. The subject had a small tote bag slung over his shoulder like women use to carry their going-to-the-fitness-centre crap. The subject's was turquoise with a yellow strap, very distinctive. So much so, Broonzer realized, he should watch for the classic gypsy switch, possibly in a restaurant.

Maybe the old fart was a drug runner. Definitely not on the up and up. Nobody Broonzer tailed ever had been, probably never would be. And this guy, he was just one more.

If something went down, Broonzer would know it, no mistake on that. His training had peaked perfectly for this assignment. He sensed he was at the top of his game. Observe and report; pursue; bear witness and damn the blisters!

As soon as the Explorer cleared the parking lot, Broonzer dipped into his bag of tricks. First his thermos for a few swallows of cool refreshing Tang and vodka. Heat of the day was already radiating off the asphalt. He'd need lots of liquids to counteract dehydration.

Broonzer was already wearing a sport coat, two shirts, a sweater, and a tie dyed T-shirt under those. He also wore three pairs of pants, the last pair being Bermudas, and two pairs of socks. His bag of tricks contained assorted hats, eyeglasses, jackets, a reversible raincoat, a hard hat, a small hand mirror for over-the-shoulder observation, and a quart-size empty plastic jug in case he got caught short and had to pee.

He promptly switched his trademark fedora for a Heston ball cap -- this was farm country. Off came the sport coat and the reflector aviator shades. No time for more; the bus arrived and Broonzer was back to the hunt, using the first part of the bus ride to update his notebook and finish off the Tang and vodka.

Moving only his eyes, he inspected the other bus passengers from his seat at the back. They were all ostensibly self-absorbed. Some read newspapers, some looked out the windows, some stared at bus billboards, others at empty space. The younger ones wiggled about in time to whatever was pumped out of their head phones.

In his forty-six years he figured he'd seen it all; it came with knowing the seamy side of human nature and the harsh, unforgiving reality of cold pavements, simmering lusts, and hot tempers. Broonzer was a perpetual detecting machine; he never stopped. In his judgment, most of the bus passengers were too nonchalant. Each was hiding something, but on this day he'd let it go. He had to stay focused. Let them wallow in their own mud. Their anger, their anguish, their fears would stay outside his purview, for now. He had his subject.

He debated hanging out in the Holiday Inn lobby to save the price of breakfast, but his casual reconnoiter of the restaurant, a long, nose-against-the-glass peer through the door, revealed two other possible exits. He had to go in.

As soon as he did go in, Broonzer spotted his subject in the breakfast buffet line. While the man loaded his plate and selected a table, Broonzer lingered deliberately, using tradecraft to admire the carpet pattern and smooth his hair reflected in a counter top. Only when the subject was seated did he select his own table, tucked behind some large plastic fronds, presumably meant to give the place some leisurely South Seas ambience. He was positioned so unobtrusively he had to move aside the fronds to observe the subject, but that was all right because he had a clear view of all three exits.

Broonzer ordered coffee, pleading a diet for his lack of interest in solid food, then laced it from the flask of bourbon in his bag of tricks. He needed four coffees with supplements to patiently wait out the subject's ingestion of breakfast, a sign he took to mean the subject either had stomach problems or ill-fitting dentures. Both possibilities were noted in the steno pad. As an afterthought, he also noted that the bacon could have been rubbery. Broonzer had learned from experience that it was these little details which would eventually reveal all.

The old man finally finished his meal and lit up a cigar. Broonzer figured, "What the hell?" and did likewise, putting his Bic to an old RoiTan he'd had in his bag of tricks for nearly a year. The stale RoiTan flared, burning fast, too fast; a cloud of acrid smoke rose from behind the fronds and began spreading across the restaurant, first enveloping the buffet table, then seeping toward the subject. Appalled, Broonzer tried to snuff the cigar in the frond pot. That got the fronds to melting. Thick black smoke now mingled with the grey.

"Probably toxic," muttered Broonzer. "Shit, shit, shit." He slapped down a ten-dollar bill, grabbed up his bag of tricks, and decorously departed to the john to restore his aplomb. He ditched his ash-smudged shirt and fed a quarter into a vending machine which sprayed him with a shot of Eau d'Ecstasy toilet water. That rid him of the smoke smell big-time. Better to smell like a pimp than a firebug, even in Swift Rapids.

On his way to taking up a post outside the hotel where he hoped he could observe all of the exits, Broonzer glanced back into the restaurant. The Burning Bush, so to speak, had kicked in the sprinkler system. Lucky for the hotel the breakfast rush was over.

The subject was already on the street, sauntering along as if he hadn't a care in the world. Definitely, Broonzer realized, this was a cool customer, using the confusion in the restaurant to slip away unnoticed. Probably he'd also skipped out on his breakfast tab. Well, this PI was too sharp, too professional to be given the slip by such a bush league ploy. The subject would need to come up with better than that to get one by Broonzer.

From half a block back, Broonzer watched him enter a sporting goods store. Quickly he ducked into an alley, and, behind a dumpster, pulled off his first layer of pants to reveal denims beneath, and switched his Heston hat for a Tilley. Looking, thus, sporty, he followed the subject into the store, the Tilley pulled down in front to obscure his face.

The subject browsed. Broonzer browsed. He was thirsty, but he put aside his discomfort. The subject took down a fly rod and swished it about. Broonzer began reading labels on trail food. The stuff looked like puppy chow.