"Robert Rankin - Waiting for Godalming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robert Rankin)

rooms were high-ceilinged and broadly proportioned and would
have found favour with Stravino. Long, net-curtained windows
looked to the station, where the great steam engines came and
went, the mighty King's Class locomotives with their burnished
bits and bobs. Icarus sat down at a window table, recently
vacated by a stockbroker's clerk, and stared wistfully out through
the net curtaining to view a passing train.
There were few men alive who were not stirred by steam and
Icarus had long harboured a secret ambition to relocate an
engine. Exactly to where, and for why, he did not as yet know.
And though the thought of it thrilled him, it terrorized him too.
His grandfather had been an engineer on the Great Northern
Railway and had lost a thumb beneath the wheels of The City of
Truro. Icarus prized his digits, but a man must dream his
dreams. And if this man be the chosen one, these dreams are no
small matter.
Having concluded his early repast and washed it down with a pint
of Large and a brandy on the house, Icarus placed the black
briefcase upon the table before him and applied his thumbs to
the locks. The locks were locked.
Having assured himself that he was unobserved, Icarus removed
from his pocket a small roll of tools and from this the appropriate
item. It was but the work of a moment or two. Which is one
moment more than one less.
The locks snapped open and Icarus returned the item to the roll,
and the roll to his pocket.
He was just on the point of opening the briefcase when a hand
slammed down upon it.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," said the owner of the hand.
Icarus looked up and made the face that horror brings.
"Chief Inspector Charlie Milverton," said he, in a wavery quavery
voice. "My old Nemesis."
"I have you bang to rights this time, laddo."
Icarus held up his hands in surrender. "It's a fair cop, guv'nor,"
he said. "Slap the bracelets on and bung me in the Black Maria."
"One day it will come to that, you know." The chief inspector
grinned and winked and sat himself down at the table next to
Icarus. For he was in truth no policeman at all, but the bestest
friend Icarus had.
Friend Bob.
Friend Bob was a tall and angular fellow, all cheekbones and
pointy knees and elbows. In fact, he looked exactly the way a
bestest friend should look. Even down to that curious thing that
fits through the lobe of the left ear and that business with the
teeth. So no further description is necessary here.
"Watchamate, Icky-boy," said Friend Bob.
"All right, Bob-m'-son," said Icarus Smith.
"You're losing your touch, you know. Opening up a stolen
briefcase in a bar."
"The briefcase is mine," said Icarus Smith.