"Mike Resnick - Dog In The Manger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

And so, I might add, was Elias J. Paxton.
Right. That's me.
I wish the guy who did theNewsweek piece had come by a year later to see how his
incorruptible national hero was doing. Of course, he wouldn't have been able to find me, not
in Chicago. They kicked me off the force, of course. First they tried to get me to resign. When
that didn't work they found some obscure regulation—they have about ten million to choose
from, all for situations like this—and gave me the boot. I still don't know what the hell they did
with my pension.
So I figured I'd cash in on my reputation and set up shop as a private eye. They found zoning
violations in my first four offices. They decided my car was a menace to navigation. They
tapped my phone.
So I moved to Cleveland, and couldn't find any work there either. I finally took a job as a night
watchman in a glass factory, which lasted until the night it got broken into and I killed two
armed trespassers. They couldn't throw me in jail, but they made it very clear that my
presence was no longer required, or even acceptable, in their fair city. I guess they expected
me to disarm gunmen with my smile.
Which is how I wound up in Cincinnati, a world-famous incorruptible cop reduced to looking
for a goddamned dog.
Well, it wasn't justany goddamned dog. It was a very special goddamned dog. At least, that's
what Hubert Lantz kept telling me.
I had spent the day sitting in my dingy little third-floor office on Eighth Street, staring at the six
Chicago Police Department citations that used to mean something to me, but which I now
keep only to cover the cracks in the plaster. The glass in my door was cracked too—an irate
husband had slammed it two months ago, when I broke the news to him that his worst fears
about his wife weren't half as bad as the truth—and the replacement still hadn't arrived. The
rest of the office wasn't much to look at, but at least it was whole: a desk, four chairs, a
cabinet, and a bookcase loaded with lawbooks which I had picked up at a Brandeis book sale
and planned to get around to reading someday. The fact that most of them dealt with
Kentucky law didn't seem to make much difference: clients who are impressed by law books
don't much care where they're from, and those who aren't impressed care even less.
Anyway, four o'clock rolled around and I got down to the serious business of deciding
whether I had enough money to splurge on a Reds game at Riverfront Stadium. I figured that
even if I settled for a four-way chili and a cup of coffee, the best I could do was a seat in the
right field bleachers—left field was out of the question, since Barry Larkin and Reggie
Sanders were both on a tear and there'd be ten thousand kids there hoping to catch a home
run—and had just about made up my mind to go to my apartment and save the six bucks
when the door opened and in walked this tall, skinny, balding man wearing a pair of designer
jeans and a tan sweater with one of those little crocodiles on it.
“You're Eli Paxton?” he asked.
I nodded. I used to come on suave and sassy like the detectives in the movies and say that,
no, I was his uncle who was just tending the store and taking messages while he was busy
hobnobbing with the rich and famous, but one day about a year ago an absolutely gorgeous
redhead took me at my word and walked right out. I didn't get another client for three weeks,
and I've never been anything but polite and sincere since then.
“I need your help,” he said, looking very nervous and lighting up a Marlboro.
“That's what I'm here for,” I said reassuringly. “Why don't you have a seat and tell me what's
on your mind.”
He picked up a wooden chair and carried it over to my desk. I remembered too late to hide
the beat-up old copy ofPenthouse and replace it with the neat old copy ofForbes , but he was
too caught up in his own troubles to notice.