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

“I don't know exactly where to begin,” he said, puffing away furiously and stifling a cough.
“Have you ever heard of Baroness von Tannelwald?”
I took my feet off my desk and sat erect. A baroness, no less. Things were looking up.
“Never,” I said. “Sounds like she must be from one of Cincinnati's old Germanic families.”
“From one of Arizona's old Weimaraner families,” he said, smiling in spite of his distress.
“She's a dog.”
“A dog?”
He nodded.
I put my feet back on the desk. “Why should I have heard about a dog?”
“She was Best in Show at Westminster four months ago,” he said, snuffing out his Marlboro
and immediately lighting another. “I thought you might have read about her.”
“My interest in animals starts and ends at River Downs and lasts just about six furlongs,” I
replied. “What does this dog have to do with you?”
“She belongs to one of my clients.”
“One of your clients? What do you do for a living?”
“I'm a handler.”
“A what?”
“A professional handler,” he repeated. “I condition show dogs, take them on circuits with me,
groom them, and present them in the ring.”
He handed me his card, which was how I found out his name. I'm never nosy anymore unless
someone pays me to be.
“You're one of those guys who places the dog's feet down where they belong and holds the
tail out?” I asked.
“Right.”
“Well,” I shrugged, “it's a living.”
He got so hot he forgot he was scared. “It's more than a living! I'm a highly-trained
professional, half athlete and half artist! What I do takes a hell of a lot more talent than taking
photographs of unfaithful wives and husbands screwing each other in hotel rooms!”
“Photos went out when they got rid of transoms,” I noted drily.
“Do you have a drink?” he asked suddenly.
I figured, what the hell, I can always put it on the expense statement, so I walked over to the
metal cabinet where I keep all the copies of my paperback biography that I use to impress
potential clients, pulled out the bottle of Jim Beam that I was using as a bookend, and brought
along a couple of glasses.
He downed three fingers without batting an eye, then refilled his glass and did the same thing
all over again.
“Thanks,” he said. “I've been under a lot of pressure this week.”
“You want to tell me about it?” I asked with all the professional sympathy I could muster on
the spur of the moment.
The muscles still twitched in his face—they hadn't stopped twitching since he'd walked in—
but he took a deep breath and plunged right in.
“Baroness belongs to a man named Maurice Nettles out in Casa Grande, Arizona. She came
into heat two weeks ago and he decided that he wanted me to ship her home for breeding.
Naturally, I didn't want to. With her inherent quality, plus the reputation she picked up by
winning Westminster, I could have made another $20,000 off her by the end of the year.”
“From just one dog?” I asked.
He nodded.
“How many show dogs do you handle?”
“Between twenty and thirty,” he said.
I tried to suppress a greedy little smile. Things were looking up again, and so was my salary.