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

“I don't like it,” said Lantz, but he scribbled Nettles’ address and number on the back of my
copy of the contract, then got to his feet. “I'll drop the photo off in the morning.”
“I'll be here,” I said.
He looked like he wanted to say something more, paused awkwardly, and then left the office.
Two minutes later I was on the phone to my check guaranteeing service, reading them the
account number from Lantz's branch bank. It was, as the saying goes, good as gold. Two
thousand, minus the four percent guarantee fee: nineteen hundred and twenty beautiful
dollars.
It was so good, in fact, that I skipped the chili, had a slab of ribs, and bought myself a box
seat at Riverfront. Jose Rijo was throwing nothing but smoke, and Barry Larkin was wearing a
big red S on his chest under his uniform, and the Reds whipped the tar out of the Dodgers, 8-
1.
I was on top of the world when I got home. The Reds were back in first place by half a game,
I had a client in hand and money in the bank, and I was even thinking of paying my phone bill
in the next week or so. I tossed my jacket onto the frayed, battered sofa, walked into the
kitchen, pulled a beer out of the icebox (I know “refrigerator” is the proper word, but I'm old-
fashioned—and besides, this particular machine had been built when iceboxes were all the
rage), and walked back to the living room.
I turned on the TV, hoping to catch a replay of Barry Larkin's two home runs, and the picture,
after the usual 30 seconds of static and light show, adjusted itself just in time for me to see a
brief news item concerning an armed robbery in Newport, right across the river. This was
followed by the birth of a trio of white tigers at the Cincinnati Zoo, and then a 20-second spot
showing the cops dredging a station wagon out of the Little Miami River.
I was feeling so happy and so relaxed that I almost missed the driver's name.
It was Alice Dent.
I bellowed a curse that must have awakened half the building. Now instead of having
nineteen hundred and twenty dollars in the bank, I was eighty dollars in the hole. Lantz would
certainly demand his money back, and I'd already gotten the damned check guaranteed.
I pulled out his business card and dialed his number. He picked it up on the sixth ring. I could
barely hear him over the barking, but I told him what had happened and unhappily informed
him that he could pick up his money the next morning at the office.
I put the beer aside and went to work on a bottle of Scotch instead. I seem to remember
watching the beginning of an old Bogart movie, but I don't recall any of the details.
I must have stumbled off to bed somewhere in the middle, or else I just drank so much that I
didn't pay much attention to thedenouement . At any rate, the next thing I remember was this
high-pitched whining near my right ear. I turned and cursed and told it to shut up, but it
wouldn't stop, and finally I realized that my phone was ringing. I fumbled for it, finally got hold
of it, and spent another few seconds trying to remember where my mouth and ear were.
“Hello?” I croaked.
“Mr. Paxton? This is Hubert Lantz.”
“Phone company or electric company?”
“I'm your goddamned client!”
I sat upright in the bed. “What time is it?”
“Five in the morning.”
“Well, you can damned well wait until nine o'clock for your money!”
“I don't want my money.”
“Repeat that?” I said, trying to clear my head.
“You're still working for me.”
“But they found the girl. She drove her car into the river.”
“I don't care about the girl. I want the dog.”