"Spider Robinson - The Magnificent Conspiracy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

he just sat there the whole time smell-ing like whole wheat right out of the oven."
Cardwell said nothing. For a while we kept strolling. Then I stopped in my tracks
and said, "For seven years I told myself that he was the coward, that he was the
chump, that he had failed the final test of survival. My father is a drunk now. My
mother is a Guru Maharaj Ji premie." I started walking again, and still Cardwell was
silent. "I was the coward, of course. Rather than admit I was wrong to let them make
me into a killer, I gloried in it. I went freelance." We had reached my Dodge, and I
stop-ped for the last time by the passenger-side door. "Goodness, sharing, caring
about other people, ethics and morals and all that—as long as I believed that they
were just a shuck, lies to keep the sheep in line, I could function, my choice made
sense. If there is no such thing as hope, despair can be no sin. If there is no truth,
one lie is no worse than another. Come to think of it, your Arden said something like
that." I sighed. "But I hated that God-damned mandala song, the one about the draft
resister who dies in jail. It came out just before I was shipped out to Nam." I reached
through the open car window and took the Magnum from the glove compartment.
"Right after the funeral." I put the barrel between my teeth and aimed for the roof of
my mouth.
Cardwell was near, but he stood stock-still. All he said was, "Some people never
learn." My finger paused on the trigger.
"Gil will be glad to see you. You two tragic expiators will get on just fine. While
the rest of us clean up the mess you left behind you. Go ahead. We'll manage."
I let my hand fall. "What are you talking about?"
All at once he was blazing mad, and a multi-billionaire's rage is a terrible thing to
behold. "You simple egocentric bastard, did it ever occur to you that you might be
needed? That the brains and skills and talent you've been using to kill strangers, to
play head-games with yourself, are scarce resources? Trust an assassin to be
arro-gant; you colossal jackass, do you thank Arden Larsens grow on trees? A man
in my kind of business can't recruit through the want ads. I need people with guts!"
"To do what?" I said, and threw the pistol into the darkness.