"Lawrence Watt - Evans - One of the Boys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

Monday he heard on the radio that some loon had holed up in his house with a machine gun, holding his
own daughter as a hostage; the Captain debated asking his supervisor for the afternoon off, but Red
Rover took care of it, getting into the house through a back window, getting the girl out, and then
disarming the perpetrator. Nobody was quite sure how he’d managed it.

“Took a long lunch,” Red explained, when the Captain phoned him that evening and asked. They’d all
exchanged phone numbers.

“No, I mean… oh, never mind.”

“No, I’m kidding, Cap.” Red laughed. “But you know I don’t explain how I do my stuff. Any more than
you do.”

“I don’t have anything to explain,” the Captain protested. “I was born this way.”

“Hey, I know, didn’t mean to razz you or anything,” Red answered, his tone almost apologetic. “But I
don’t explain, not even to you.”

“Okay,” the Captain said, accepting Red’s decision.

“You going to the Mayor’s reception, Cap?”

“1 think I will,” the Captain said slowly.
Tuesday he changed at Station Square again—it was about the best drop he’d ever found, and it was
more comfortable than changing in the car. He knew it would be safer to switch again, but just this once,
he thought he could risk it.

The walk to City Hall was longer than he’d thought, though, and he arrived late.

The guard at the door waved him through, and he found himself in a big room crowded with people, men
in expensive suits and women in fancy dresses. They stared at him as he entered, and he smiled at them
all, his best public smile. Only his mouth was visible below the visor; if his eyes weren’t smiling, no one
could tell.

He didn’t have the faintest idea who any of these people were.

Then he spotted Mr. Swift’s helmet; its metallic blue sheen stood out from the innumerable heads of hair
in various shades of brown and gold and gray.

And Red’s wraparound blade sunglasses were there, too, far across the room. A moment later the
Amazon’s bronze helmet emerged from behind a pillar near the table of hors d’oeuvres.

Each of them had a small crowd clustered about him or her, and with a start the Captain realized a crowd
was forming around him, too. Most of it was people who looked at him and then moved on without
getting in his way, but not all of it. A young blond woman in a sleek red gown set herself directly in his
path, and smiled up at him across her glass of champagne.

“I’ve always wanted to meet you,” she said.

Disconcerted by the unfamiliar surroundings, he let the natural response slip out: “Why?”