"Robert F. Young - Hologirl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

The Three Bears' eyes lit up, but Gino shook his head. "We are here on the Kurilman matter, Ms.
Rinehardt, as you cannot have failed to grasp. For some foolish reason you have ignored my advice to
leave the cookie-crumbling to us. Very well: you now have two choices. You can take your rightful place
beside the Venus de Milo, minus both your arms, or you can tell me from where Kurilman obtains his
girls, a matter of considerable concern to me as a respectable tax-paying citizen, and a mystery which I
am sure a talented private investigator like yourself cannot by this time have failed to resolve."
I sat down on a nearby ottowoman. "From Mars, maybe?"
"He gets them, as you very well know," Gino said, a disarming smile and a grim grin vying for
supremacy on his face and with the latter holding a slight edge, "by luring housewives, factory-line
females, pasta-parlor waitresses and other such simpletons into his office by means of a clever come-on
ad in the classified section of the Idealia Update. There, a magic metamorphosis is put into motion that
enables the housewives, factory-line females, pasta-parlor waitresses and other such simpletons to leave
by the same door they came in by and yet which somehow allows those of them who are qualified for
call-girl work to simultaneously remain and to go out later on in a professional capacity and drive away
the cares of Kurilman's clients for the cut-rate sum of $400. What I want to know is how does he
accomplish this legerdemain?"
My apartment is on the topmost floor, which means it's equipped with skylights and gets a lion's
share of sunshine. It was filled with sunshine now, and already that damned halo was taking form above
Gino's periwigged head. Jove, Jupiter. Capo de tutti capi. Inheritor of the spoils of the Castellammarese
War, of the successive empires of Masseria, Maranzano, Luciano, Genovese, Gambino, Lucci, and
Bombasino. God in a codpiece and a wig arrogantly striding over the power-cathected masochists
fawning at his feet —
No, Gino, no. Not over me. "Kurilman," I said, "has a machine like a big sausage-grinder. His wife
puts the girls in, adds equal parts sugar, spice and everything nice, and he turns the handle. And for every
girl put in, two come out, one to do his bidding and one to go back to her 3V set, her factory-line job or
waiting on tables."
In a secret compartment of the ottowoman, within easy reach of my right hand, was a fully charged
raze pistol. But I had no need of it. Grim grin and disarming smile fought for a while on Gino's face, with
neither winning out. Nothing remain. Nothing. He got up without a word and walked out the door. The
Three Bears followed, staring sideways at me as they passed. Not with disbelief, but with relief. For Gino
had given the order, they could not have carried it out. It was theirs as well as his Achilles' heel.

After an afternoon of work and relaxation (I did my laundry and re-read Camus' The Plague), I
prepared a light dinner and ate by yellow candlelight at my little dinner table with its damask cloth.
I hadn't touched Sespol's $700 advance (it's my policy never to spend a client's money till I've fully
earned it); when I did, I'd buy the steak I'd been ravenous for for weeks and maybe even have french
fries and a tossed salad to go with it.
Eleven o'clock found me parked across the street from the main entrance of the Sespol Sky-Rise, my
Laseroid camera sharing the seat beside me with my handbag. Idealia is not ideally illuminated; as with
ordinary cities, only lights of low wattage are allowed in residences and business places, and streetlights
are confined to corners. The pitch goes something like this: "National switchover to solar power is just
around the corner, folks, but until we round that corner we've got to go right on conserving." The
argument would make sense (1) if "conserving" applied to 3V and (2) if realistic restrictions were
imposed on indiscriminate use of energy during daytime hours. As matters stand, it's nothing but a
psychological gimmick to ease peoples' minds while Rome burns.
Most of the windows of the Sespol Sky-Rise were dark, but a few glowed wanly in the night, one of
them on the fourteenth floor. Whether or not it belonged to Suite 1400, I had no way of knowing.
Electricar traffic was sparse, pedestrian even sparser. As I sat there waiting I killed time by trying to
find the Kurilman story's missing paragraph. I knew all right what he was doing and I knew he was doing
it somewhere in Suite 1400. It was true that, not being of mechanical bent, I didn't know precisely how