"Brown, Dale - Patrick 2 - Day of the Cheetah" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Dale)

seat. Roberts watched him unbutton the top button of his sports
coat and seat himself. "You even swear like one of them, Mr.
James.
No reply.



6 DALE BROWN
"Do you think you are ready for graduation?"
"I do."
'Mr. James, whose side are you on? Sometimes it appears
only your own."
"Isn't that the American way? Knowledge is power, in base-
ball or business. I want all the knowledge I can accumulate.
I've worked hard to accumulate it, even the things others think
inconsequential. It would be a waste not to use it-
"Do not pretend you know everything about America or
how to live in it. You have lived a sheltered life here in the
Academy. The world is just waiting to swallow overconfident
young people like you." James made no reply but sat easily in
the hard-backed upright wood chair. Roberts paused for a mo-
ment, then asked, "Tell me about your father, Kenneth."
"Not again, sir. All right, my father was a drunk, sir, a
drunk and a scum who murdered my younger brother but was
found incompetent to stand trial and was committed to a men-
tal institution. They said he was suffering from delayed shock
syndrome from his three tours as a Green Beret company com-
mander in Vietnam. When he was released several years later
he abandoned his family and went off to who knows where.
Prison or another mental institution. His name was Kenneth
also, but I refuse to use 'Junior' in my surname and I've even
thought of changing my whole name."
Roberts looked surprised, which amused James. "Don't
worry, sir. I won't. It's not as glamorous a story as Scorcelli's
rich jet-setting parents, or Bell's midwestern aunties. But it s
my story. I've learned, sir, to downplay it, push it out of my
consciousness. I allow it to surface as a reminder of what I
could become if I don't work and study very hard."
"I am not particularly interested in your opinion of your
father," Roberts said, "and you would be well advised to keep
such opinions to yourself."
James' response was to smile back at him with that madden-

ing half-grin. James, it seemed, had no intention of taking such
advice.
A problem. The Connecticut Academy, in operation for only
thirty years, had acquired a reputation for excellence in its
graduates. Only the best left the Academy, and they left only
for the best colleges and universities. The rest were sent back
to wherever they came from, without any ties or records of