"Molly Brown - Community Service" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Molly)

like a typical cop off duty: jeans and a leather jacket, loose-fitting
enough to conceal a shoulder holster. He was alone.
I was with about eight or nine others from the office. Other than the
airborne cop at the bar, we were the only customers, but it was early yet.
Things would pick up later, when the Armoured Vehicle Patrol changed
shifts. Then the place would be a madhouse; those guys knew how to party.
"Hey," Jimmy said as we all sat down at our usual table, "isn't that the
guy who came nosing around this morning?"
"He wasn't nosing around," I said. "He just took a wrong turn or
something."
"He could take a wrong turn with me anytime," one of the women said.
"Whoever he is, he's absolutely gorgeous."
I agreed with her, just to annoy Jimmy.
"Never seen the guy before," Jimmy muttered, "now we see him twice in one
day." He tapped his nose. "He's not from our area, and even if he was,
since when do airborne cops come slumming it down in traffic? You ask me,
there's something funny going on."
"Funny like what?" I asked him.
"I don't know. It's just a feeling I have." Then he turned away and
started talking to Angela Greenman.
Okay, I thought, two can play at that game. I got up and walked over to
the bar, planting myself on the stool next to the airborne cop. I reached
into my bag for a handful of credit chips and stacked them in front of me
on the bar. "Buy you a drink?"
There was a mirror behind the bar; I could see Jimmy and the others
reflected in the glass. Angela was talking to someone else now, but Jimmy
still seemed to me making a point of ignoring me. He got up, walked over
to the holovid box and pressed some buttons. I sighed in dismay as a woman
in a low-cut dress at least two sizes too small for her appeared on a tiny
stage at the far end of the room, in full colour 3D. She began squirming
and gyrating, her digitalized voice screeching inane lyrics at a decibel
level that shook the walls. He had to be kidding; did he really think he
was gonna make me jealous with a holovid?
The airborne cop downed the last of his drink in one gulp, grimacing as if
he was in pain.
"Are you all right?" I asked him.
"Headache," he said.
I turned to call across the room, "Turn it down a little, will ya?"
Jimmy didn't hear me. He was up on stage with the holovid, doing something
that looked like a rain dance.
There was a bowl of nuts on the bar. I popped a handful in my mouth. They
were coated in salt, of course. As if the guy who owned Larry's really
thought cops needed encouragement to drink.
The airborne cop slid his empty glass across the bar. "My name's Rico
Salvo. I work helicopters out of South Central. Does that offer of a drink
still hold?"
"Sure."
"Then I'll have a triple Scotch," he said. "Neat."
"Cheap date, aren't you?" I reached into my bag for more credit chips.
"Hey, Freddie," I called down to the bartender. "One triple Scotch and one