"Jack L Chalker - - G.o.d. Inc 1 - Labyrinth Of Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

The colonel was good at his job. If he hadn't clung so desperately to his
failing independent company and had gone with one of the big Philadelphia
concerns, he could have made it big. This one, however, was different; a last
miracle from heaven. It not only paid well, but if he could bring this off, the
resulting publicity from his successЧwhere bigger and better companies had
failedЧwould bring him so much business he'd have to hire assistants and get
good office space.
For the first couple of days, he was very excited about what he was finding, but
he used Brandy only as chauffeur on occasion and for random checks from cop and
lawyer sources. She couldn't follow the thrust of his investigation from that,
and he was pretty close-mouthed. It wasn't that he was trying to exclude her; it
was just that this case was everything he'd gotten into the business to do, and
for a right moral cause. Soon, though, his elation turned to frowns and gloom;
he was finding information on the councilman's ties far too easily and there
were disturbing undercurrents. Telling her he'd know once and for all after a
night's work, he'd left.
They found his body, with five bullets in it, floating in the Schuylkill River
the next day. The cops said it was an obvious mob hit, but could not tie the
councilman into it. Brandy buried her father, then went to work. She dug,
probed, traced, deciphered her father's notes; and because she knew his sources
and knew how he thought, she began to reconstruct his movements and learn what
he had learned. Eventually she came to the same conclusions her father had:
there were clear trails to mob money on the part of the councilmanЧtoo clear. So
clear you needed only a legislative aide and not a private dick to find them.
The fact was, most Italian big shots, like Jewish big shots and Methodist big
shots, had inevitably crossed paths again and again with bad elements. It was
almost as if somebody had already traced out all those paths for the councilman
and then filled in the blanks showing sinister motives when, say, the councilman
met a mob godfather at a Columbus Day dinner, or belonged to the same Knights of
Columbus lodge as a couple of mob men.
The fact was, the old Italian wasn't clean, but he was as clean as a city hack
politician can get. There was, however, a mob connection in the race. The
Reverend Billy Thomas looked very much like a wholly owned and operated
subsidiary. When it was clear to them that her father knew this and only needed
confirmation, they had acted, setting up an informant's meet late that night,
one that was to turn over incriminating documents. The colonel had his own sense
of moral outrage, and was even more upset that this would be pulled by his own
people and others he admired and trusted. He also was smart enough to know that
the headlines from busting the Reverend Billy would be every bit as good as the
ones from busting an Italian. They knew it, too. They hadn't taken any chances.
With single-minded determination and solid detective work she broke the case,
and proved to the Philadelphia cops how the incriminating evidence on the
councilman was manufactured. They were delighted and pulled out all the stops to
do the rest. They never got the actual triggerman, but when they began to get
the real goods on the Reverend Billy, he began to get the sweats. Somebody
behind him didn't trust him, either. While this was still unfolding, an armed
band of intruders broke into his home and killed himЧ during a robbery, of
course. It was only a surprising coincidence that he was to meet the next day
with federal prosecutors to cut a deal.
The results were not, however, what Brandy would have expected. She had proved