"Paul Di Filippo - Pegasus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

PAUL DI FILIPPO

PLUMAGE FROM PEGASUS

You Won't Take Me Alive! (Without atLeast Ten Percent of the Box Office Gross)

"A ROMANCE writer's two-year flight from justice ended in a style befitting one
of her novels this week, when law enforcement agents knocked on her door at a
low-budget motel just outside Los Angeles. Rather than surrender without a
struggle, Barbara Joslyn stabbed herself in the chest.

"As Federal agents closed in on her...Ms. Joslyn barricaded herself in her
cramped motel room and shouted that she `would not be taken alive.'"--The New
York Times, May 5, 1997.

"Let me through, I'm from the SFWA."

As soon as the hard-eyed, bigshouldered young cop--standing intimidatingly with
folded arms on the crowd side of the yellow police tape--heard those words, he
gave me a deferential nod, lifted up the plastic ribbon, and ushered me under.
Even this rookie plainly knew who had saved the asses of his buddies in
countless similar situations across the country. I was hoping his superiors did
too.

Once on the far side of the barrier, walkie-talkies crackling practically in my
ears, I found myself in the middle of a barely controlled mob. Plainclothes
detectives, armored SWAT snipers, squat HAZMATrobots, reporters, priests,
psychologists, editors, agents, publicists, film directors--the usual mix of
do-gooders and vultures you always find at this kind of tragic scene. Using
perceptions and intuitions honed from dozens of equally chaotic past
confrontations, I zeroed in on the guy most likely in charge: a smartly coiffed
City Hall type wearing a suit that probably cost as much as I made in a month.

I waved my open wallet, credentials showing, under his nose. "Dorsey Kazin, SFWA
Griefcom. Whadda we got here?"

Maybe it was the sight of the understatedly famous silver rocket next to my name
in gold-leaf, maybe it was the calm assurance in my voice. Maybe it was the
chance to dump this whole mess in somebody else's lap. Whatever the case, the
guy's stern but nervous exterior collapsed faster than the Wizards of the Coast
publishing program, and he spilled his fears into my tender ear like a kid
telling his mother what he did that day in second grade.

"Am I glad to see you, Mr. Kazin! Ruben Spinelost here, assistant to Mayor
Whiffle." I tendered the guy a perfunctory shake. "Afraid I'm in a little over
my head in this dustup. Never dealt with one of these new-fangled hostage-based
contract negotiations before."
I cut him off. "Get used to it, Rube, this new tactic's all the rage --and I do
mean rage. Brief me quick now, before our gun-toting Gernsbackian decides to lay
a few of his more violent cards on the table--or maybe his hostage's ear."