"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 03" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

Wednesday, 20.25 -- 22.05




'Is this going to take much longer?' the taxi driver asked
plaintively, twisting around to the back seat.
His passenger regarded him without enthusiasm.
'What do you care? You're getting paid, aren't you?'
The driver banged his palm on the steering-wheel,
making it ring dully.
'Eh, I hope so! But there's more to life than getting paid,
you know. It's almost an hour we've been sitting here. I
usually have a bite to eat around now. I mean, if you
wanted me for the evening, you should have said so.'
The street in which they were parked stretched straight
ahead between the evenly spaced blocks of flats built on
reinforced concrete stilts, the ground fioor level consisting
of a car park. In the nearest block, half of this space had
been filled in to provide a few shops, all closed. Between
two of them was a lit plate-glass frontage, above which a
blue neon sign read BAR'.
'Well?' the driver demanded.
'All right. But don't take all night about it.'
The driver clambered awkwardly out of the car,
wheezing heavily. Years of high tension and low exercise
seemed to have converted all his bone and muscle to flab.
'I'm talking about a snack, that's all!' he complained.
'Even the fucking car won't go unless you fill it up.'
Hitching up his ample trousers, he waddled off past
three metal rubbish skips overflowing with plastic bagsI
and sacks. Zen watched him pick his way across the hun.--
mocks and gullies that looked like piles of frozen snow ii;
the cheerless light of the ultra-modern streetlamps.
Nothing else moved. No one was about. Apart from the
bar, there was nothing in the vicinity to tempt the inhabi-
tants out of doors after dark. The whole area had a pro-
visional, half-finished look, as though the developer had
lost interest half-way through the job. The reason was no
doubt to be found in one of those get-out clauses which
Burolo Construction's contracts had invariably included,
allowing them to suck the lucrative marrow out of a project
without having to tackle the boring bits.
Like the others, the block near which they were parked
was brand-new and looked as if it had been put together in
about five minutes from prefabricated sections, like a
child's toy. Access to the four floors of flats was by rectan-
gular stairwells which descended like lift shafts to the cav
park at ground level. The flat roof bristled with televisicn