"Easton, Tom - Real Men Don't Bark at Fire Hydrants" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

Larry would love that, wouldn't he?

"Yeah," he said. "Glad I could help. I'll bill you."

He hung up. He sighed again, more deeply and more loudly now that he
needn't worry about offending... No. He shook his head. Larry Castle was a
tabloid reporter. The only time he ever took offense was when a source clammed
up on him. His calloused hide made a rhino's butt look like a maiden's cheek.

Sometimes Mickey wished he could penetrate that hide a little more deeply.

Sometimes he wished he had never heard of UFOs.



2. Real Men Don't Bark at Fire Hydrants



Mickey leaned over his laser printer to crank the filthy casement window
open. The September air was all he needed to clear the mustiness from both the
office and his head. Traffic noise engulfed him. Twenty feet below was the
steady flow of the city's populace on foot and bicycle, in cars and trucks and
city buses.

He was turning back toward the desk when something caught his eye.

A businessman, an executive by the look of his silvery sideburns, his
unwrinkled suit, and his glossy attache case, was striding purposefully toward
the fire hydrant across the street. He was wearing a ferocious scowl.

The executive stopped before the hydrant, opened his attache case on the
sidewalk, took off his suitcoat, and laid it in the case. Then he laid a yellow
legal pad on the sidewalk, knelt on it, leaned forward, and caught his weight on
his hands. He extended his neck toward the hydrant. Mickey thought he could
hear...

The phone rang. He swore, but he managed to pick it up before it could ring
a second time.

"Angela!" Angela Colby was his agent. He sat down once more. "Do you mind
if I call you back later? There's a man on the street outside, growling at a
fire hydrant... No, not a bum. Quite well dressed. Might even be one of your
colleagues..." His chuckle lasted only long enough for him to realize he was the
only one laughing.

While she talked, he tipped his chair and leaned toward the window. The
executive was still on his knees, but now he was jerking back and forth, his
mouth was abruptly opening and closing. The sound... "My God," he said. "He's