"Gordon Eklund - CrossRoad Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eklund Gordon)

"I'm still not going to fucking kill him for you," Leary says.

"Sure you are." She lays a warm hand on his leg above the knee, squeezes like
mashed potatoes. "I'll tell you why."

Chapter Two -- Terraplane Blues (11/1)

Sunny tells Leary: "William Campbell Rathbone, as you likely are aware, has
served as Central Zone Captain for somewhat more than the nineteen months. There
was some initial resistance to his appointment on the grounds that although a
highly successful operational officer he was not a proven administrator, but for
the first year of his tenure he was an effective if at times unconventional
occupant of an historically difficult position. Then in the spring of this year,
this previously observed unconventionality began to assume a more dominant
aspect in his relationships both within and without the Force. He offended
several ranking officers through his salty language and blunt demeanor. It
became known that he had abandoned his wife of fourteen years and established
living quarters in a room at the rear of his precinct station, where he was
reported to fornicate nightly with a succession of mistresses from the Zone,
many of them known prostitutes, sometimes two and three per evening, leaving at
least one known pregnant with child. He further became an obsessive reader of
the Christian Bible, specifically the four gospels of the New Testament,
asserting views which while Biblical in origin were nevertheless far from
conventional and even, some might assert, illegal. As an example, he strongly
supported the concept of a second coming of the messiah while also proclaiming
that the first messiah, our lord Jesus Christ, was a false messiah, the literal
spawn of the devil. He further alleged that the being we call Satan is in
actuality God while God is the devil. Additionally, he refused to attend
regularly scheduled captains' meetings downtown and ceased returning phone calls
from his superior officers. On June seventeenth of this year he produced an
interdepartmental memo in which he severed all communication between himself,
his precinct, and the rest of the city. No specific reasons for this decision
were given, only that he believed it was (and here I quote) 'in the best
interests of myself, the City Police Force, the citizens of the Central Zone,
and all children of God and/or Cain.' Since that .day no official word has been
received from either Captain Rathbone or his assigned officers."

Leary grins like butter in a pan: "And you're trying to get me to think you
haven't done a fucking thing about it.?"

Her liquid eyes flash as cool as mercury in a bottle: "You know better than
that, Leary. We made three forays. The first we sent in one man, the second
three, the last a dozen in an armored cruiser."

"And Rathbone took them all out, right.?"
She shrugged. "Nobody's made it back yet, no."

"They won't. Rathbone's too fucking sly for you guys. Once he's made up his
mind, the movie's done."