"Mel Gilden - Zoot Marlow 2 - Hawaiian UFO Aliens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilden Mel)

CHAPTER 6
 PROGRESS HAPPENS
┬л^┬╗
I stopped once or twice to see if maybe the robot in the white suit had given up. But no, he was
determined to make more work for us, and that's what he did. Bill strolled off the walkway and into a
parking lot the size of a small country, full of gleam and dazzle. It had been jammed earlier in the day,
cars even parked in the lanes between rows, but now it was merely full, and growing emptier by the
moment.
I followed Bill to the middle of the lot, where we looked as natural as a moustache on a chorus girl.
An aisle away, the fat bot pretended to unlock a car door. He took a lot of trouble with the door, but it
wouldn't open for him in a million years, not with that house key he was using. Every once in a while he
glanced at us and began with the door again.
'Are we going to wait for the real owner of that car to show up?' I said.
'That's entertainment,' Bill said. A flat, circular antenna rose from the top of his beak. As it clicked
into place, a lot of excitement began all around us at once.
On every car I could see, and I could see plenty, head-lights came on and glowed, making no more
distance against the late afternoon sunlight than candle flames. They stayed on while windscreen wipers
started squeaking across dry glass like old men rubbing their eyes. But what really attracted everybody's
attention were the radios and the horns. Frantic DJs tossed the time, weather and stereo ads into the
hard, cloudless sky. Over that, rock and roll fought with the tinkle of piano sonatas. And over it all,
repeated in car after car, blared the mating call of the irate motorist. All together it was too loud to be
merely noise, more like somebody rooting out my ears with a stick.
The fat bot looked in my direction as if I'd called his name. He frowned, a strange effect on that
mechanical face, then made a move as if he wanted to walk toward me. But we were washed apart by
crowds of people pouring off the beach, each of them pawing at their cars as if they were life preservers.
I grabbed Bill around the neck so as not to lose him in the crush and forced my way back to the
walkway, bucking the crowd that was gathering to point, watch and laugh.
I put Bill down and we walked away quickly, stopping only a few times to check for the bot in the
white suit. Either all of a sudden he'd gotten a lot better at tailing, or Bill's trick had worked.
'Pretty good, huh?' Bill said every time I checked. The fifth or sixth time this happened, I said, 'Good
enough, but it gets a little old in reruns.'
He blinked at me and said brightly, 'Right, Boss.'
By the time we got back to Whipper Will's house, the sidewalks were nearly empty. The bot would
have had to be invisible or I'd seen him. I didn't see him.
We let a couple of rabbits out the front door when Bill and I came in, but that didn't matter. The floor
was covered with them. What wasn't rabbits was rabbit pellets. And what wasn't rabbit pellets was
long-stemmed flowers. Captain HookтАФthe Great HookiniтАФhad been busy while we were out.
The captain was all by himselfтАФnot counting the rabbitsтАФglumly sitting on the couch in the living
room with a big steel ring in each hand. The TV was not on, which was about as normal as the Captain
making lists. He tapped the rings, and suddenly they were hooked together. He spun the one that was
hanging, and it made a noise like a softly ringing bell. Then, in a bored voice, he said, 'Abracadabra,' and
pulled the rings apart. He looked at the rings as if he'd never seen them before, and tapped them together
again.
I said, 'What's happening, Holmes?'
 The Captain studied the hanging ring as he spun it again. Without looking at me, he said, 'People got
no appreciation for magic. It's a beautiful art form.'
'You've been performing all afternoon?' I said.
'I'm a magician,' he said as if he wished he weren't.
'Where's everybody else?'
'Gone to a movie.' He shrugged. 'No accounting for taste.'