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

'He pulls rabbits from hats?' Bill said.
'Watch.'
A second later, Benny got tired of barking and sat down to have a good scratch. Bill didn't say
anything, so I said, 'That's it.'
Bill laughed, but he always did that. We went into the small building through the brown door.
The dimness and smell of age were familiar, but at the desk where Mr Harold Chesnik had given me
the address of Surfing Samurai Robots sat a tall, thin woman with a long, sharp noseтАФnot quite a
Toomler nose, but close. Her bony fingers moved quickly over the keys of an old mechanical adding
machine. She pulled the lever and tore off the tape.
She glanced at me and said, 'May I help you?' as if she'd memorized the sounds but the words had no
meaning for her. The tape was what really interested her, but she took another look at me anyway. I was
worth a look, I guess, if you hadn't seen me before.
'Mr Chesnik here?' I said as I walked farther into the office. I'd checked the overstuffed leather chair
where he usually slept, and nobody was in it.
Now I could see he was at the other desk, with one hand against his forehead and the other turning
over sheets of paper. His face said that he wasn't happy with what the papers were telling him. Either
that, or his stomach hurt. One knee was pistoning up and down a mile a minute. He wore the same heavy
black framed glasses, and what could have been the same grey sweater, as the last time I'd seen him.
'Mr Chesnik?' I said.
Mr Chesnik looked up and smiled. He adjusted his glasses and cried, 'Zoot! Marsha, this is the Zoot
I was telling you about.'
 Marsha nodded as if she'd expected that, and in a voice as sharp as her nose, told me without
convincing me that she was pleased to make my acquaintance. She watched me narrowly, as if she
thought I might walk out with a chair under my coat.
Mr Chesnik sighed and said, 'You never call. You never write.' He saw Bill then and waggled a finger
at me. 'You still owe me plenty for that robot.' He chuckled, inviting me not to take his accusation too
seriously.
'I need more,' I said.
The chuckle disappeared down a drain and Mr Chesnik shook his head. 'Bay City manners,' he said.
'How much?'
'A couple hundred bucks.'
'And expenses?'
'Mostly for the office bourbon bottle.'
He laughed easily, as if we weren't talking about money, and said, 'So all right, already. You can still
do the Chandler patter. That butters no parsnips with me.'
'I have something you might want to buy.'
'Like what?'
'Can we go somewhere and talk?'
Marsha reacted as if I'd slapped her in the face. She said, 'Mr Chesnik has no secrets from me.'
'Bay City secrets,' I said.
Mr Chesnik ran his tongue over his lips and stood up. I still came up only to the middle button of his
sweater. 'Come on. We'll talk.'
I followed him down a short hall, Bill clattering behind me. Through the wall, I could feel Marsha
simmering slowly over low heat. We passed a bathroom that had seen a lot of use and a storage room
full of boxes big enough to hold cockroaches from the bathroomтАФthough there may not have been
enough boxes.
At the other end of the hall was the garage, brighter now with a garage door open. The air
compressor began to chug. An Oriental guy in grey work clothes was standing at a low rough table,
banging on a piece of machinery with a big hammer. He stopped long enough to smile at us, then went
back to work. He couldn't have been the Oriental guy I was looking for. Nobody could get that greasy