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

'Hey, boss,' Bill said.
'I'm leaving.'
'Back to Bay City,' Bill laughed. He had absorbed my sense of humour, which is the kind of thing that
happens to personal bots.
'Far from Surfing Samurai Robots and hostile natives,' I said quickly, and before either of us could
think about it, I slapped a sheet of flypaper on top of his head, stick-um side down. He stopped in
mid-chuckle and his eyes went dark.
I had done the kindest thing possible. I couldn't take Bill to, er, Bay City. Who knew what
outrageous, perhaps even true, thing he would say to people? And I couldn't leave him to the warped
mercies of Whipper Will's housemates. Instead, I had turned him off. I stood him in the wardrobe behind
a curtain of Hawaiian shirts that were so loud you could hear them from the next room even with the
wardrobe door closed.
I took off my shoes, put away my brown suit, the trench-coat and the fedora. I put on my short
Johns, told Bill to stay out of trouble, and left the room.
In the kitchen, Thumper, the tallest of the bunch, was absent-mindedly using a spatula to tap a toasted
cheese sandwich in a frying pan while he watched Captain Hook out the window. Captain Hook was
standing defiantly at the edge of the water, controlling his surf-bot with a remote control box. The day
was cold, and except for Captain Hook and a few diehard joggers, the golden sands of Malibu were
deserted.
Mopsie (or was it Flopsie?) was sitting at the Formica-topped dining table at one end of the room,
listening to Thumper discuss the quality of Captain Hook's hotdogging.
To me she said, 'Going?' The fact that I was wearing a wet suit and not carrying any luggage did not
seem to bother her.
 'Yeah. Be cool, you hear?'
Thumper nodded at my sage advice, then happened to glance out the window. He jubilantly cried.
'Wipeout!'
Mopsie shook her head and said, 'Captain Hook'll be raw all day.'
'Yeah, well, hang loose, dude,' Thumper said, and clasped my hand in a complicated grip that the
surfers had taken one hilarious evening to teach me. Mopsie bent low to hug me. Her tits were in my
face. For that moment, I wished I'd been human so I could appreciate them.
I walked outside, through the small brick backyard, across the public blacktop walkway and across
the sand. The sand crunched pleasantly beneath my feet as the cold wind whipped around my bare legs
and arms. I could smell hamburger grease from miles away, maybe as far as Santa Monica. A guy had to
be desperate to open his stand on a day like this. I didn't look forward to the cold swim, but there was
no other way to get to my sneeve.
'Hang loose,' I hollered above the wind at Captain Hook.
He waved in my direction, but he was too busy with his surf-bot to say anything.
Even wearing the short Johns, I got a chilling shock when I stepped into the water, and for a moment
I couldn't breathe. I swam for a good long time, until I came even with a point I knew, and dived.
Seconds later I was cycling the screw on my sneeve, the Philip Marlowe, and stripping off the
abbreviated rubber suit. I wiped myself down with a handful of treated tree sap that was not very much
like a warm dry towel.
So, I went back to T'toom.
No playing of recordings of The Adventures of Philip Marlowe on this return voyage. I had the
complete books of Raymond Chandler and a few other mystery novels that had been recommended to
me. Trouble was my business, oh yes, I'd proved that on Earth. But now I had real trouble. I had to go
home and face my relatives.
The ride was not long, but it was longer than the average Gino and Darlene movie, and my attention
span felt the strain. I had time to check my cargo again. There was nothing new since I'd loaded it and
checked it the week before. I sat down to read The Maltese Falcon and eat my own recycled wastes.