"Joe Haldeman - Roadkill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

line of sight in both directions. He carefully sets up the monofilament line
that he will use to trip his victim, and hides, waiting.

He's delusionary in a remarkably consistent and detailed way. He
believes himself to be a S'kang, an alien soldier marooned on this
miserable backward planet. Ugly and squat here, he is a model of male
attractiveness on his high-gravity homeworld. But at least here he is
immensely strong, and there are plenty of humans, who look and taste like
the cattle back home. Here comes one now.

The attack is so swift and brutal that it lends some credence to the idea
of his not being human. A teenage boy runs up and falls face-first on the
paved path when Hunter yanks the line. He rises to his knees and Hunter
swats him into unconsciousness with a casual backhand. He drags the boy
down to a prepared tree beside his van, silences and secures him with duct
tape. He hangs him upside down and slices off his running clothes with a
razor-keen filleting knife. Then he sets up a camcorder and revives the boy
with ammonia. He makes a few ornamental cuts, talking to the boy until
he faints dead away. To his chagrin, the weakling can't be revived; he's
had a heart attack. So he works for speed rather than esthetics, and a few
minutes later sorts through the pile of organs and throws the edible parts
along with the gutted corpse into the big cooler in the back of his van, and
heads for home, two states east.


***
 Spencer was badly wounded by a mine in the last minutes of Desert
Storm, and spent more than a year recovering the use of his legs. He left
the Army with a 75 percent VA disability, which, along with the GI Bill
and a generous gift from his father, allowed him to finish pre-law and law
school.

But when he joined his father's New York law firm as an intern, it was a
disaster. Fifty percent of his disability was posttraumatic stress disorder,
and the pressures of the city kept him jumpy all the time. He also didn't
like the feeling that he got from the other members of the firmтАФthat he
wouldn't have a job if he weren't the boss's son. He suspected it was true
and found a position as a junior partner in a small-town Florida law firm,
and against his father's wishes, left the big city, and winter, with relief.

It went well for a year. He liked the little town of Flagler Beach. He was
usually inside only half the day, helping prepare briefs; the rest of the time
he was doing footwork, going out and interviewing respondents and
occasionally doing repossessions, one of the firm's sidelines. Not just cars
and boats, but sometimes children who legally belonged with the other
parent. For this, the firm got him a private investigator license and a
concealed-weapon permit. Half the men in Florida have guns, they told
him; more than half of the ones who break the law do.

He tried to be good-natured about Spencer-for-hire jokes.