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

Carrying a gun again gave him mixed feelings. It was undeniably a
comfort, but the associations with combat made him nervous. He was
never called upon to use it, except on the first of every month, when he
took it down to the target range and dutifully ran a couple of boxes of
ammunition through it. It was a snub-nosed .357 Magnum, not very
accurate beyond the length of a room. He also had an Army .45, like the
one he had carried in Desert Storm, but that size cannon is hard to
conceal in light summer clothes.

As his part of the story opens, after the horrific scene with Hunter, he
has just married Arlene, the firm's beautiful secretary, and the boss is
talking about promoting him to junior partner in a year or so. His mother
gives him a hundred grand as a wedding gift. He can't believe his luck.

It was about to change.


***
 The boss has sent him to the university at Gainesville for a few days of
research, and when he comes back, the firm's office has a FOR lease sign
on it. Stunned, he returns to his new house and finds that his new wife has
left with the new car. There are annulment papers on the kitchen table.
Their joint bank account is cleaned. All their credit cards have been
maxed for cash. The mortgage payment is due, and he has less than a
hundred dollars in his wallet.

The two disasters are not unrelated. She's gone to Mexico with his boss,
and all the firm's assets.

He calls his parents, but their unlisted number has been changed. In the
waiting mail, he finds a note from his mother saying that Dad was furious
about the unauthorized $100,000 wedding gift. He'll get over it, though.
Ron Spencer is not so sure.

He sells his old pickup truck to the guy who comes to repossess the
furniture. He pawns his good bicycle and the .357, keeping his rusty beach
bike and the .45. He has enough money to renew his P.I. license, so he
rents a one-room office with a fold-out couch and an answering machine.
He has some cards printed up and takes out an ad in the weekly
advertiser.

He's been bicycling an hour or so a day, both as therapy for his legs and
because it cuts down on his smoking. Now, with lots of time on his hands
and no money for cigarettes, he starts bicycling constantly. Maybe he can
break a bad habit, and a good thing will come out of this.

Every day he starts out at first light and makes a long loop down past
Daytona Beach, coming back in the evening to check his silent answering
machine. But staying on the bike does keep him from smoking, and the