"Joe Haldeman - Tool of the Trade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

TOOL OF THE TRADE
Joe Haldeman

[12 dec 2001-scanned, proofed and released by #bookz]

PROLOGUE-NICK
THEY WOULD BE watching the airport. Couldn't go back there.
Try Amtrak? The bus depots? I stepped out of the grubby phone
booth and tried to collect my thoughts.
They had Valerie. The man who picked up the phone told me so,
in Russian. That was fast work. A good thing I'd had the cab let me off
here, several blocks from home.
They won't hurt her. Not until they can get some mileage out of it.
The air was crisp and smelled clean for Boston, traffic staying
home with November's first snowfall waiting heavy in the starless sky.
Using my hand to occult a streetlamp, I could just see a few flakes
darting in the light breeze.
Driving would be hazardous. They say the first snowfall's a bitch
even if it's just a flurry. And me not having driven in snow since Iowa,
twenty years ago.
Maybe I should take the T up to South Station and get on the first
train to anywhere. No. They might have had time to cover it. They
might have had time to figure things out. So they could be frightened
enough to kill me on sight. Which might be best for all concerned.
Might might might. I would find a car.
I could just flag down the next cab and have him take me a few
hundred miles. Too conspicuous, though, a hired cab on the interstate
at this hour. The KGB couldn't mobilize the Massachusetts Highway
Patrol, but it wasn't just the KGB I was worried about. A nice
anonymous car would be best. I remembered there was a large parking
lot behind the grocery store here on Central Square, and headed
toward it.
There was a bar slouching next to the parking lot, not the kind of
place I normally frequent, but the broken flickering eats sign made my
stomach growl. I'd only picked at the excellent meal on the Concorde,
jetlagged and nervous, and had been running hard since it landed at
Dulles. Nobody would be looking for me here, not yet. I could spare a
few minutes for a beer and a snack.
The air in the bar was hot and rich with cooking smells-Greek
smells, onion and garlic fried in olive oil. The bar had seen better days,
probably when Hoover was president. The only remaining sign of
elegance past was the long bar of dark oak, expensive detailing slowly
eroding under the bartender's cloth. Otherwise the place was all aged
Formica and linoleum, dull under the muted glow of plastic
pseudo-Tiffany lamps advertising cheap beer. I sat down on the end
stool. The brass footrail had holes worn in it from a half century of
scuffing.
The woman behind the bar shuffled, over and leaned heavily
toward me. "What'll it be, honey?" she asked, instantly endearing
herself to me. I ordered some pretzels and a beer and, on impulse, a