"Harrison, Harry - Rat10 - Stainless Steel Rat Joins Circus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

CHAPTER 9

The Police, of all kinds, were entirely too efficient here on Fetorr. I looked around desperately. There were no windows in the room and but the single door. There was only the screen, which offered privacy when changing costumes, which might provide even a feeble chance to hide our son.
"Bolivar-behind the screen!" I hissed. He was across the room in an instant: the door shuddered and creaked as it was pounded. "Stop hammering-I'm coming!" I shouted.
Angelina was moving too. She closed the computer and put it on the floor, then pulled the armchair in front of the screen, sat down on it. Holding tight to Gloriana's chain as the disturbed porcuswine champed and raked the floor, her quills all aquiver. I went and unlocked the door and threw it wide. "Did you knock?" I asked sweetly.
He was immensely fat with hanging jowls and giant belly. He pointed an accusatory finger at me and said, "You have been using an illegal computer on these premises."
"Never ! "
"Search this room carefully, Hafifu," he ordered. His partner, who was about as skinny as his commander was fat, scuttled into the room. He looked around slowly, beady eyes glinting, thin nose twitching like a rat's. He looked at the computer, then looked away. Undoubtedly mistaking the computer for a leather suitcase.
"I don't see no computer here," he said in a thin and reedy voice.
"Then look behind that screen," the fat cop blurbled. "You saw the readings. There is a computer in this room someplace. Our detectors never lie."
Hafifu obeyed the command and walked over and started to look behind the screen. Screamed and retreated as flashing tusks savaged his trouser legs, not to mention his ankles. Instant decision was needed-and saving Bolivar was far important than saving the computer.
"Step back!" I ordered. "That is a savage watchpig trained to kill anyone foolish enough to approach its owner. In any case-the computer is over there. It is built into that suitcase."
Hafifu circled wide of his porcine persecutor and grabbed up the computer. He opened it, pulled out the keyboard, turned it on and typed furiously. "This is indeed the criminal instrument," he squeaked.
"What criminal? I was just searching the public records. Is that against the law?"
"Yes!" Fatty said with great enthusiasm. "That is because there are no public records here on Fetorr-everything on record is private. I am confiscating this machine." Hafifu was out the door with it before I could raise a word of protest. "As well as fining you five hundred credits for attempting to illegally access the private public records."
"You can't do that!"
"I certainly can. With power vested in me by the state I can make on-the-spot fines, as specified by the statues. If you have reason to believe this confiscation is doubtful in any way you may ask for a trial."
"A trial, right!"
"That will require a two-thousand-credit deposit for the trial chamber, plus a five-hundred-credit fee for the judge."
I opened my mouth to protest. Shut it when I realized I was being stupid. "Do you take checks?"
"Yes-but there is a fine equal to double the amount of the check if it bounces."
Angelina let out a bit of chain as I scribbled the check. I didn't have a Fetorr bank account. I wrote a check for five hundred Galactic Credits. I remembered that they were on a par with the Fetorr Credit. Gloriana grunted ferociously and hurled herself forwards. Fats lurched towards the doorway, grabbed the check in passing and was gone. I locked the door behind him.
"Very efficient," Bolivar said, emerging from behind the screen. "We are going to need a new computer."
"We probably will, eventually," I said. "But they seem to be as much use as doorstops on Fetorr. For the time being we will just have use our own brains-which were around long before the electronic ones were invented."
"And writing as well," Angelina said, taking a pad and stylo from the drawer of her dressing table. "Let us first list what we know-and then what we must find out."
"Right," I said as I paced the floor and cudgeled my slightly fuzzy brain. "There is the ongoing mystery about our employer, which is not germane at the present moment in time. Who or what he is can wait . . ."
"As long he keeps depositing payments daily," Angelina said with great practicality.
"Very true. And we can forget all the other banks on the other planets that were robbed as well. They may not have any relevance to this investigation, since the facts that apparently linked them together were probably fabricated."
"Why?" Bolivar asked.
"That is the question we must answer. The easy answer is that Chaise wanted us to come to this planet. Ostensibly to investigate the bank thefts. Though I am beginning to doubt that story as well. Why he did it in this roundabout way is not important now. We are here and on the job."
"And theoretically investigating Puissanto," Angelina said. "Which, as I dimly remember, was the reason we came here in the first place. Shouldn't we take a closer look at him?"
"We should-but things have been rolling downhill at a furious rate," Bolivar said. "What with a bank being robbed almost as soon as we got here. And me being fingered as the criminal."
I shook my head. "I think that was pretty accidental. The thieves had no way of knowing you would be here when they planned their heist."
"I agree," Angelina said. "Chaise went to a lot of effort to get us here at this time. Bolivar's arrival certainly wasn't part of whatever game plan he is pursuing."
"What is his plan?" I asked, then answered myself. "For us to find the thieves who are emptying out his bank or banks. To do that we must first find out just how the bank was robbed. We need someone on the inside-that's why it was perfect when Bolivar was working there."
"I'm not working there any longer."
As he said this, and I considered the implications-inspiration struck.
"Yes you are. You will be restored to your former pinnacle of banking success."
"For about two seconds before the police arrive."
I rubbed my hands together with gleeful self-admiration. "They won't arrest you because they will think you are your twin brother James. Who will come here as soon as he is summoned-and incidentally will bring along a new computer."
"How will that help?" Angelina asked. "James knows nothing about banks."
"But Bolivar does!" I chortled. "He will just resume his old position. Since Chaise owns the bank he will help us to fake the identification, retina patterns and all that."
"Congratulations," Bolivar said. "It sounds so insane that it has to work."
"I agree," Angelina said. "I'll send an interstellargram right now to tell him that his presence is strongly requested."
She unleashed Gloriana, who scratched under her collar with a rear hoof. Then the pleasant rattle of quills stopped suddenly. She was on her feet, head cocked and ears erect. I touched my finger to my lips-then pointed to the door. There was a gentle scratching there. Bolivar slipped back behind the screen as Gloriana trotted over to the door, muttering swinish oaths in the back of her throat. Something white appeared under the door and she had it in a flash.
"A sheet of paper-a message perhaps," I said. "Good swinelet, bring it to daddy."
She click-clacked across the floor and dropped it at my feet. I turned it over and read: "Burping Barney's Robot Takeaway-free and most speedy delivery."
"Sounds interesting," Bolivar said, emerging from his hiding place. "It has been a long time since breakfast."
"Featuring free beer with every order over fifteen credits. Vegetarian nutburgers, carnivore girafburgers, Styrofoam dietburgers-plenty of good stuff."
Angelina phoned in the order and the service really was fast; there was a tootling of tinny trumpets in the hall. Even before Angelina had contacted the local communication center and finished phoning in her interstellargram. The robot steam table-shaped for some obscure marketing reason like a coffin-rolled in. Accompanied by a recorded organ recital and the smell of ancient grease. I poured in five-credit coins until a bell dinged and the coffin lid flew open. The food was hot, the beer cold, and the damned coffin stayed there playing gloomy liturgical music until I stuffed more coins into the tip slot and kicked its wheels until it exited.