"Simon Hawke - The Nine Lives of Catseye Gomez" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

"Down here, kid."
He looked at me and his eyes opened wide. "You're Mr. Gomez?"
"We can dispense with the mister part," I said. "I don't stand on formality. Look, I can see how you'd be
ticked off and I don't blame you, but I couldn't reach the doorknob, much less turn it, and I was starting to get
a little stir-crazy in here. I'm not used to living in apartments. There was no other way I could get out. Believe
me, if there was, I wouldn't have bothered you."
He snorted with amusement and made a little dismissive motion with his hand. "Ah, it's all right. I've got an
early class today, anyway. My alarm would've gone off in another hour. One less hour of sleep won't kill me."
"Well, that's awful damned decent of you," I replied, somewhat taken aback. I'd frankly expected the guy to
get angry. And like I said, I wouldn't have blamed him one bit. "To be honest, I didn't expect you to be so
understanding."
"What the hell, animals have rights, too," he said. "Oh, my name's Rick, by the way. Rick Daniels."
"It's a pleasure, Rick," I said, as we walked out of the apartment and he closed and locked the door behind
us. "I'm Catseye Gomez. Just Gomez, to my friends."
"Catseye?"
"Yeah. It's on account of the turquoise eyeball."
"I noticed that. It's certainly different."
"Yeah, well, so am I."
He grinned. "I noticed that, too." We'd come up to the elevator and he pushed the call button. He pointed to a
heavy ashtray and waste receptacle standing beneath the call buttons, one of those things that look a bit like
heavy stone planters and have a sand tray on top. "I got building management to spring for some of these
things, so now there's one on every floor. You can jump up on it and then you can reach the buttons."
"Very thoughtful," I said. "Thank you."
He shrugged. "I actually did it for the other thaumagenes in the building, only I didn't tell management that. If I
had, they probably wouldn't have gone for it. Not that many of the tenants here smoke, but a few of them do
have small thaumagenes. See, there's a limited pets policy here. Certain thaumagenes are allowed, but no
large ones, you know, like dobras, and no ordinary animals, except for tropical fish and parakeets and like
that."
The elevator arrived and we stepped in. The electronic-sounding voice said, "Floor, please."
"Three," said Rick.
The voice said, "Thank you," and the door closed.
I gave Rick a questioning glance. "Three?"
He smiled. "There's someone I think you should meet," he said.
"At this hour?"
"She'll be up," said Rick. "Oh, and while we're at it, let's get your voice print done."
"My voice print?"
He held up a finger, telling me to wait. "Elevator, voice print registration, guest category, indefinite."
"One moment... standing by."
He looked at me and said, "Just say your name and the apartment number when I say record, okay?"
"Okay."
"Record," said Rick.
I said, "Catseye Gomez, apartment 10-C."
"Catseye Gomez, apartment 10-C, guest status, indefinite," the elevator said. "Awaiting confirmation."
"Confirm," said Rick.
"Voice print recorded and confirmed," the elevator said. The doors slid open and it added, "Third floor."
We stepped out. "Now your voice print is registered with the security system," Rick explained. "Ordinarily,
your host would do that, but I guess Mr. Solo didn't think of it. You can tell him I took care of it."
"Thanks," I said. "What happens if someone gets on who isn't registered?"
"Well, ordinarily, if a tenant is bringing a guest in, they'll do the registration. It can be for anywhere from
twenty-four hours, after which it's canceled automatically, to indefinite status, the way we just recorded you.