"Heinlein, Robert A - The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

Still, she could not agree with him. "Suppose we look at it in the worst possible light," she suggested. "Suppose you have been doing something criminal, while in your memory lapses. No court in the State would hold you legally responsible for your actions."
He looked at her wildly. "No. No, perhaps they would not. But you know what they would do? You do, don't you? Have you any idea what they do with the criminally insane?"
"I certainly do," she answered positively. "They receive the same treatment as any other psycho patient. They aren't discriminated against. I know; I've done field work at the State Hospital."
"Suppose you have-you looked at it from the outside. Have you any idea what it feels like from the inside? Have you ever been placed in a wet pack? Have you ever had a guard put you to bed? Or force you to eat? Do you know what it's like to have a key turned in a lock every time you make a move? Never to have any privacy no matter how much you need it?"
He got up and began to pace. "But that isn't the worst of it. It's the other patients. Do you imagine that a man, simply because his own mind is playing him tricks, doesn't recognize insanity in others? Some of them drool and some of them have habits too beastly to tell of. And they talk, they talk, they talk. Can you imagine lying in a bed, with the sheet bound down, and a thing in the next bed that keeps repeating, 'The little bird flew up and then flew away; the little bird flew up and then flew away; the little bird flew up, and then flew away-' "
"Mr. Hoag!" Randall stood up and took him by the arm. "Mr. Hoag-control yourself! That's no way to behave."
Hoag stopped, looking bewildered. He looked from one face to the other and an expression of shame came over him. "I . . . I'm sorry, Mrs. Randall," he said. "I quite forgot myself. I'm not myself today. All this worry-"
"It's all right, Mr. Hoag," she said stiffly. But her earlier revulsion had returned.
"It's not entirely all right," Randall amended. "I think the time has come to get a number of things cleared up. There has been entirely too much going on that I don't understand and I think it is up to you, Mr. Hoag, to give me a few plain answers."
The little man seemed honestly at a loss. "I surely will, Mr. Randall, if there is anything I can answer. Do you feel that I have not been frank with you?"
"I certainly do. First-when were you in a hospital for the criminally insane?"
"Why, I never was. At least, I don't think I ever was. I don't remember being in one."
"Then why all this hysterical balderdash you have been spouting the past five minutes? Were you just making it up?"
"Oh, no! That . . . that was . . . that referred to St. George Rest Home. It had nothing to do with a . . . with such a hospital."
"St. George Rest Home, eh? We'll come back to that. Mr. Hoag, tell me what happened yesterday."
"Yesterday? During the day? But Mr. Randall, you know I can't tell you what happened during the day."
"I think you can. There has been some damnable skulduggery going on and you're the center of it. When you stopped me in front of the Acme Building-what did you say to me?"
"The Acme Building? I know nothing of the Acme Building. Was I there?"
"You're damned right you were there and you pulled some sort of a shenanigan on me, drugged me or doped me, or something. Why?"
Hoag looked from Randall's implacable face to that of his wife. But her face was impassive; she was having none of it. He turned hopelessly back to Randall. "Mr. Randall, believe me-I don't know what you are talking about. I may have been at the Acme Building. If I were and if I did anything to you, I know nothing of it."
His words were so grave, so solemnly sincere in their sound that Randall was unsettled in his own conviction. And yet-damn it, somebody had led him up an alley. He shifted his approach. "Mr. Hoag, if you have been as sincere with me as you claim to be, you won't mind what I'm going to do next." He drew from the inner pocket of his coat a silver cigarette case, opened it, and polished the mirrorlike inner surface of the cover with his handkerchief. "Now, Mr. Hoag, if you please."
"What do you want?"
"I want your fingerprints."
Hoag looked startled, swallowed a couple of times, and said in a low voice, "Why should you want my fingerprints?"
"Why not? If you haven't done anything, it can't do any harm, can it?"
"You're going to turn me over to the police!"
"I haven't any reason to. I haven't anything on you. Let's have your prints."
"No!"
Randall got up, stepped toward Hoag and stood over him. "How would you like both your arms broken?" he said savagely.
Hoag looked at him and cringed, but he did not offer his hands for prints. He huddled himself together, face averted and his hands drawn in tight to his chest.
Randall felt a touch on his arm. "That's enough, Teddy. Let's get out of here."
Hoag looked up. "Yes," he said huskily. "Get out. Don't come back."
"Come on, Teddy."
"I will in a moment. I'm not quite through. Mr. Hoag!"
Hoag met his eye as if it were a major effort.
"Mr. Hoag, you've mentioned St. George Rest Home twice as being your old alma mater. I just wanted you to know that I know that there is no such place!"
Again Hoag looked genuinely startled. "But there is," he insisted. "Wasn't I there for- At least they told me that was its name," he added doubtfully.
"Humph!" Randall turned toward the door. "Come on, Cynthia."

Once they were alone in the elevator she turned to him. "How did you happen to play it that way, Teddy?"
"Because," he said bitterly, "while I don't mind opposition, it makes me sore when my own client crosses me up. He dished us a bunch of lies, and obstructed us, and pulled some kind of sleight of hand on me in that Acme Building deal. I don't like for a client to pull stunts like that; I don't need their money that bad."
"Well," she sighed, "I, for one, will be very happy to give it back to him. I'm glad it's over."
"What do you mean, 'give it back to him'? I'm not going to give it back to him; I'm going to earn it."
The car had arrived at the ground floor by now, but she did not touch the gate. "Teddy! What do you mean?"
"He hired me to find out what he does. Well, damn it, I'm going to find out-with or without his cooperation."
He waited for her to answer, but she did not. "Well," he said defensively, "you don't have to have anything to do with it."
"If you are going on with it, I certainly am. Remember what you promised me?"
"What did I promise?" he asked, with a manner of complete innocence.
"You know."
"But look here, Cyn-all I'm going to do is to hang around until he comes out, and then tail him. It may take all day. He may decide not to come out."