"Keith Laumer & Eric Flint - Future Imperfect" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

big room. In the elevator I took out the coin, studied it carefully under the dome light.
The metal was bright, smooth, unscarred. The little mark I had made biting it was gone.
Zablun had switched coins on me.
 Chapter Four

Anzio was the kind of man who never let curiosity interfere with business
arrangements. The fifty-cee note I passed him assured me free access to an empty suite
on the twenty-ninth floor of the unused north wing, commanding a view of the full length
of the main east-west block, with a set of 8x40 binoculars from the lost-and-found room
thrown in. Another ten cees covered the services of an off-duty cop to loiter near the side
entrance and report to me when and if the gray-haired gentтАФwho was registered as R.
SethysтАФchose that route to leave the building.
Room service brought me a midnight snack. I ate it in the dark, watching the
activities of the money men behind the dozen lighted windows on their two floors. Mr.
Zablun appeared half an hour after I started my vigil, talking to a group who seemed to
listen with monumental indifference. Men came and went, moving with unhurried
gravity. They did not seem to be doing any drinking; no women were in evidence; no one
even lit a cigar. They were an abstemious bunch, these numismatists. For that matter,
they did not seem much interested in coins. I had a fine, clear view of their activities
through the glass and steelprod walls, and not a glint of gold or silver did I see.
After a few hours of this sport, I left my post and went down to bed. I did not know
what it was I was looking for, but my instincts told me to play a concealed hand, to lie
low and watch. Mr. Zablun had not lifted my souvenir for nothing. Raising a howl when I
discovered the switch would not have bought me anything, but a little judicious spying
might net me something solid to work on. The theft of the gold piece did not lend any
specific support to the sailor's storyтАФZablun might have palmed it for the gold in itтАФbut
on the other hand it had not been the nice, clean dismissal I had expected. Whatever the
coin was, it had not come in a Cracker Jack boxтАФand I had had ample evidence that
there were men loose in the land who would kill to get itтАФ
Or would they? There was no necessary connection between the dead man's story and
the real reason for the hunters on his trail. For all I knew, he might have been an escaped
maniac, and the men in the unmarked suits might have been CBI boys, with orders to
shoot on sight. The shots they had fired at me might have been a simple case of mistaken
identity; maybe they were not expecting anyone but Jack the Ripper in the ruined streets
of Greenleaf.
And maybe I was Shirley Temple. No CBI man that ever packed a badge was as
lousy a shot as the clowns I had gunned down, or as unschooled in the basics of alley
fighting. They might, for reasons known to the inner circles of bureaucracy, wander
around in suits with empty pockets and no labelsтАФbut even a Federal man moving in for
a hot pinch would not blaze away at a stranger on sight.
It was a futile argument, and I was losing both sides of it. I switched off the light,
punched the pillow into shape, and made myself a promise that first thing in the morning
I would scale the coin out over the breakers and channel my efforts to matters of more
immediate concern to my futureтАФsuch as locating a serious poker game to replenish my
reduced resources. I was picturing a succession of inside straights and four-card flushes
when the phone rang.
"MalтАФfunny thing. Your stamp collectorsтАФthey're stirred up like an Elk's smoker
tipped off to a vice raid. Your friend Sethys left by the front door two minutes ago; he's
standing out on the drive in the rain giving the garageman a hard time about bringing out
his car. Now, he says. Hell, it's probably buried in the stacks somewhere down on level