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

a dirt road with the autodrive on ninety.
 Chapter Three
An hour after full dark I pulled into a one-pump motel-cum-caf├й where a long-legged fellow
with thin blondish hair and a mouth like a torn pocket met me at the door with a shotgun. He fueled
me up, sold me coffee and a moon pie with a texture like vinyl tile, and accepted a well-worn
twenty as payment. I felt him smiling craftily at his business acumen; the habits of a lifetime of
penny-pinching are hard to break.
The beach came into view an hour laterтАФa dark mirrorgleam reflecting the dirty clouds boiling
along above. Trees and rooftops showed above the surface for a mile or two out; it had been gently
sloping farmland before the ocean reclaimed it. The pavement slid off under the water without a
ripple; I boosted my revs, rode my air cushion out onto it. It was not recommended practiceтАФif you
lost power you sank, but I was in no mood to go boat hunting. I poured on the coal and headed
south.
It was a nice three-hour run on still water under a moon the color and shape of a rotten
grapefruit. Once a patrol boat hailed me, but I doused my lights and outran him. Once I passed over
a town that had installed one of the new floodproof all-automatic power systems. The lights
gleamed up at me through green water like something from a fairy tale.
Just before dawn I hit a stretch of treetops clogged with floating wildlife. I threaded a twisting
path through them, reached dry land as the sun came up reddish-black and flat on the bottom.
Tampa was a reeking ruin, a seaport town miles from the sea, surrounded by a bog of gray
mud, left high and dry by the freakish withdrawal of the Gulf. Nothing there for me.
Early afternoon brought me into Miami. The beach was wiped cleanтАФa bare sandbar, but the
city proper still gleamed white beside a shore stained black by pumice and scum oil, and heaped
with the jetsam of a drowned continent. Conditions were better here. There had been no major
quakes to judge from the still-standing towers of coral and chartreuse and turquoise; maybe their
hurricane-proof construction had helped when the ground shook under them. There was even a
semblance of normal commerce. Police were much in evidence, along with squads of nervous-
looking Guard recruits weighted down with combat gear. Lights were on in shops and restaurants,
and the polyarcs along Biscayne were shedding their baleful light on an orderly traffic of cars,
trucks and buses. There were fewer people on the streets than in normal times, but that suited me.
I checked into the GulfstreamтАФa lavish hundred and fifty-story hostelry that had known my
custom in happier times. The desk man was a former Las Vegas man named Sal Anzio; he gave a
two-handed shake and the twitch of the left cheek that passed with him for smile.
"Mal Irish," he stated in the tone of one answering questions under duress. "What brings you
into town?"
"Things went a little sour down south," I told him. "The Mexicans have a tendency to get
overexcited when things go wrong, and blame it all on the gringos. Anything doing here?"
"Sure. Plenty of action. We had most of the regular spring crowd down here when the word
went out. Most of 'em stayed on. A few tourists pulled out, but what the hell. We're doing OK. We
got power, water, plenty of reserve food. Every hotel in town had their freezers stocked for a big
summer trade. We're all rightтАФfor another six months, anyway. After thatтАФwell, I got a boat
staked out. For a grand I can fix you with a spot."
I told him I would let him know later, took the key to a suite on the hundred and twelfth, and
took the high-speed lift up.
It was a nice room, spacious, tastefully decorated, with a big double bed and a bath big enough
to water a pet hippo in. I soaked off the dust of five days' travel, called room service for a change of
clothes. I had a drink in the room, then, prompted by a vague yearning for human companionship,
went down to the tenth floor terrace for dinner.
The best of the sunset was just past. Coal-black clouds rimmed with melted gold hung over the
ink-colored sea like a threat. The sky was glowing yellow green, and it shed an eerie, enchanted