"Keith Laumer - The Monitors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

The Monitors
Keith Laumer




CHAPTER ONE


It was a warm afternoon in the city. A fitful wind whirled its burden of gaily- colored aspirin and
tranquillizer cartons and gum and cigarette wrappers into the faces of the well-fed burghers and
their mates who puffed along on bunioned feet, their life- blunted features set in expressions of
opaque anonymity, oblivious of the mixed chorus of auto horns, the spirited cries of impatient taxi
drivers, and the merry voices of news vendors hawking details of the latest disaster.
Ace Blondel stood before a shop window, idly noting the temperature of the pavement through
his thinning shoesoles and admiring a display of hand-painted neckties, glossy cardboard shoes
and sports coats nattily fashioned of lightweight burlap stiffened with glucose, all marked down - -
according to attached placards - - from formerly incredible sums in honor of National Easy
Payment Week. In the dusty glass he saw the reflection of the busy street, the mismatched
building fronts across the way with their clustered signboards thrusting for favored placement like
jungle foliage fighting for survival, and, above, a narrow strip of smoke- dimmed blue sky.
He turned in time to confront a nubile wench with lust - red lips, bosoms thrust up and forward
like fruits offered on a tray, her one-piece pelvis clamped in a corset as rigid as armor plate. His
tentative smile died at birth, impaled by the kind of look reserved in other cultures for convicted
rapists. He sighed philosophically, glanced at his seven- jewel wrist watch, and headed for the
paintedover glass door of Harry's Marine Bar and Grill.
Inside, a television set above the long bar made sounds like a lovelorn elk, shedding its
flickering glow on extinct fishermen's nets, crumbling cork floats, a mummified tuna with a brass
plate celebrating its capture, and a handpainted mural representing extravagantly mammalian
mermaids, their charms ignored by a pair of regulars perched on stools like jockeys waiting for
the bell that never comes.
A large man with a white apron tied high over a massive paunch paused in his glass polishing,
shifted his toothpick, and called: "Ace! Welcome home, pal! What'll it be?"
"Just squeeze me one out of the bar rag, Harry." Blondel slid onto a stool as far as possible
from the sound of the telly. "That's all the budget allows for the present."
"Broke again, pal?" The bartender shifted the toothpick again, leaned on the bar with an elbow
the size of a ham hock. "I thought you had a swell job with the Health and Welfare Department
airlifting encyclopedias to them underprivileged Bulgarians."
"It was the Cambodians; and it wasn't encyclopedias -- it was movie magazines. And it was the
US Information Service, not HEW. And as of last week I don't have the job."
"What happened?"
"Somebody discovered the funny books were Red Chinese propaganda. A fink in the translating
department, they figure. They washed out the program, and me with it."
"Tough," Harry commiserated. "Why don't you sign on regular with one of the airlines, Ace?
With your experience you'd be a cinch."
 "Not for me, Harry. The hours wouldn't suit me."
"What hours? I got a brother- in- law flies one day, off three -- "
"Regular hours. Also regular schedules and regular forms to fill out -- "
"And regular pay checks." Harry did things with bottles and glasses, put a drink in front of
Blondel.