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

"You're waiting for the dentist?" the Monitor persisted.
"Wha' ya 'hink, I'm wa'in fer a bus?"
"How long have you been here, sir?" The Monitor came into the room, polite but insistent. His
partner was right behind him.
"Who wan's to know? Ge' lost."
"Your name please, sir?"
The locked door behind Blondel opened. He looked up to see a youngish, suntanned face with
wavy black hair, a tight line of mouth and heavy- rimmed glasses above starched whites. The
newcomer gave the two Monitors an impersonal look, glanced down at Blondel without surprise.
"You can come in now, Mr. Frudlock," he said and held the door open. Blondel stood, holding
his jaw in place with one hand.
"That biscuspid's giving you trouble again, eh, Mr. Frudlock?" The dentist looked solemn.
"Maybe we'd better just go ahead with an extraction." Their eyes met; Blondel thought he saw the
flicker of an eyelid.
"Wha'ever you say, Doctor, eh, Maxwell." Blondel went past him into a tight little room filled
with glassfronted cases surrounding a chair that made the one at San Quentin look like Granny's
rocker. Over the graymetal bulk of an air conditioner set in the window he could see the street
below, with clumps of townfolk gathered here and there to watch the excitement. Only one
Monitor was in sight, standing on the corner opposite. Beyond the door he could hear well-
modulated voices exchanging highly civilized questions and answers. Then doors clicked and the
man in white was sliding inside, looking like a youth who has just set fire to a policeman.
"They're gone," he said, and did something with his right ear.
"Thanks, Doc," Blondel started. The dentist twiddled his ear again. Blondel ignored the
eccentricity. "What's the best way out of here?" He motioned to the window. "That route seems a
little exposed."
"Who sent you?" The dentist was giving him a one- eyebrow- up look now.
"The yellowjackets chased me in here. They're mad at me because I broke a couple of their
toys and then ran out on them. There aren't too many ways to run in your town."
The dentist frowned. "And you just ... happened along here to my office?"
"That's right."
The dentist moved casually around the table and stationed himself near a filing cabinet. The
manner in which his hand hovered near the lock suggested that it contained something besides
files.
"Look, Doc," Blondel said hastily. "I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm just a guy who
wandered in off the street. I'm grateful to you for shaking those two goons, but now I'll just get
on with my paper route." He stepped toward the door.
"Just a minute." The dentist nipped at his lower lip with a tooth that had obviously been
brushed twice a day and had seen its dentist twice a year! "What did you do to attract their
attention?"
Blondel gave him a brief rundown on his activities. Maxwell smiled when he described the
accident to the heli and said "Ah!" when he reached the break from the squad car. "I had a kind of
vague idea of making it to some town they haven't hit yet," Blondel concluded. "But it looks like
they planned this thing right down to the cheese in the mousetrap."
The dentist nodded. "All right, I'll take a chance on you," he said crisply. "You may be a plant,
but if you are, you'll live to regret it -- just barely." He turned and opened a drawer marked KIL-
KUR, twiddled things, and slipped out a soft- leather holster with a small shiny gun with a long slim
barrel. It disappeared under his left arm. "Come on." Blondel followed him into the outer office;
Maxwell paused long enough to make a minute adjustment to the angle at which his second- best
diploma hung, then eased ope n the door and slid out. They went along the hall, in through a door,
just like the others, that concealed a narrow stair that led down to a fire door opening on a