"Ward Moore - It Becomes Necessary" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore Ward)

"Yeh, sure." For the first time he showed impatience. "The Third Force and all the rest of it."

"Gar├зon," she called, "une boc encore, s'il vous plait."
 "How can you drink that swill?" he asked, not scornfully but curiously. "Why don't you let me buy
you an honest drink?"

"Pepsicola?"

"If you like. Or a real martini or some of this Norman applejack."

"Shall we consider the amenities taken care of? And come down to business?"

"Sure, sure. Here it is, right on the line: restoration of citizenship (after all, it isn't as though you were a
Jew yourself), full compensation for any property confiscated or bought at less than market value,
guaranteed protection, freedom to travel in or out of the country and fifty thousand bucks in cash."

"And my тАж my husband?"

The prescriptive sympathy on his face made him resemble a beagle who has lost the scent. "Look, I
can't do miracles; nobody can bring back the dead. Like I said, we all make mistakes, don't we? But
hellтАФexcuse meтАФa good looking girl like you can get all the husbands she wants. Genuine American
ones. Especially with fifty grand, along with the body. And, oh yes, we'll throw in a good job
tooтАФmaybe nine, ten thousand a year."

"What am I supposed to do for all this? Shoot a few well-chosen statesmen?"

He leaned back again, making the chair creak. "Kid, you've got nothing but blood on your mind. I've
told you we're not doing things that way. We don't want violence. No violence at all. We just want to be
left alone. Peaceful coexistence. If the Third Force wants to police the Russians, let them go ahead. We
don't mind. But just leave us alone, see?"

"And if they won't leave you alone?"

"We'll fight." The face which had been uncommitted, fixed in an expression of reasoning and
persuasion, became truculent, potentially menacing. Like a policeman or Defender who wears a mask of
good nature. He was undoubtedly both.

"What would you fight with?"

"Oh, we've got a couple of shots in our locker yet. Maybe the war did hit us pretty hard, but even
after you write off Pittsburgh and Gary and BirminghamтАФ"

"And New York, San Francisco, Chicago."

"Sure, sure. But we won, didn't we? We can still get a lot of planes in the air and mobilize an
armyтАФwhich is more than the Russkis can. And we hardly lost a sub. And we know your Third Force is
too chicken to drop C-bombs on usтАФ"

"Not my Third Force."