"Destroyer - 016 - Oil Slick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Warren)

"They don't hang you ever, these days," laughed Philbin.

"Yah. The law doesn't. Unfortunately, you-know-who does."

" 'Deed I do," said Philbin. " 'Deed I do."

And they left the football field in the cab of the small truck, which they soon parked on the bottom of a river. Dr. Ravelstein, three watchmen, cement, wallboard, and bricks went down with their truck.

Dr. Ravelstein's disappearance was noticed the next day.

The disappearance of the three night watchmen was only discovered by the University a month later, when an administrator finally noticed that three employees had not been showing up for work.

Because of this incident a symposium on university-employee relations was held. The chairman of the communications department presided. All groups were invited to participate to "achieve maximum meaningful participation." The conclusion of the symposium, called "Outspeak," was that there was a lack of communication between employees and the university. The only reasonable solution was to double the budget of the communications department in "a massive stopgap restructuring of employee relations through radical communications techniques."

Then Dr. Ravelstein's body floated up from his own cement, along with the three
campus guards. The funny pink substance clinging to their bodies was analyzed and found to be a component of shale.

In what appeared to be a sanitarium in Rye, New York, on the shores of Long Island Sound, information on Dr. Ravelstein's death, along with the death of Dr. Erik Johnson, found its way into the same file. This was done by the computer, which also noted that the substance on Ravelstein's body was shale without oil.

These facts hit the desk of the director of Folcroft, and he found a pattern in them.

The pattern was energy. And death for those who found new sources of it.


CHAPTER FOUR


"What do you know about oil and energy?"

Remo Williams heard the question while focusing on his left pinky knuckle. He was seeing if he could make it jump. Not that there was any purpose in making one's pinky knuckle jump. But it was either that or concentrate on what Dr. Harold Smith was telling him, and that was almost as annoying as looking at Dr. Smith who had picked the only straight-backed chair in the room and started talking nearly a half hour before about this scientist floating up in some river and that scientist going down some stairwell.

Remo's feet were propped up. Above his left pinky knuckle, through the hotel window, were the Rockies. Next door, Chiun was watching the last of "The Rampant and the Beautiful." This month, half a dozen of the main characters were getting abortions-the viewer knew this because the best friends in the story were telling everyone else. They were supposed to be friends, because they looked very sad when they disclosed these things under the pretext of sharing problems. In real life, this would be called vicious gossip. In "The Rampant and the Beautiful," it was called helping.

Remo heard the organ music of the daytime drama through the hotel wall. He heard Smith's sharp New England whip of a voice pick at him. He decided he loved his pinky knuckle.

"What do you know about oil and energy?" Smith repeated.

"Everything there is to know. Everything that will be known, and everything that was once known but is now forgotten," said Remo, who started a race between his thumb knuckle and pinky knuckle, the loser to be unloved for the rest of the afternoon.

"You're joshing, of course."

"Would I fool the man who framed me for murder, then sent me out to kill?"

"This seems to be a recurring problem on your part," Smith said. "I thought by now that you understood it is necessary that you be officially dead to insure that there is no record of you anywhere. The man who doesn't exist for the organization that doesn't exist. It has to be that way."

"Yeah, I guess," said Remo, allowing the index finger to join the contest.

"Are you looking at your knuckles or listening to me?"

"I can do both, you know."