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

"I'll pay for a change of clothes. You're making the drive nonstop anyhow."

"But I've got to tell my wife where I'm going, you know."

Remo threw two tens into the front seat, but the driver explained that he and his wife were very close. They were very close up to fifty dollars, when she became nosy and possessive. Remo slept all the way to Berkeley. He arrived at the science building just in time to see the fourth floor of a large red brick and aluminum building come blasting across campus. Shards of glass sprayed a half-mile into downtown Berkeley, cutting only 227 undergraduates who had been manning booths to collect signatures for the legalization of marijuana. Ugly billowing black smoke belched from where the fourth floor had been. People started running toward the building. The nervous blare of a siren sounded far away.

A dark-haired coed in tee shut and faded jeans covered her face, weeping.

"Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no."

Remo rolled down the cab window.

"That's the science building, isn't it?" he asked.

"What?" she sobbed.

"Science building, right?"

"Yes, it's awful. How could anything like this happen?"

Remo rolled up the window.

"You should have made it faster through the Rockies."

"I got you here late, huh?" said the driver.

"Yes and no."

"I just hope there weren't people in there," said the driver. He had the look of horror that comes when people realize that life is not as secure as they have themselves convinced. The look would disappear as the driver once again rebuilt the illusion that he was not in fact at the gates of death with every breath he took.

"That's awful," he said. "To think it could happen here."

"Where should it happen?"

"Well, somewhere else."

"Like death. Death happens somewhere else, right?" said Remo.

"Well, yeah. Yeah," said the driver. "It should happen somewhere else." He stared as ambulances were loaded at the building, some rushing away with sirens on high, others taking a slow, even pace. They were the ones carrying the dead.

"Whoever did that ought to be punished," the driver said.

"I think you're right. Sloppy work should always be punished."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, dear driver to whom I am trying to give a greater tip than just money because he is an American of my own blood, there is one sure thing that will be punished in this world and that is doing something wrong- making a wrong decision or making a wrong move. That's always punished. Evil? Well, maybe that's just an extension of wrong thought."

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked the driver, shaking behind the wheel. Firemen were lowering bodies from the charred holes in the fourth-floor wall. The driver was not looking at Remo, but at the bodies.