"Destroyer - 025 - Sweet Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Warren)

"Too bad. I could have helped you find yourself," Margie said.

Remo felt sorry for her because she wasn't perfect like him. He set the time as 10:27. Chiun's daily ration of soap operas would begin at noon sharp.

"Look," Remo said. "Come back in two hours and go up to Suite 1014. You'll recognize it 'cause it doesn't have a door. Just go in and make yourself at home until I get back." He turned her around and patted her behind. "Run along now. Remember. About two hours. Bring your friends. Bring all your friends."

Margie giggled and took off toward Kenmore Square like a rocket.

Remo wandered down across the Christian Science Center and toward the Prudential Building, the second tallest skyscraper in Boston, It used to be the first until another insurance company had built a solid glass monstrosity designed to reflect the sky and hundreds of birds killed themselves every day by flying into it.

Hundreds of people were milling about in the Prudential Mall. Remo really did not notice them because he was watching his legs move almost perfectly. He was so intent on his feet he almost walked into a middle-aged man bouncing up and down.

"Hey. Watch what you're doing," the man said.

Remo looked up and saw the crowd milling around him, then looked back to the graying man in his white shorts with red racing stripes, gray sweat shirt, and Adidas sneakers.

"What are you doing?" asked Remo.

"Getting set," the man said.

"For what?"

"For what? Are you kidding? Where have you been, man?"

"Well, I was in Korea for a while."

"Oh, yeah. I was in Korea too," the man said. "What were you doing?"

"Wiping out most of the standing army," said Remo, looking out over all the bobbing heads. "What is all this?"

"It's the Boston Marathon," said the man who had been to Korea himself for awhile. "We run to Brickton, Massachusetts, and back."

"What for?"

The graying man looked at Remo as if he were crazy. The towel probably helped, although, among all the shorts, it looked just like an eccentric kilt.

"How far is Brickton?" asked Remo.

"Thirteen miles," the man said.

"I'll be right back," Remo said. Fifteen minutes later, Remo stepped out of a men's shop dressed like the man he had been speaking to-in white shorts with red stripes, a gray sweatshirt, and Adidas running shoes, all charged to his hotel room and verified by the store clerk with a call to the hotel which informed the clerk frostily that the gentleman from Room 1014 had infinite credit, whether he was wearing a towel or not.

Remo joined all the runners in the sun of downtown Boston as they gathered around the entrance to the Prudential Building from Boylston Avenue.

A heavy, red-haired man was waving the starting gun and shouting, "Five minutes. Five minutes."

Suddenly, hundreds of people started leaping, breathing deep, stretching, and running in place all around Remo. He felt like laughing. Warm-up exercises were a joke.

Early on in his training, Chiun had told him: "One must always be ready. We do not practice eating before meals. Why practice running before running?"