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

"Hey," came a voice from behind Remo, who turned into the already perspiring face of the gray-haired man he had met before.

"Going to race, huh? That's great. Just great. My name's Merrick, by the way. James Merrick. No offense or anything, but no one's going to beat me today. Hey, you better get a number. See you at the finish. If you finish."

The best Remo could do was to find a red magic marker and to scrawl "remo" on the back of a parking ticket he lifted from a windshield. And then the gun sounded and Remo was off like a speeding bullet. James Merrick saw him pulling away and smiled to himself. Marathons were filled with people like that-people with no serious thought of completing the race, who broke like sprinters, ran a mile as fast as they could, then dropped out and spent the rest of their lives bragging about how they had led the Boston Marathon for awhile.

That had been at the race's start, but now Remo had passed Merrick for the second time, twenty miles later, and to add insult to injury he had just stolen Merrick's big number six.

Merrick tried to cling mentally to the slim thick-wristed figure but Remo soon disappeared over a hill.

Merrick plugged on, no longer sure whether he was winning or losing the race, his mind growing as fatigued as his body, and as he crossed the Charlestown line, he saw Remo again, this time passing him with a bright blue six on his shirt.

Merrick tried to scream, come back with my number, you frigging maniac who isn't even sweating, running circles around me with your frigging red Remo. But the exertion would have been too much.

Crossing into Danvers, he started to cry tears of frustration when the broadly-smiling Remo passed him for the fourth time. James Merrick wanted to beg, please, please, crazy person, don't you know how much this means to me? Win the race if you want to, but leave me alone. Please?

Finally Merrick crossed into Boston. He felt renewed. Only two hours had passed. He had pushed himself and his time was better than had ever been seen in the Boston Marathon. This he knew. He swept forward with new vitality. His second wind had arrived.

And left as Remo passed him for the fifth time a second later.

James Merrick collapsed with an anguished gasp. He later didn't remember how long he huddled, head in his arms on the side of the road into Boston with his dirty sneakers and ripped sweat shirt, but when he looked up it seemed darker. He didn't see people pass him. He didn't care. Instead he stumbled to a bus stop, caught a bus, and got off three blocks from home.

What would he say? Should he stay in a hotel? No, he hadn't any wallet with him. What the hell. Probably no one had even noticed he was gone. Carol had still been asleep when Merrick left that morning and David had been watching Speed Racer and hadn't even turned when his father said "So long."

James Merrick slowly plodded up the steps, fighting tears. It wasn't his loss of the race that got him: it was his own failure. He walked into the house.

"Jim, is that you?"

"Yes," he croaked.

"What are you doing here?" his wife cried, running down from upstairs, "Everybody's been looking for you. I've been getting calls since two o'clock."

"I don't want any calls," Merrick said miserably.

Carol's face became stern. "Now I know you're tired but you go right back to Copley Square and accept your trophy." Merrick managed "Wha?"

"They've been looking all over for you. Nobody ever ran that fast. Like a sprinter they said. Going so fast all they could see was your number six." She looked down at his sweatshirt.

"Oh, you poor thing. It must have gotten ripped off. You go up and lie down. I'll call the athletic committee and tell them you're here."

"Where's David?" Merrick asked. "Out telling all his friends that you won. Now, go lie down, will you?"

Merrick heard and obeyed. He didn't care how long his nirvana lasted. If it only lasted a moment, it was still one moment of perfection, more than most men had.

A moment before he reached his personal cloud nine, he thanked all his lucky stars for a gray-dressed, non-perspiring figment of his imagination named Remo.

At that moment, Remo was rejecting an assignment and, because he was perfect, trying to do it in a nice way.

"Blow it out your ears," Remo said on the telephone to Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of CURE. "I don't care how many Mafia thugs are meeting in New York. You do something about them."