"Larry Niven - Dry Run" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

"Not your own. Harvey belonged to you and to Janet Grey Simpson, your wife. Your wife has had possession of Harvey for seven months, ever since the two of you separated. Do you deny your intent to commit murder?"
Life after death. Reward and punishment? Simpson said, "I refuse to answer. Are you my judge?"
"No. Another will judge you. I collect only evidence, and you."
Simpson didn't answer. The strange peace was still with him, and he felt that he'd already found the right answer.
"Well, we must find out," said the voiceless voice.
What a weird nightmare, Simpson thought, and tried to pull himself awake. I dreamed I was in an accident... at the worst possible time... I'd already killed Harvey... poor Harvey. Why would I pick Harvey? There were voices around him.
Cold reality touched him, icy cold, icy and rough against his cheek. He lay on hard concrete. His chin hurt, and his belly hurt below the edge of his rib cage.
He looked up into the face of a policeman. "Am I dying?"
"Ambulance will be here... moment."
The car! Harvey! He tried to say, "What did you do with the car?"
The policeman spoke calmly. "Take it to ... get it whenever ... address ..." His voice faded in and out; and out.
He woke again, thinking, nightmare! And again it was too real. There was a cloth under his cheek. Someone had been a good Samaritan.
He asked nobody, "Am I dying?"
"Just take it easy." Two men folded his arms around him and picked him up in a peculiar grip that supported his innards. The pain under his ribs was not great, but it felt unnatural, terrifying.
"I think he could walk himself," said one.
"I don't dare," Simpson got out, trying to convey his fear. Something broken in my belly or in my skull. Broken, bleeding, slowly bleeding away my life with nothing to show on the outside. He was convinced he was dying. It was all that remained of a part of the nightmare that he could not visualize at all.
The men put him on a stretcher and unfolded him into prone position.
The rest of it was hazy. The ride in the ambulance, the doctor asking him questions, the same questions asked earlier by the police. Questions he answered without thought, almost without memory. He didn't become fully aware until an intern said, "Nothing broken. Just bruises."
Simpson was startled. "Are you sure?"
"Have your own doctor take a look tomorrow. For tonight you'll be all right. No broken bones. Is that the only pain, under your ribs?"
"My chin hurts."
"Oh, that's just a scrape. Did you faint?"
"Yes."
"Probably got it then. You're lucky, you know. Your spleen is right under those bruised ribs."
"Jesus."
"You think you can get up? Your wife is coming for you."
Janet, coming here? Janet! "I'll take a taxi," said Simpson. He rolled onto his side, sat up on the high operating table and climbed down to the floor, treating himself like a sackful of expensive raw eggs. "Where did they take my car?"
"The police gave me the address." The man tapped his pockets. One crackled. "Here."
Simpson took the slip, looked at it and shoved it in his pocket. There was a chance he could get the car transferred to his own company before the police looked in the trunk. Or was there? They might have looked already.
What would the police do about a Great Dane with a bullet in his head?
Undoubtedly they'd tell Janet.
He must get the car tomorrow.
The intern showed him to a telephone and loaned him a cigarette. After he called the cab, someone else showed him where to wait. He'd waited five minutes when Janet came.
Her hair was back to auburn. The dress she wore was severe, almost a suit, and it was new. She looked competent and sure of herself.
"How did you know?" he asked her.
"How do you think? The police called my house. They must have found the number on your license, if you didn't tell them."
"I've got a taxi coming."
"Let it come. You're going with me. How did you manage to bang yourself up?"
"There was a traffic jam. I got--"
"Can you stand up?"
She was always interrupting. Once he'd thought she did it deliberately. Once she had, perhaps, but it was a habit she'd never lose.
He stood. The pain under his ribs made him walk carefully. He dreaded what it would feel like tomorrow.
"I'll take you to the beach," she said.
"Okay."
He lived in the beach house now. Janet had been awarded the main house.
He reached the car by leaning on Janet's shoulder. The touch of her was disturbing, and her perfume roused sharp memories. Aside from premarital prostitutes, he had never carnally known a woman other than Janet. Now she distracted him, and he kept landing hard on his feet and jarring his ribs. But her strength was an asset in settling him into the passenger seat.
"Now. How did it happen?"
He told her, in detail. Reaction made him want to babble. Somehow he managed to leave the dog out of it. But he told her how sure he had been that he was going to die, and he spoke of his surprise when the intern told him he wasn't. By the time he finished they were back on the freeway.
The lights, the flying lights . He planted his feet and tried to push himself through the seat. Janet didn't notice.
"Harvey's missing," she said.