"Tom Purdom-Toys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

up. His voice took on the wooden, pompous tones of a television superhero giving a lecture on the evils
of badthink.
"We're not here to take your hostages, Tim. Don't jump to conclusions. We're here to protect you
from that mob out there. Our calculations based on advanced mathematical behavioral psychology
indicate they may storm you in about twenty minutes. Where are you? We can't help you if we don't
know where you are."
Tim tipped his head to one side and looked at him as if he had just been offered ten acres on Pluto.
"Who do you think you're fooling? I can handle that mob with half the stuff I've got already. Why don't
you go back to headquarters and finish your card game?"
"Quit insulting our intelligence," a girl said over a loudspeaker on the console. "Kids aren't as dumb as
you think they are."
"We've been planning this thing for months," Tim said. "You aren't gonna spoil it with dumb tricks like
that. We've made up our minds-- we're gonna have every single thing we've got a right to have.
Nobody's gonna stop us. If you're looking for somebody to protect, you'd better look after those
overgrown clods outside."
Fracarro swore in Italian. "If you had any brains, you wouldn't have started this thing in the first place.
What are you trying to get-- room and board in jail for the rest of your life? What do you think this is,
some kind of television program where they go bang bang and the people get up and do the commercial
afterward? If we have to come in there and get you, you'll be lucky if they let you out before you're fifty."
Edelman winced. The girl on the loudspeaker said something in Italian just as flawless as Fracarro's
and Fracarro's voice rose to a scream. Tim threw back his head and laughed and Edelman backed out of
the room waving his gun. He stumbled over the sill as he went out the window and caught himself with a
yelp.
Childish voices laughed. The air car came up to meet him and he stamped his foot peevishly and
crawled through the open door.
Fracarro was waiting for him on the fourth floor balcony. She was waving her pistol at the shattered
window and screaming like a madwoman. "You little mistakes! Get up here and do what you're told.
Nobody talks to me like that. When I get my hands on you..."
"Get in," Edelman snarled. "You're ruining everything."
"Get out of here before I sic a gorilla on you," Tim Rice blared. "Go park some place with your
high-IQ friend."
Edelman pulled Fracarro into the car. The traditional ya-ya chorus boomed out of the loudspeaker and
the children in the yard joined in. Fracarro struggled for a moment and then they backed away from the
house and looked at it as if they were wondering what to do next.
"I think they bought it," Fracarro said.
Edelman rubbed his arms. He could still feel her young body moving inside them. They had been
working together less then ten days but he had already spent two sessions with his psychotherapist
ventilating his feelings about her. He valued his relationship with his wife too much to risk wrecking it for
something that would be different and exciting but no better. There were times, however...
"I move we go in the fourth floor," he said. "We'll let the ventilator pull the gas out of the fifth. They
sound like we'd better leave them a way out."
Another chorus of noises from the children and animals urged them back as they moved toward the
house. "I'm warning you for the last time," Tim Rice blared. "I'm not playing games. Beat it."
Edelman leaped onto the balcony with his gun drawn. His foot dragged across the top of the rampart
and he pitched forward onto his hands.
Fracarro's boots landed beside his head. She pulled him up with a snarl. "How did you ever get past
the examiners? If they'd told me I was working with a clod like you, I'd have handed in my resignation."
"Leave me alone," Edelman said. "You're the one that made them angry."
***