"Mack Reynolds - Code Duello" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

side."

"All right, all right," Mextaxa said. "The point's made. I suppose your
makeup is a natural for eavesdropping and such." He shook his head as
she returned to her chair. "It's just thatтАж" He let the sentence fade away
and looked at the others thus far silent, two special talents operatives.

The one Lee Chang Chu had pointed out earlier as Zorro Juarez, the
bullwhip artist from the planet Vacamundo, was a handsome man in the
Latin tradition, evidently on the dour and quiet side by nature. He sat
fiddling with an object that looked like a cross between a swagger stick
and a foot and a half of sawed-off broom-handle. It seemed to be of highly
decorated leather.
 Metaxa said, "Lee Chang has evidently seen your whip demonstrations.
It all sounds very well, but where's the whip?"

Zorro Juarez said, "Wrapped around my waist."

Metaxa snorted. "Not exactly a weapon you could get into action in a
hurry."

Zorro had been pounding his leather baton in the palm of his left hand.
SuddenlyтАФhe must have touched a stud, or somethingтАФa section of plastic
thong shot out from the end of that baton, which now proved to be the
whip handle. He flicked it once and it snaked, to gently pluck out from the
Commissioner's breast pocket, the stylo he kept there. Another twist of
wrist and the stylo was in the hand of Zorro Juarez. He tossed it on the
desk.

"I say, that's a new one," Dorn Horsten said enthusiastically.

Zorro said, even as he touched the stud again, "We all carry them on
Vacamundo." The plastic thong disappeared back into the handle.

Metaxa snorted. His eyes went to the fourth member of the party. Jerry
Rhodes was slumped in his chair, in an easy-going attitude. His face was
pleasantly vacant, almost to the point of being inane.

"I suppose you're going along to bring everybody luck," Metaxa said.

Jerry shrugged amiably. "It doesn't work that way, sir. My luck is only
for me. I have to be involved."

Metaxa stared at him. "Look, if you're so lucky, why don't you go to the
planet Vegas, or one of the other worlds where they have free enterprise,
and such things as gambling? You could clean up."

Jerry nodded, agreeably. "Actually, I'm persona non grata on Vegas.
But that's not the only thing. You see, you don't have any particular need
for money when you're completely lucky. You get everything you need-"