"Spider Robinson - C5 - Lady Slings the Booze" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

same time? Heart banging and buzzing in my ears and dry mouth and shaky knees? Knowing there was
really nothing to be afraid of any more, but still scared to death, feeling more like a thirteen-
year-old than usual? But at the same time almost happy at getting to see something like that,
knowing that now I'd have a real, gruesome, Mike Hammer kind of story to tell all the guys,
already planning how to tell it?
Well, that's just how I felt that night twenty years later, walking up the long curving
driveway to that damned mansion.
This was exactly the kind of opportunity I'd been praying for-and I was so scared I was
nauseous, or possibly the other way around. Feeling like more of a thirteen-year-old than usual.
That particular mix of feelings made me think of Uncle Louie for the first time in years, and I
heard going through my head the same words I'd said to myself that morning when I'd found him.
God, please don't let me do anything to fuck this up. This time. I just managed to stop myself
short of promising to make a novena again-which I hadn't even followed through on the last time. I
kept walking toward the mansion, concentrating on looking bored.
Just as I was approaching the door, I pressed my left arm against me, intending to take a
little comfort from the solid presence of my gun. But there's something about those trench coats
they never seem to mention in the books or movies. There's a lot of extra material under the
armpits that doesn't really need to be there, all bunched up. I've tried a dozen different brands,
and they're all like that. So squeezing the gun; was a mistake. And doing it right by the door was
bad, because of the black-and-white sitting by the door. Never wake up cops by dropping a .45 on
the pavement next to them. Especially not there.
So there was some conversation, and they let me live, and I returned the favor.
Reluctantly: the skinny one had a laugh exactly like a mule braying-hee!...hee!...hee!-and the fat
one...Well, anyway, by the time I entered the mansion I was flustered on top of everything else.
So if you want to know what the place looks like inside, you'll have to look it up
someplace. I kept telling myself to look around and memorize it for my memoirs some day, but I
kept forgetting. I had a lot on my mind. There were a lot of big rooms, I remember, and a lot of
stairs, and a hell of a lot of carpet everywhere, so thick it was like walking on a furry sponge
mattress. I wanted to take off my shoes. I promised myself I would on the way out.
The butler was black as Lenny Bruce's humor and so old I wanted to ask him how the boat
ride had been. He didn't, offer to take my trench coat or fedora. He moved like that Lincoln robot
Disney had at the World's Fair if there'd been a brownout. He went up stairs one at a time instead
of one after the other. He stopped outside a big door with an elaborate frame and turned to me.
"You are armed, sir," he said gravely. It wasn't quite a question.
"Isn't everybody?"
He held out his hand. I shrugged...and squeezed my left arm against me. The gun sank an
inch into the carpet with a plop.
He waited, without changing expression.
I sighed, and dropped the sap and the brass knuckles on the carpet beside the gun.
"Fluoroscope in the foyer?" I asked. "Or just a metal detector? Professional interest."
He waited patiently, hand still outstretched.
I shrugged again, and added the switchblade to the pile on the floor.
"We are running late, sir," he said sadly.
I stood on one foot, took the little .22 holdout from the ankle holster, and placed it on
his upturned palm. It usually gets by: no metal parts. "The only other weapon I have on me," I
said, "is attached. But I promise not to touch it."
He didn't even frown at the crudity. He looked at the pistol, dropped it on the carpet
with the rest of the swag, and swept it all delicately to one side with one foot. It left a trail
in the carpet.
"While I'm here," I qualified.