"Charles Stross - Merchant princes 02 - The Hidden Family" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

She glanced at Brill, who mimed incomprehension Until she was forced to smile.
"Still. Tomorrow I'm going to spend some time in a museum. ThenтАФ" She glanced at
Paulette.

"Oh no, you're not going to do that again," Paulie began.

"Oh yes, I am." Miriam grinned humorlessly. "It's the only way to crack the
story wide open." Her eyes went wide. "Shit! I'd completely forgotten! I've got
a feature to file with Steve, for The Heraldl The deadline's got to be real
soon! If I miss it there's no way I'll get thecolumnтАФ"

"Miriam."

"Yes, Paulie?"

"Why are you still bothering about that?"

"IтАФ" Miriam froze for a moment. "I guess I'm still think-

ing of going back to my old life," she said slowly. "It's something to hang
onto."

"Right." Paulette nodded. "Now tell me. How much money is there on that platinum
card?"

Pause. "About one point nine million dollars left."

"Miriam?"

"Yes, Paulie?"

"As your legal advisor I am telling you to shut the fuck up and get a good
night's sleep. You can sort out whether you're going to write the article
tomorrowтАФbut I'd advise you to drop it. Say you've got stomach flu or something.
Then you can take an extra day over your preparations for the journey. Got it?"

"Yes, Paulie."

"And another thing?"

"What's that?"

"Drink your wine and shut your mouth, dear, you look like a fish."

The next day, Miriam pulled out her notebook computerтАФ which was now acquiring a
few scratchesтАФand settled down to pound the keyboard while Paulette took Brill
shopping. It wasn't hard work, and she already knew what she was going to write,
and besides, it saved her having to think too hard about her future. The main
headache was not having access to her Mac, or a broadband connection. Paulie,
despite her brief foray into dot-com management, had never seen the point of