"Van Lustbader, Eric - Linnear 01 - The Ninja" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

it.'
Goldman took out a cigar from a thick wooden humidor, contemplated it. 'Nick, I
won't bore you by telling you how many bright guys would give their left nut for
your job -'
'Thanks,' Nicholas said dryly. 'I appreciate that.'
'Everyone's gotta do for himself.' Goldman's eyes regarded the cigar's tip. He
took a bite off the end, struck a long wooden match.
'I wish you wouldn't?' Nicholas said. 'I've given up smoking.'
Goldman eyed him, the flame in mid-air. 'Just like you," he said flatly.
'Everything at once.' He puffed at the flame, flicked the match into a wide
glass ashtray. But, unwilling perhaps to admit unconditional defeat, he stuck
the cold cigar unhappily in his mouth, chewed on it meditatively. 'You know,
Nick, I like to think of myself as more than just your boss. It's been a lotta
years since I picked you up right off the boat.'
'Plane.'
Goldman waved his hand. 'Whatever.' He took the cigar out of his mouth. 'As a
friend, I think you owe me some kind of an explanation.'
'Look, Sam -'
He put his hand up, palm outwards. 'Hey, I'm not gonna try to stop you from
going. You're a big boy now. And I can't say I'm not disappointed, because I am.
Why the hell should I lie to you? Only, I'd just like to know.'
Nicholas got up, went over to the window. Goldman swung his chair around to
follow his progress like a radar tracking station.
'It's not even very clear to me yet, Sam.' He rubbed a hand across his forehead.
'I don't know, it's like this place has become a prison. A place to get out of
instead of come into.' He turned to face Goldman. 'Oh, it isn't this place,
itself. There's nothing wrong - I suspect...' He shrugged. 'Perhaps it's
advertising. I feel lost within the medium now, as if the electronicization has
no meaning for me. As if I've slipped back, somehow, into another age, another
time.' He leaned forwards, a peculiar kind of tension lacing his upper torso.
'And now I'm beginning to feel as if I'm adrift, far out at sea where there's no
sign of land in any direction.'
'Then there's nothing I can do to change your mind.'
'Nothing, Sam.' -Goldman sighed. 'Edna will be very upset.'
For several moments their eyes locked in a kind of silent struggle where each,
it seemed, was sizing the other up.
Goldman put his thick hands flat on the desktop. 'You know,' he said quietly,
'years ago in the police department of this city it used to be that the only way
you got ahead was if you had a rabbi down at headquarters. Someone who looked
after you when things got rough or' - he shrugged - 'who knows? Used to be the
way of the world - all over.' He put the unlit cigar into the opposite side of
his mouth. 'Now, maybe, it's different. Corporations, they don't know from
rabbis. You gotta confirm. You gotta suck up to all the vice-presidents, get
invited to their weekend parties, be nice to their wives who're so horny and
unhappy they'd hump a tree if it could tell them how pretty they look; you gotta
live in that certain part of Connecticut where they all live in their two-storey
houses with the semi-circular drives. Used to be they had button-down minds; now
they got computer minds. That's getting ahead, Nick, business-wise. So they tell
me. Me, I wouldn't know. Not first-hand anyway. I'd retire before they'd get me
into that kind of trap.' His eyes were clear and they sparkled despite the fact