"John Varley - Press Enter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

even make. I won't go so far as to nominate him for sainthood, but by
default-if for no other reason-I hereby leave all deed and title to my real
property and the structure thereon to Victor Apfel."
I looked at Osborne, and those tired eyes were weighing me.
"But I don't want it!"
"Do you think this is the reward Kluge mentioned in the phone call?"
"It must be," I said. "What else could it be?"
Osborne sighed, and sat back in his chair. "At least he didn't try to
leave you the drugs. Are you still saying you didn't know the guy?"
"Are you accusing me of something?"
He spread his hands. "Mister Apfel, I'm simply asking a question.
You're never one hundred percent sure in a suicide. Maybe it was a
murder. If it was, you can see that, so far, you're the only one we know of
that's gained by it."
"He was almost a stranger to me."
He nodded, tapping his copy of the computer printout. I looked back
at my own, wishing it would go away.
"What's thisтАж mistake you didn't make?"
I was afraid that would be the next question.
"I was a prisoner of war in North Korea," I said.
 Osborne chewed that over for a while.
"They brainwash you?"
"Yes." I hit the arm of my chair, and suddenly had to be up and
moving. The room was getting cold. "No. I don'tтАж there's been a lot of
confusion about that word. Did they 'brainwash' me? Yes. Did they
succeed? Did I offer a confession of my war crimes and denounce the
U.S. Government? No."
Once more, I felt myself being inspected by those deceptively tired
eyes.
"You still seem to haveтАж strong feelings about it."
'"It's not something you forget."
"Is there anything you want to say about it?"
"It's just that it was all soтАж no. No, I have nothing further to say. Not
to you, not to anybody."
"I'm going to have to ask you more questions about Kluge's death."
"I think I'll have my lawyer present for those." Christ. Now I am going
to have to get a lawyer. I didn't know where to begin.
Osborne just nodded again. He got up and went to the door.
"I was ready to write this one down as a suicide," he said. "The only
thing that bothered me was there was no note. Now we've got a note." He
gestured in the direction of Kluge's house, and started to look angry.
"This guy not only writes a note, he programs the fucking thing into his
computer, complete with special effects straight out of Pac-Man.
"Now, I know people do crazy things. I've seen enough of them. But
when I heard the computer playing a hymn, that's when I knew this was
murder. Tell you trie truth, Mr. Apfel, I don't think you did it. There must
be two dozen motives for murder in that printout. Maybe he was
blackmailing people around here. Maybe that's how he bought all those
machines. And people with that amount of drugs usually die violently. I've
got a lot of work to do on this one, and I'll find who did it." He mumbled