"Destroyer 029 - The Final Death.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

He remembered one more thing he had to do. His monthly call.
He had been making them for eleven years, back since the time when the first Vinnie's Steak House had just opened and was floundering. The rich college kids had not yet discovered it and the visiting businessmen had not known it was there. Angus was desperate for money and the banks were not listening.
Then a Massachusetts friend had told him about a number he could call just to give information on the latest developments in the American meat industry. And Vinnie would get money for it.
By then, Vinnie would have separated his mother into cold cuts for cash, so he called.
A recorded voice told him to talk so he did,
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rambling on for 10 minutes on prices, stock, supply, preparation, control, and service. The recording asked him if he was finished, after a 10-second silence, then thanked him. Three days later in his mailbox, Vinnie found a postal money order for $500. With no return address.
When he tried calling back, the recording told him to return his call on the first of the month. And for 11 years, on the first of every month, Vinnie Angus called the number and rambled for cash.
He wasn't sure that he liked it but the 66,000 tax free dollars he was sure he liked. And what law could he be breaking?
Vinnie picked up the telephone, dialed the area code and seven-digit number, stuck the receiver between his jaw and shoulder, then started picking apart and cleaning his .9 mm sharpshooter's rifle.
The line rang twice before Vinnie heard a series of tonal clicks and then a monotone female voice said: "State name, address, zip code, and information please."
Vinnie was so anxious to get it over with that he did not recognize one more soft click as the upstairs extension phone was lifted.
"Supply has been steady," he said, "but it tapers off in different areas each month. This month it's shank. The quality of the meat itself is the best in years, so I'm expecting a price rise pretty soon.
"I've bitched to my distributor about the USDA markings being darker and deeper than usual. Today I bit into one and it was like eat-
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ing tinfoil. We have to cut a little more of the fat to insure it all coming out."
Vinnie kept talking until he began to hear another conversation going on dimly in the background. At first he thought it was just a telephone echo, but then he was able to distinguish what was being said.
"Spock. This is no time for logic."
"Doctor. There is always time for logic."
"Are you saying, Mr. Spock, that Jim is lost out there somewhere and we are powerless to do anything about it?"
"It is a big galaxy, doctor."
Vinnie Angus quickly finished up. The recording thanked him, there were another series of clicks and the extension was broken.
"Viki?" he exploded. "Is that you?"
Far in the distance, he heard Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise answer: "Warp Factor Eight. Now!"
"Viki? Are you there?"
His oldest daughter answered over the extension from upstairs. "Yes, Daddy. Who you talking to?"
"That's really none of your business, young lady," Vinnie said.
"Really, Daddy. I should think you would be much more respectful to this quadrant's representative from the United Federation of Planets. You're not doing much for intergalac-tie cooperation."
Vinnie Angus shook his head, despite the fact that he could almost see the smile on his daughter's face over the telephone. She was obsessed. Her room was filled with posters of
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the Star Trek crew, models of the Starship Enterprise, the Star Trek technical manual at $6.95, the Star Trek Concordance at $6.95, the Star Trek Reader, $10 in hardcover, six dolls of the Star Trek crew and one Klingon and cheap plastic replicas of the phaser, tricorder, and communicator.
"Try cooperating with this, Viki," Angus said, "I pay five thousand a semester to Yale so you can become a Trekkie?"
Victoria's voice lowered, conspiratorially. "You a spy, Daddy?"
"No. I've been doing this for years. For . . . for the Bureau of Agriculture."
"I never knew they had spies."
"Forget spies, will you. Here you are, 19 years old. . . ."
"Almost 20."
"Almost 20 and you still play with Star Trek dolls. Stop it already. The show's been off for eight years."
"Nine," said Viki. "Do you know what those clicks were at the beginning and end of your call?"
"So they were taping the conversation. So what?"
"Not they, daddy. It."
"What?"
"You were talking to a computer, Daddy."
"So?"
"You don't get it, do you?"
"No," Vinnie shouted. "And I want you to forget it. You didn't hear that phone call, you don't remember it, and you won't mention it to
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anybody. Even your mother. Especially -your mother. You understand?" "I'm not a child, Daddy." "As long as you love a man with pointed ears and green skin, you're a child."
Viki giggled. "Whatever you say, Daddy." She hung up.
Vinnie Angus smiled in spite of himself, thinking of the big luscious girl in tight jeans and sweater and harboring the strong suspicion that she had outgrown Star Trek a year earlier but still played at it just to annoy him. Why not? Daughters had done stranger things. Vinnie finished cleaning his weapons and after his wife had left the kitchen made two bologna-and-cheese sandwiches with pickles. He packed them in a bag with four cans of Uptown Soda, left out his red-and-black woolen hunting cap, and went to bed at 10.