"Destroyer 040 - Dangerous Games.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"I told your secretary," said Remo as he perched on the edge of Hefferling's desk. "I am Everyman. I speak for Everyman. If I opened my shirt, you would see a big red 'E' tattooed on my chest and it would stand for Everyman."
"You're nuts," Hefferling said. Suddenly, for a moment, he was frightened. The man was obviously a lunatic, maybe one whose brain had gone soft from spending too many hours in too many gas lines under too much hot sun. He decided to take a softer tone. "Well, what do you want, Everyman? Something about decimals?"
"No," Remo said. "She got that wrong. I said I wanted to decimate you. But I don't want you to think I'm unreasonable. So first you tell me why you make this gas shortage worse and then I'll decide whether I'm going to kill you or not."
Hefferling's mouth dropped open. He made a sound that sounded like "glah, glah." He tried again and it came out clearer. "Kill, kill?"
"Just once," Remo said. "Kill."
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"You are nuts," Hefferling said. "Stark, raving mad."
"Mad? We're all mad. We're mad because we have to sit on gas lines, because people are killing people on gas lines and the only line you see is the one at the bank when you deposit your money. Mad? Sure. We're fed up and we're not taking it anymore." Remo smiled. He had heard that line in a movie and always wanted to use it.
"But you're wrong. Dead wrong." Hefferling paused and reconsidered the phrase. "I mean, you're wrong. There is a shortage and it's the fault of the Arabs, not me. Honest, Mr. Everyman."
"You can call me Ev," Remo said.
Hefferling was sweating. He closed his eyes as if he were trying hard not to cry.
"Look, Ev, you just don't understand."
"Explain it to me," Remo said.
"Will you please let me talk?" Hefferling screamed. He jumped to his feet. Remo wondered if the room was soundproof.
"Sit down," he advised. Hefferling blinked rapidly, convincing himself that he didn't have to sit down if he didn't want to. After all, whose office was it and who did this Everyman think he was? Remo touched his chest and he sat down.
"Okay now, go ahead," Remo said. "Explain."
Hefferling's eyes rolled as if on the inside of his eyelids was written what he should say. What could he tell this madman?
"Look, it's true. Some people are making this shortage worse." That was good, he thought. It was the truth. He had read somewhere that you shouldn't lie to a crazy man. Maybe if he told him the truth that he wanted to hear, then, maybe this nut would believe everything he told him. Remo rewarded this theory with a smile.
"These people buy up oil on the spot market but
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then they hold it, waiting for prices to go higher before they sell it in this country. They asked me to join them, but when I heard about it, I walked out. I wouldn't have anything to do with that. I said their plan was un-American."
Remo nodded. "Good for you," he said. "And you wouldn't have anything to do with it."
"That's right."
"Because it was un-American."
"Right. Right."
"And you are a loyal American."
"I am."
"And you don't care one bit about making a few extra million dollars."
"Right. I don't."
"Come on, Hefferling," Remo said reproachfully.
"It's the truth."
"That's your defense? That's supposed to stop me from killing you?"
Hefferling stared at him. Slowly his face relaxed into a smile.
"I get it. This is a joke, isn't it? You were paid to do this, right? Kind of like a pie in the face. Paid for it, right?"
Remo shrugged. "Actually, I was. But, see, that's the work I do."
"What is? Pies? Threats?"
"No," Remo said, and because it no longer made any difference, he told Hefferling the truth. How a young Newark policeman named Remo Williams had been framed for a murder he didn't commit, was sent to an electric chair that didn't work, and was revived and recruited to work for a secret crime-fighting organization named CURE. And he told him, too, how Remo Williams had learned the secrets of Sinanju, an ancient Korean house of assassins, and hi learning them had become something more than just a man. Something special.
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When Remo was done, he looked at Hefferling's face but saw only confusion there. Nobody ever understood.
"Anyway, Hefferling, upstairs tells me what is what here. I don't even use gas. But they tell me you have five tankers of oil tied up in Puerto Rico somewhere and you're waiting for prices to go up and then you're going to sell the oil in America. Meanwhile, people are waiting in gas lines. This is what upstairs tells me and they tell me I should do something about it."
"Like what?" asked Hefferling.
"Like kill you."
"Wait now," Hefferling pleaded in panic. "I've got more to tell you. A lot more. Wait."
"Tell it to the angels, Hubert." Remo leaned forward, tapped once with his knuckles and Hefferling sat back in his chair. Remo picked up the man's right hand, and dropped it onto the table with a thud. A dead thud.
"That's the oil biz, sweetheart," Remo told the body.
He walked around the desk, pulled a blank sheet of paper from the top left corner of Hefferling's desk, and found a Flair marker in the dead man's inside jacket pocket. In black, he wrote across the sheet of paper. With a piece of Scotch tape, he attached the paper to Hefferling's forehead, first wiping away the perspiration with a piece of the man's desk blotter.
He folded Hefferling's hands across his lap. At the door, he turned back to survey his work. There was Hefferling's body, sitting up neatly. On the paper dangling from his head was written:
DON'T TREAD ON ME. SUCH IS THE VENGEANCE OF EVERYMAN.
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When Remo walked back outside, Marsha turned anxiously toward the door. When she saw him, she smiled. There it is again, she thought, that feeling in the pit of her stomach.