"Destroyer 052 - Fool's Gold.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

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him, and thought only, "Did I really see a man swimming out there?"
He moved up out of the water onto a rocky part of the shore with the speed of a chameleon, like man's first ascent from the sea. He was thin and without visible musculature. His clothes clung wet and sticky to his body but he allowed the heat to escape from his pores and as he walked in the evening air, the clothing became dry.
The first person he met, a little boy, knew where the Malaises lived. The boy spoke in the singsong of the West Indies.
"They are all along the beach here, good sir, but I would not go there without permission. No one goes there. They have wire fences that shock. They have the alligator in the pools around their houses. No one visits the Malaise, good sir, unless of course they invite you."
"Pretty bad people, I guess," said Remo.
"Oh, no. They buy things from everyone. They are nice," the boy said.
The electric fence was little more than a few wide strands that might keep an arthritic old cow from trying to dance out of its field. The moat with alligators was a moist marsh area with an old alligator too well fed to do anything but burp softly as Remo passed its jaws. Remo could see the house had small holes in the walls for gunbarrels. But there were also air conditioners in the windows, and nothing appeared to be locked. Obviously the Malaises no longer feared anyone or anything.
Remo knocked on the door of the house and a
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tired woman, still beating a food mixture in a bowl, answered the door.
"Is this the home of Jean Malaise?"
The woman nodded. She called out something in French and a man answered gruffly from inside the house.
"What do you want?" asked the woman.
"I've come to kill him and his brothers."
"You don't have a chance," said the woman. "They have guns and knives. Go back and get help before you try."
"No, no. That's all right," Remo said. "I can do it by myself."
"What does he want?" called the man's voice in heavily accented English.
"Nothing, dear. He is going to come back later."
"Tell him to bring some beer," yelled her husband.
"I don't need help," Remo told the woman.
"You're just one man. I have lived with Jean Baptiste for twenty years. I know him. He is my husband. Will you at least listen to a wife? You don't stand a chance against him alone, let alone the entire clan."
"Don't tell me my business," Remo said.
"You come here. You come to our island. You knock on the door and when I try to tell you you don't know my husband, you say it is your business. Well, I tell you, good. Then die."
"I'm not going to die," said Remo.
"Hah," said the wife.
"Is he going to bring back beer?" called the husband.
"No," said the wife.
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"Why not?"
"Because he is one of those Americans who think they know everything."
"I don't know everything," Remo said. "I don't know what a fuesal is."
"For a boat?"
Remo nodded.
"Jean knows," said the woman, and then, full-lung: "Jean, what is a fuesal?"
"What?"
"A fuesal?"
"Never heard of it," the man called back.
Remo went into the main room where Jean Baptiste, a large man with much girth and much hair on that girth, sat on a straight-backed chair. His hair glistened with oil. He had shaved no sooner than a week before. He belched loudly.
"I don't know what a fuesal is," he said. He was watching television; Remo saw Columbo in French. It seemed funny to have the American talk in loud and violent French.
"It's better in English," Remo said.
Jean Baptiste Malaise grunted.
"Listen, Mr. Malaise, I've come to kill you and all your brothers."
"I'm not buying anything," said Malaise.
"No. I said kill."
"Wait until the commercial."
"I don't really have much time."
"All right. What? What do you want?" said Malaise, his black eyes burning with anger. This was his favorite television show.
"I have come," said Remo, very slowly and very clearly, "to kill you and your sixteen brothers."
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