"Sean Williams - The Perfect Gun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Sean)

The Perfect Gun
Sean Williams

Out on the freeway, it might have been 1986. It might have been Los Angeles or any other big, American
city during rush-hour, with cars banked up like beached dinosaurs, bleating their frustration and snarling
noxious fumes into the brown-blue air. It might have been Earth.
What it was, was hot, so I rolled down the window of my '54 Chevy and reached out to snatch a snippet
of oven-dry wind. The air was dead calm, like that moment when a body's lungs have finished breathing
out and everything waits to see whether they're going to breathe in again. Time itself was frozen in its
tracks, pole-axed by a solid blow either seventy years away or five centuries ago, depending on where
you stood.
Someone up ahead honked and the line of cars rolled forward. The yellow Nissan in front of me took a
left turn to the freeway, and I followed it carefully. Not careful to follow, mind, but careful not to look
like I was following. There's a big difference, one I'm careful to observe. I may not be the best PI that's
ever existed, but I do know my job: which is, as much as anything else, to look the part (or not to look it,
as in this case), to go through the motions, and to maintain my verisimilitude at all times. If that means
tackling peak-hour on a hot day, heading nowhere, then I have to do it.
The guy behind the wheel of the Nissan, if he knew I was shadowing him, didn't try to lose me. All I
could see of him was a thatch of brown hair barely rising above the headrest of the driver's seat. He
watched the road ahead intently, never allowing himself to be distracted, although his style of driving
showed none of that. He was particularly bad, this day, like a kid yet to earn his license: hesitating at
green lights, full-stopping instead of giving way, swerving whenever anything came within three yards of
his metalwork. Whoever he was, he was new to the city. Of that I was certain, if nothing else.
Despite having tailed him for a week, I knew only a little of his habits. He'd left his hotel at 16:00
precisely, as he had every other day; given his general direction, he might have been heading for either the
city centre itself--a field of upraised towers sprawling on my right--or to the hills on the far side of town.
But he was nothing if not unpredictable. Five out of seven days he'd just driven nowhere for hours,
watching the metropolis thrive around him. Not in the way a tourist does; more as though he didn't
believe his eyes but at the same time couldn't get enough of what they were seeing. On the other two
days he'd visited the museum and the memorials, respectively. When not out and about, he seemed to
spend an awful lot of time sleeping: at least six hours a night, as far as I could tell.
And that was all I knew about him. My employers, whoever they were, were keeping their mouths shut.
Why, I didn't know, but there had to be a reason. Usually there's something questionable in the air--a
crime, an infidelity, a betrayed alliance--and more often than not the question tells me something about
the questioners that they would prefer I didn't know.
Curiosity being one of my major traits, I resolved to find the answer. I had to have something to do, apart
from simply watching.
We turned onto the freeway five seconds apart, his car accelerating slowly to melt into the tide of the
traffic. I dodged a string of network vehicles full of tourists, weaved between their webs of invisible
radars and lasers, and settled two cars behind him. Solo driving wasn't encouraged on the freeway, but it
wasn't forbidden either. No car was without its safety overrides. Even if I or the guy I was following
wanted to, we'd have been hard-pressed to cause an accident, unless it was with each other; all the other
cars would dodge out of danger before we even came close.
The freeway snaked its rumbling way towards the city centre. The wind coming through my window was
still warm, but more refreshing than the oppressive stillness of the jam we'd left behind. Slightly bored, I
reached down with my right hand, flipped on the radio and skimmed across the dial until I found
JJJJ-Digital, the city's most popular station. Request time with Dr Bob was always worth a listen. I
caught the tail-end of an old Devo track I hadn't heard for more years than I cared to count. When that
had finished, Dr Bob announced a brief birthday dedication--"a real feel-gooder"--and another song
came on I didn't recognise.