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

And so it was that I caught the dedication.
As I--the recorded I, whose eyes I was seeing through--bent to study the
corpse and steal a piece of its cooling flesh, the song played itself out in
the background, coming from the speakers in the car hired by the real Wallace
Derringer.
The Perfect Gun is half of a destiny.
The Perfect Gun has nothing to do before dying.
The Perfect Gun leaves an exquisite corpse.
With one last patter of bongos the song faded out, and Dr Bob, JJJJ's request
DJ, came back on the air.
"Well, folks, there you have it. 'Dali's Handgun' by that perennial favourite,
MC 900ft Jesus. And what better song could a man wish for on his birthday?
 Have a nice day, y'all."
I sat upright on the seat, feeling the familiar stirrings of a hunch. A
birthday dedication? From whom? And why such an unusual song? Trying not to
get my hopes up, I scrolled the recording back to the beginning, to the time
some minutes before the murder, when the song had begun.
The view through my recorded eyes scanned the road ahead and the back of the
savant's car with monotonous regularity. Nothing had happened yet to arouse my
alarm. The old Devo song that I hadn't heard for years faded out, and Dr Bob
came on the air.
"Now we have a real feel-gooder. Perhaps you'd care to explain it yourself,
listener? Hello? Who would you like to dedicate your request to?"
A man, in his mid-forties by the sound of him and with an unusual accent, came
on the line. "Um, yeah. I'd like to dedicate this to my brother."
"Your brother, huh?" Dr Bob managed to squeeze a stupid, toothy grin down the
airwaves. "And why would that be?"
"It's, uh, his birthday today. This is his song."
"Ain't that sweet, folks? Tell us how old he is, Wal, and his name, so they
can all wish him a happy birthday with you. Wal? Are you still there, Wal?" Dr
Bob's aural smile tightened perceptibly. "Shoot, sorry, Wal. We seem to have
lost you. But that won't stop us playing your request, right? From Wal to
Wal's brother: the happiest of birthdays, and may you have many more!"
I fell back into the seat as the song started. Neither my shadow, not my double, nor
my half . . . nothing to do before dying . . . an exquisite corpse . . . The words were
too appropriate to be a coincidence. From Wal to Wal's brother! I could hardly
believe it, even though I knew it was the answer I'd been looking for:
The song had triggered the savant's suicide routine, and Wallace Derringer
himself had pulled the trigger.
It didn't make any sense.
The cab came to a sudden halt, and I glanced up, startled, imagining police
blockades or armed assassins holding up the car. Instead, I saw the glass and
aluminium facade of Marilyn's building. The cab had arrived.
Instructing the driver to keep moving past, then around the block, I kept a
close eye out for anyone acting suspicious. Naturally, I saw no one. The cab
dropped me off in an alley not far from the building's rear entrance, where I
stashed the PDA and wrapped my coat around my waist. Making sure the cloak was
secure at my wrists, ankles and throat, I hit the switch on the belt and
disappeared from sight.