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

going up a down escalator; the pre-Trouble experimentation; and the intermingled gloom and optimism.
All this, probably, and more. I loved it.
There'd been a vacancy for a Private Investigator that no one had applied for. Having always loved the
Bogarts, Cagneys and Robinsons of the period, I figured I could do it. The persona wasn't complex--a
mix of cynicism and clich├и, with a compulsory penchant for overcoats--and the job itself wasn't
dangerous. Borrowing a name from an old book, I bought a hat and went to work. Most of my cases
involved unfaithful spouses, fraudulent insurance claimants, AWOL contractors and so on--but rarely
anything truly sinister, which the rate of pay reflected. Comfortable work, all in all, role-playing in an
historical sub-genre I'd always loved. Sometimes the limitations of my job frustrated me; more often they
didn't. It's all just part of the game--part of life in C20, the city without a name. And only the most
stringent movie buff would criticize me if I strayed on the odd occasion from the film noir ideal.
So I stayed, stuck like a fly in the amber of the Twentieth Century, more or less. But when I say 'stuck', I
mean willingly stuck--and when I say 'more or less', I mean the city, not me.
Take Police HQ for example: a big concrete block of a building with linoleum floors and ink-stained
wooden desks, complete with ceiling fans and hand-held phones that ring incessantly. Frosted glass
doorways and hatstands. And people everywhere--shouting, crying, demanding, pleading. A scene of
chaos lifted straight from the 1950s.
The anomalies are hidden deeper in the building, but they're there. Fax machines and modems in the
communications room, video surveillance equipment for the traffic maintenance department, a complex
forensic lab circa 2110 on the first floor. Standard police weaponry includes plastic bullets, Colt 45s,
stun-guns and laser-sights; it's up to the cops which they use, depending on the mode they prefer. Just
like every department of the city, personal preference reigns, provided the individual doesn't exceed the
envelope and gets the job done.
With just that in mind, I stepped into the Dep's private office and closed the door behind me.
Bob Tasker stood one rung below the Police Commissioner himself; no one knew his exact title, so he
went by the nick-name 'the Dep'. A big, balding man with a bristling moustache, he sported a brown suit
from the waist down (I never once saw him with the jacket on), the open-neck look and a
peroxide-blonde secretary called Sharon who was apparently addicted to chewing-gum. If he didn't have
a phone in one hand, he usually had hold of a hot dog. On this particular day, he had neither. He was
expecting me.
"Court." He waved me to a seat and leaned back into his own, his belly expanding as though he'd been
inflated. "You're the one with the stiff."
"So the girls say," I shot back automatically, but without smiling. The day's events had left me feeling
flatter than usual. "What a mess."
"You said it." The Dep lifted a thick manila folder with one hand and a grimace. I'd filed the report with a
detective not two hours earlier. "We haven't had a suicide for so long, I forget what to do with them."
I nodded sympathetically and rolled a cigarette. The city's death-rate was zero, barring accidents, which
were rare, and the most serious crime on the books was grievous assault. There wasn't any drug-running
either, although the illegal importation of prohibited technology--known as 'packing'--had taken its place.
Without murder or pushing to keep him busy, the Dep had an easier job than any of his genuine
counterparts, long ago, but that didn't stop him from looking harried. That was his function, after all.
"Any idea who he was?" I asked, lighting the smoke with a wooden match.
"The car was rented under the name of Wallace Derringer, and his description matches the one the
attendant gave us." The Dep shrugged. "But he had no papers on him. I was hoping you might be able to
tell us more. You were tailing him, right?"
"Yeah, Bob, but you know how it works: photo, hotel, orders, and that's it. Don't call us, we'll call you."
"You put a trace on their calls?"
"Are you kidding? That's illegal."
The Dep smiled. "Between us, Court."
I smiled back. "A different pay-phone every time. Different voice, too. When I ran the tapes through a