"Robin Wilson - To the Vector Belong..." - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robin)

TO THE VECTOR BELONG . . .
By Robin Wilson

****

A HANDSOME YOUNG MAN whose broad shoulders stretch orange coveralls
with тАЬALAMEDA COUNTY JAILтАЭ stenciled on the back hunches over his shot
glass of Black Label and prints liquid circles on a scarred Formica bar top as he
ponders the deaths of the two who have preceded him. тАЬSome kind a internal
screw-up. A flitch? But what they told us was, in penetrations of Category I societies
like this itтАЩs just as likely to be some little thing like the goddamn packaging as
anything else,тАЭ he says to fake Lindstrom.

тАЬGlitch,тАЭ says Lindstrom. тАЬNot flitch. Go on, tell me about it.тАЭ He has
sprawled patiently for nearly four hours on the end stool at the dark bar, his back
propped against a stub of wall. He is gangly and so fair he looks ghostly in the
gloom, hair blond enough to be almost white. Much of it is. He is twenty days away
from retirement after more than thirty-five years in the Department of Justice as a
Contract Agent, mostly under cover of one depth or another.

тАЬGlitch.тАЭ repeats the young man, whose name sounds to Lindstrom like Al or
maybe Earl. тАЬWell, it couldnтАЩt have been something that simple,тАЭ he says. тАЬThe
other guys never even got started.тАЭ

Lindstrom nods encouragingly, as if he understands what the young man is
talking about. He is good at friendly interrogation, elicitation, but he has a reputation
as a loner, a little eccentric, sometimes hard for desk people and supervisors to deal
with. He gets results but he is not an inside guy, has never been seriously considered
for Civil Service status.

On this late Tuesday afternoon in early January, two years into the 21st
century, he feels his sixty-one years. His back aches and so does the knee he racked
up kicking away a CS canister in Grant Park in 1968, and there is a sore spot high on
the left side of his ribcage from the little Dan Wesson .38 they insisted he carry; a
matching spot on the fight side where a Guardian Model 412 audio pickup and
transmitter is about to run out of battery.

The young man is LindstromтАЩs prisoner, technically a deportee under Section
1103 of Chapter 75 of Title 18 of the United States Code but actually the first
genuine, honest-to-God extraterrestrial anyone outside supermarket tabloid fantasy
has ever encountered.

The dim saloon is empty, the bartender and two regulars flushed out hours
ago to tell their stories in excited voices to the frenzied crowd of journalists and
video paparazzi beyond the police lines. It is a dreary old establishment located for
more than sixty years on the street level of the Port of Oakland container ship pier at
the foot of Ferro Street. At a little after five PM the light outside is already fading
into soft Bay chill. Only an occasional siren or police whistle penetrates the neon
buzz of an Anchor Steam Beer sign above the cash register and the soft susurrus
sung by all old industrial buildings.