"Timothy Zahn - A Coming of Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

money and secured his hands with wrist cuffs. "Let's go," he said, taking the other's arm and pointing
him toward the gate. "Tonio, the whiskey's still aboard the ship over there. Make sure no one enters
or leaves until the shakedown squad gets here, okay? I'll call them from the car and tell them how to
find it."

"Sure," Tonio nodded. "Should be easy...." Gazing over Tirrell's shoulder, he frowned slightly with
concentration. Glancing back, Tirrell watched the ship's gangway flip up to balance precariously on
its edge. "That should keep the traffic down," the preteen said with obvious satisfaction.

Shaking his head, Tirrell rolled his eyes exaggeratedly heavenward and marched his prisoner away.
Only when his back was to his righthand did he allow a smile to reach his face. Tonio still liked to
think his sense of humor could annoy his partner.



It was nearly two hours later, and Tirrell was catching up on some of his backlog of paperwork,
when the summons came to report upstairs.

"Bad news," Police Chief Alverez said as Tirrell took the seat in front of the cluttered desk and
politely declined the pantomimed offer of a drink. "Your smuggler friend's a dead end. A complete
amateur, and seems to be a loner, to boot."

Tirrell nodded; the sailor's youth and obvious inexperience had already led him to the same
conclusion. All those hours of digging through the customs office's truly horrible record
systemтАФgone, just like that. "How does he account for the diamonds in his last delivery?" he asked.

"He doesn't." Alverez smiled thinly. "He thought we were joking when we asked about that. When
we convinced him we were serious, I thought he was going to rupture a blood vessel."

"I'll bet." Tirrell gazed out the window for a long moment. One of the small pleasuresтАФusually the
only one, in factтАФof being called into the chief's office was the panoramic view the corner windows
offered of both Ridge Harbor's sheltered bay and the line of white bluffs that hemmed the city in
from the west. "It makes a certain lopsided sense, you know," he mused. "Most of the professional
gem smugglers are too well known to move without attracting attention. So you pick a schmuck
who's trying to make a few bills and stick the stuff into his whiskey cache. No one's really likely to
bother with him. Does he have a record, by the way?"

Alverez shook his head, plucked a piece of paper from a stack in front of him. "Luz Sandur, twenty-
three; dropped out of Tweenriver Academy two years ago. Mild sort of troublemaker in his hive, I
gather, which meant he never got the necessary points for anything over Basic at school. Saw the
handwriting on the wallтАФ"

"Too late, of course," Tirrell interjected.

"They always do. Decided he was in a dead-end position and wangled an apprenticeship in the

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/T...othy%20Zahn%20-%20A%20Coming%20of%20Age.htm (7 of 190) [12/31/2004 12:01:27 AM]
A Coming of Age

merchant marine. It apparently wasn't what he expected."