"Timothy Zahn - The Green and the Gray" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

"Roger!"
"Right." Still watching the man's unsteady progress, he stripped off his coat and handed it over. He
glanced down long enough to see Caroline sit the girl up and get the coat around her shoulders, then
looked back down the alley.
The mugger was gone.
He frowned, peering into the semidarkness. The man was gone, all right. But gone where?
Cautiously, he crossed to the low wall and peered over it.
The man wasn't there. He wasn't on the fire escape, either, or on the stone steps, or the platform
across the end, or huddled around the corner against the cul-de-sac around the back. There were no
doorways Roger could see, nothing a person could hide behind, and all the first-floor windows were
barred. And he certainly hadn't gotten past Roger and escaped out the alley mouth.
He'd simply vanished.
Roger looked down at the pistol in his hand. He'd never held a real handgun before, but he'd always
had the impression the things were heavy. This one didn't seem to weigh much more than the toys
he'd played with as a boy. Could it be one of those fancy plastic guns the newspapers were always
going on about?
But it didn't look plastic. It was definitely metal, and it sure as hell looked like one of those army
pistols from World War II movies. He turned it over in his hand, angling it toward the streetlight for
a better look.
And for the first time noticed that there was something marring the shiny metal on the right side of
the barrel. A streak of something dark that came off as he rubbed his finger across it.
Blood?
"Roger, stop daydreaming and give me a hand," Caroline called.


file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Timothy%20Zahn%20-%20The%20Green%20and%20the%20Gray.htm (13 of 424)22-12-2006 15:57:21
The Green and the Gray

Taking one last look around, he walked back up the sloping concrete. Caroline had the girl wrapped
in his coat and on her feet, propping her up like a rag doll. The girl's eyes were open, but she looked
dazed and only half awake.
And there were a set of ugly bruises on her neck.
"Roger, snap out of it," Caroline ordered into his thoughts. "We have to get her home."
"No, we have to call the police," Roger countered as he dug into his pocket for his phone, feeling his
face flush with annoyance. Did she really think he'd just been standing there with his brain in idle?
"We can call them from the apartment," Caroline said. "We have to get her out of this air before she
catches pneumonia."
"The police have to be called," Roger insisted. "This is a crime scene. They'll want to look for clues."
"We can tell them where we found her," Caroline shot back. "They can look for clues with us back
home just as easily as they can with us standing here."
Roger ground his teeth. But she was probably right. And given the unlikelihood of a quick police
response to a non-emergency situation, the girl could well freeze to death before they even got a car
here.
Or rather he could freeze to death. It was his coat she was wearing, after all.
"Fine," he growled. "Come onтАФuhтАФCaroline, what's her name?"
"She doesn't seem to be able to talk," Caroline said, her voice low and dark. "It looks like someone
tried to strangle her."
"Yeah, I noticed." Roger turned around, his skin tingling with the odd impression that someone was
watching them. But there was no one in sight.
But then, there hadn't been anyone in sight when he'd heard that first cough, either.