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perhaps one of those portable rice cookers. (Fontaine hoped that this wasn't
going to be one of those pathetic episodes in which he was mistaken for a
pawnbroker.)
"Let us in, Fontaine. We're in trouble."
You probably are trouble, by now, Fontaine decided, after whatever it was got
you the black eye.
He started unlocking the door, noticing how she kept glancing either way, as
if expecting unwanted company. The cop-looking one, this Rydell, was doing the
same. But the professor, Fontaine noted, was watching him, watching Fontaine,
and it made him glad to have the Kit Gun down by his leg.
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"Lock it," Chevette said, as she entered, followed by Rydell and the
professor.
"I'm not sure I want to," Fontaine said. "I might want to show it to you."
"Show it to me?"
"You in the plural. Show you the door. Follow me? I was sleeping."
"Fontaine, there are men on the bridge with guns."
"There are indeed," said Fontaine, as he rubbed his thumb over the knurls atop
the little double-
action's hammer.
The professor closed the door.
"Hey," Fontaine said, in protest.
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"Is there another exit?" the professor asked, studying the locks.
"No," Fontaine said.
The man glanced back through the shop, to the rear wall, beyond the upturned
toes of Fontaine's guest. "And on the other side of this wall, there is only a
sheer drop?"
228
"That's right," Fontaine said, somehow resenting the ease with which the man
had extracted this information.
"And above? There are people living above?" The man looked up at the shop's
painted plywood ceiling.
"I don't know," Fontaine admitted. "If there are, they're quiet. Never heard
'em."
This Rydell he seemed to be having trouble walking He made it over to the
glass-topped counter and put his duffel down on it.
"You don't want to break my display there, hear?"
Rydell turned, hand pressed into his side. "Got any adhesive tape? The wide
kind?"
Fontaine did have a first-aid kit, but it never had anything anyone ever
needed. He had a couple of crumbling wound compresses circa about 1978 in
there and an elaborate industnal eye bandage with instructions in what looked
like Finnish. "I got gaffer tape," Fontaine said.
"What's that?"
"Duct tape. You know: silver? Stick to skin okay. You want that?" Rydell
shrugged painfully out of his black nylon jacket and started fumbling
one-handed with the buttons of his wrinkled blue ~hirt. The girl started
helping him, and when she'd gotten the shirt off Fontaine saw the yellow gray
mottling of a fresh bruise up his side A bad one
"You in an accident?" He'd tucked the Smith & Wesson into the side pocket of
his trousers, not a safe carry ordinarily but a convenient one under the
circumstances. The worn checkered walnut of the butt stuck out just enough to
get a handy purchase, should he need it. He got a roll of tape out of the top
drawer of an old steel filing cabinet. It made that sound when he pulled out a
foot or so of it. "You want me to put this on you? I taped fighters in
Chicago. In the ring, you know?"
"Please," said Rydell, wincing as he raised the arm on the bruised side.
Fontaine tore the length of tape off and studied Rydell's rib cage. "Tape's
mystical, you know that?" He snapped the tape taut between his two hands, the
darker, adhesive-coated side toward
Rydell.
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229
I
"How's that?" Rydell asked.
"Cause it's got a dark side," Fontaine said, demonstrating, "a light side,"
showing the dull silver backing, "and it holds the universe together." Rydell
started to yell when the strip was applied, but caught it. "Breathe," Fontaine
said. "You ever deliver a baby?"
"No," Rydell managed.
"Well," said Fontaine, readying the next strip, this one longer, "you want to
breathe the way they tell women to breathe when the contractions come. Here:
now breathe out. .
It went pretty fast then, and when Fontaine was done, he saw that Rydell was
able to use both hands to button his shirt.
"Good evening," he heard the professor say and, turning with the roll of tape
in his hand, saw that the boy was awake and sitting up, brown eyes wide and
empty, staring at the man in the gray-
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green overcoat. "You look well. Is this your home?"
Something moved, behind the boy's eyes; saw, retreated again.
"You two know each other?" Fontaine asked.
"We met last night," the man said, "here, on the bridge."
"Wait a minute," Fontaine said. "He get a watch off you?"
The man turned and regarded Fontaine evenly, saying nothing.
Fontaine felt a wave of guilt. "It's okay," he said. "Just keeping it for
him."
~'I see."
"That's quite a watch," Fontaine said. "Where'd you get it?"
"Singapore."
Fontaine looked from the smooth gaunt wolfish face of the man who very
probably wasn't a music professor to the blank and unlined face of the boy,
beneath its new haircut.
"I see that you have a pistol in your pocket," the man said.
"I'm just glad to see you," Fontaine said, but nobody got it.
"What is its caliber?" "Twenty-two long rifle." "Barrel length?" "Four
inches." "Accurate?"
230
"It's not a target pistol," Fontaine said, "but for four inches of barrel,
it's not too bad." This was making him very nervous, and he very badly wanted
the gun in his hand, but he thought that if he touched it now, something would
happen. Something would.
"Give it to me," the man said.
"Forget it," Fontaine said.
"An undetermined number of armed men are searching for Mr. Rydell tonight.
They would like to capture him alive, in order to question him, but they would
certainly kill him to prevent his escape. They will kill anyone they find with
him. That would simply be a matter of housekeeping for them. Do you
understand?"
"Who are they?"
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"'Bright young things,'" the man said.
"What?"
"They are mercenaries, in the pay of someone who regards Mr. Rydell as being [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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