A Spaceship Named: 45 Sci-Fi Novels & Stories in One Volume. Randall Garrett

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СКАЧАТЬ but after a while he managed to come up with a few.

      What is your name?

      Kenneth Malone.

      Where do you live?

      Washington, D. C.

      What is your work?

      I work for the FBI.

      Then what are you doing on a sidewalk in New York in broad daylight?

      He tried to find an answer to that, but there didn't seem to be any, no matter where he looked. The only thing he could think of was the red Cadillac.

      And if the red Cadillac had anything to do with anything, Malone didn't know about it.

      Very slowly and carefully, he opened his eyes again, one at a time. He discovered that the light was not coming from the gorgeous Hollywood sunset he had dreamed up. As a matter of fact, sunset was several hours in the past, and it never looked very pretty in New York anyhow. It was the middle of the night, and Malone was lying under a convenient street lamp.

      He closed his eyes again and waited patiently for his head to go away.

      A few minutes passed. It was obvious that his head had settled down for a long stay, and no matter how bad it felt, Malone told himself, it was his head, after all. He felt a certain responsibility for it. And he couldn't just leave it lying around somewhere with its eyes closed.

      He opened the head's eyes once more, and this time he kept them open. For a long time he stared at the post of the street lamp, considering it, and he finally decided that it looked sturdy enough to support a hundred and sixty-five pounds of FBI man, even with the head added in. He grabbed for the post with both hands and started to pull himself upright, noticing vaguely that his legs had somehow managed to get underneath him.

      As soon as he was standing, he wished he'd stayed on the nice horizontal sidewalk. His head was spinning dizzily and his mind was being sucked down into the whirlpool. He held on to the post grimly and tried to stay conscious.

      A long time, possibly two or three seconds, passed. Malone hadn't moved at all when the two cops came along.

      One of them was a big man with a brassy voice and a face that looked as if it had been overbaked in a waffle-iron. He came up behind Malone and tapped him on the shoulder, but Malone barely felt the touch. Then the cop bellowed into Malone's ear.

      "What's the matter, buddy?"

      Malone appreciated the man's sympathy. It was good to know that you had friends. But he wished, remotely, that the cop and his friend, a shorter and thinner version of the beat patrolman, would go away and leave him in peace. Maybe he could lie down on the sidewalk again and get a couple of hundred years' rest.

      Who could tell?

      "Mallri," he said.

      "You're all right?" the big cop said. "That's fine. That's great. So why don't you go home and sleep it off?"

      "Sleep?" Malone said. "Home?"

      "Wherever you live, buddy," the big cop said. "Come on. Can't stand around on the sidewalk all night."

      Malone shook his head, and decided at once never to do it again. He had some kind of rare disease, he realized. His brain was loose, and the inside of his skull was covered with sandpaper. Every time his head moved, the brain jounced against some of the sandpaper.

      But the policeman thought he was drunk. That wasn't right. He couldn't let the police get the wrong impression of FBI agents. Now the man would go around telling people that the FBI was always drunk and disorderly.

      "Not drunk," he said clearly.

      "Sure," the big cop said. "You're fine. Maybe just one too many, huh?"

      "No," Malone said. The effort exhausted him and he had to catch his breath before he could say anything else. But the cops waited patiently. At last he said: "Somebody slugged me."

      "Slugged?" the big cop said.

      "Right." Malone remembered just in time not to nod his head.

      "How about a description, buddy?" the big cop said.

      "Didn't see him," Malone said. He let go of the post with one hand, keeping a precarious grip with the other. He stared at his watch. The hands danced back and forth, but he focused on them after a while. It was 1:05. "Happened just—a few minutes ago," he said. "Maybe you can catch him."

      The big cop said: "Nobody around here. The place is deserted—except for you, buddy." He paused and then added: "Let's see some identification, huh? Or did he take your wallet?"

      Malone thought about getting the wallet, and decided against it. The motions required would be a little tricky, and he wasn't sure he could manage them without letting go of the post entirely. At last he decided to let the cop get his wallet. "Inside coat pocket," he said.

      The other policeman blinked and looked up. His face was a studied blank. "Hey, buddy," he said. "You know you got blood on your head?"

      The big cop said: "Sam's right. You're bleeding, mister."

      "Good," Malone said.

      The big cop said: "Huh?"

      "I thought maybe my skull was going to explode from high blood pressure," Malone said. It was beginning to be a little easier to talk. "But as long as there's a slow leak, I guess I'm out of danger."

      "Get his wallet," the smaller cop—Sam—said. "I'll watch him."

      A hand went into Malone's jacket pocket. It tickled a little bit, but Malone didn't think of objecting. Naturally enough, the hand and Malone's wallet did not make an instant connection. When the hand touched the bulky object strapped near Malone's armpit it stopped, frozen, and then cautiously snaked the object out.

      "What's that, Bill?" Sam said.

      Bill looked up with the object in his hand. He seemed a little dazed. "It's a gun," he said.

      "The guy's heeled!" Sam said. "Watch him! Don't let him get away!"

      Malone considered getting away, and decided that he couldn't move. "It's O.K.," he said.

      "O.K., hell," Sam said. "It's a .44 Magnum. What are you doing with a gun, Mac?" He was no longer polite and friendly. "Why you carrying a gun?" he said.

      "I'm not carrying it," Malone said tiredly. "Bill is. Your pal."

      Bill backed away from Malone, putting the Magnum in his pocket and keeping the FBI agent covered with his own Police Positive. At the same time, he fished out the personal radio every patrolman carried in his uniform, and began calling for a prowl car in a low, somewhat nervous voice.

      Sam said: "A gun. He could of shot everybody."

      "Get his wallet," Bill said. "He can't hurt you now. I disarmed him."

      Malone began to feel slightly dangerous. Maybe he was a famous gangster. He wasn't sure. Maybe all this about being an FBI agent was just a figment of his imagination. СКАЧАТЬ