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

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      Malone took out a pill and swallowed it in a hurry. He felt exactly as if he had been given another concussion, absolutely free and without any obligation. His mouth opened but nothing came out for a long time. At last he managed to say: "Kids?"

      "That's right," Lynch said. "What did you think?"

      Malone shrugged helplessly.

      "Every single one of them," Lynch said. "Right from around here."

      There was a little silence.

      "Who are they?" Malone said carefully.

      "They're some kind of kid gang, social club, something like that," Lynch said. "They call themselves the Silent Spooks."

      "The what?" It seemed to Malone that the name was just a little fancy, even for a kid gang.

      "The Silent Spooks," Lynch said. "I can't help it. But here they are: Ramon Otravez, Mario Grito, Silvo Envoz, Felipe Altapor, Alvarez la Barba, Juan de los Santos and Ray del Este. Right down the line." He looked up from the notebook with a blank expression on his face. "There's only one name missing, as a matter of fact. Funny it isn't there."

      Malone tried to look as if he knew what was going on. "Oh?" he said.

      "Yeah," Lynch said. "The Fueyo kid—Miguel Fueyo. Everybody calls him Mike."

      While interesting, this did not provide much food for thought. "Why should his name be on it especially?" Malone said.

      "Because he's the leader of the gang," Lynch said. "The boss. The big shot." He pointed to the list of names. "Except for him, that's all of them—the Silent Spooks."

      Malone considered the missing Mike Fueyo.

      He knew perfectly well, now, why Fueyo's name was not in the book.

      Who puts his own name on a list?

      The notebook was Fueyo's. It had to be.

      Lynch was looking at him expectantly. Malone thought of a question and asked it. "They know you?" he said.

      "Sure they do," Lynch said. "They all know me. But do they know you?"

      Malone thought. "They could have heard of me," he said at last, trying to be as modest as possible.

      "I guess," Lynch said grudgingly.

      "How old are they?" Malone said.

      "Fourteen to seventeen," Lynch said. "Somewhere in there. You know how these kid things run."

      "The Silent Spooks," Malone said meditatively. It was a nice name, in a way; you just had to get used to it for a while. When he had been a kid, he'd belonged to a group that called itself the East Division Street Kids. There just wasn't much romance in a name like that. Now, the Silent Spooks—

      With a wrench, he brought his mind back to the subject at hand. "Do they get into much trouble?" he said.

      "Well, no," Lynch said reluctantly. "As a matter of fact, they don't. For a bunch like that, around here, they're pretty well-behaved, as far as that goes."

      "What do you mean?" Malone said.

      Lynch's face took on a delicately unconcerned appearance. "I don't know," he said. "They just don't get into neighborhood trouble. Maybe a scrap now and then—nothing big, though. Or maybe one of them cuts a class at school or argues with his teacher. But there's nothing unusual, and little of anything." He frowned.

      Malone said: "Something's got to be wrong. What is it?"

      "Well," Lynch said, "they do seem to have a lot of money to spend."

      Malone sat down in a chair across the desk, and leaned eagerly toward Lynch. "Money?" he said.

      "Money," Lynch said. "New clothes. Cigarettes. Malone, three of them are even supporting their parents. Old Jose Otravez—Ramon's old man—quit his job a couple of months ago, and hasn't worked since. Spends all his time in bars, and never runs out of dough—and don't tell me you can do that on Unemployment Insurance. Or Social Security payments."

      "O.K.," Malone said. "I won't tell you."

      "And there's others. All the others, in fact. Mike Fueyo's sister—dresses fit to kill, like a high-fashion model. And the Grito kid—"

      "Wait a minute," Malone said. "From what you tell me, this isn't just a little extra money. These kids must be rolling in the stuff. Up to their ears in dough."

      "Listen," Lynch said sadly. "Those kids spend more than I do. They do better than that—they spend more than I earn." He looked remotely sorry for himself, but not for long. "Every one of those kids spends like a drunken sailor, tossing his money away on all sorts of things."

      "Like an expense account," Malone said idly. Lynch looked up. "Sorry," Malone said. "I was thinking about something else."

      "I'll bet you were," Lynch said with unconcealed envy.

      "No," Malone said. "Really. Listen, I'll check with Internal Revenue on that money. But have you got a list of the kids' addresses?"

      "I can get one," Lynch said, and went to the door.

      It closed behind him. Malone sat waiting alone for a few minutes, and then Lynch came back. "List'll be here in a minute," he said. He sat down behind his desk and reached for the notebook again. When he turned to the third page his expression changed to one of surprise.

      "Be damned," said. "There does seem to be a connection, doesn't there?" He held up the picture of the red Cadillac for Malone to see.

      "Sure does," Malone said. "That's why I want those addresses. If there is a connection, I sure want to find out about it."

      Ten minutes later, Malone was walking out of the precinct station with the list of addresses in his pocket. He was heading for his Great Adventure, but he didn't know it. All he was thinking about was the red Cadillacs, and the eight teen-agers. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this if it takes me all summer," he said, muttering to himself.

      "That's the spirit," he told himself. "Never say die."

      Then, realizing he had just said it, he frowned. Perhaps it hadn't really counted. But, then again....

      He was on his way down the steps when he hit the girl.

      The mutual collision was not catastrophic. On the other hand, it was not exactly minor. It fell somewhere between the two, as an unclassifiable phenomenon of undoubted potency. Malone said: "Oog," with some fervor as the girl collided with his chest and rebounded like a handball striking a wall. Something was happening to her, but Malone had no time to spare to notice just what. He was falling through space, touching a concrete step once in a while, but not long enough to make any real acquaintance with it. It seemed to take him a long time to touch bottom, and when he had, he wondered if touch was quite the word.

      Bottom certainly was. He had fallen backward and landed directly on his glutei maximi, obeying the law regarding equal and opposite reaction and several other laws involving falling bodies.

      His СКАЧАТЬ