Цитаты из произведения Zero Sum Game — стр. 3

Humans, like to see patterns. We see them all the time, even when they don`t exist. I wasn`t sure whether I was repeating what someone had told me once, or if it was an observation.

"Are you even listening to yourself? What, so every killer who doesn`t fit the profile is part of some shadowy conspiracy? Newsflash, Einsten: sometimes people are violent. A lot of time for no other reason than they want to hurt people." "A lot of times." He gave a non-committal half-shrug. "Maybe not all the time."

"Who hired you?" I repeated. "No one," he spat. "We wanted to." Well, that was new. People who wanted to kill me for fun.

A few blocks over, I took a sharp right into another coffee shop with a mostly empty sit-down section. A hipster on a lapton in the far corner was the only other customer; knowing Los Angeles, he was probably working on the next Great American Screenplay.

I meandered down the sidewalk, keeping a sidelong view of Courtney`s house. The dark-suited men became points in motion, my brain extrapolating from the little I could see and hear, assigning probabilities and translating to expected values. As I drew up to the house, the highs and lows of conversation became barely…

"They paid me in cash. I didn`t — taxes, you know, I thought it would be better if..." "Oh, yeah," I said, trying not to laugh at her. "No sign at all they weren`t on the level. I can see why you thought it was a legitimate delivery service." I dealt only in cash myself, of course, but I wasn`t exactly a yardstick for…

"Who were you calling?" asked Courtney, getting out of the car and squinting at me in the glare of the Southern California sun. "A friend," I said. Well, sort of. "Someone I trust." That part was true. "Someone who can help us?" "Maybe." Rio was clearly working his own angle, and didn`t want help — even from me. Which…

In my business, getting into a car and hotwiring it are such necessary skills I could literally do them with my eyes closed, and I had the engine coughing to life in fourteen seconds. We left the motel behind in a cloud of dust. I flattened the accelerator, and the desert sped by around us, the morning sun flashing off…

"Talk," said the cop. "Or I shoot you and break your pet out there." Courtney. Shit. Stall. "Okay," I said. "What do you want to know?" In the bathroom mirror, I saw the rising sun peek above the sill and through the almost-drawn curtains. Specular reflection. Angles of incidence. Perfect. As long as the cop wasn`t going…