The Plastic Man [antikvár]

PROLOGUE'They PEELED the body off the pavement____' That's what thenewspapers said. 'The police peeled it oft" the pavement and rolled it up "for further investigation".'The headlines were unanimous about that, in the largest captions that lie had seen since the - 'Oh, to hell with that case,' thought Brad. It had no bearing at all on these headlines. Anyhow, what was the point of digging up that five-year-old scandal, and who was he to gloat about the mighty fallen, although he had always found comfort in the thought that even Caesar had been mortal. Just like the rest of us "Great Caesar dead and turned to clay To stop a hole to keep the wind away - "he recited aloud to himself, looking furtively over his shoulder to see if anyone in the vast news office had overheard him. No one had, of course; in spite of the rows of electric typewriters, the noise level was pretty high. But - talking to himself! Christ!Captions. That's what he'd had in mind - great black captions - newspaper headlines that had been pushing everything else off the front pages of the dailies for days.It had happened in Sunderland, of all places. Why the fact that it had happened in Sunderland seemed so outlandish to him, he didn't know. If something as horrible as the flattened, cardboard-thin body of a man had to be found anywhere at all, he reasoned, why not in Sunderland?'Brad!' his editor barked at him down the intercom.'Yes, boss?' he answered, feeling as always when speaking to Chris Oldham on a telephone that he'd had electric shock treatment in one ear.'Why are you sitting on your arse in London,' blasted the voice, 'when you should be standing on your own two feet in Sunderland?''Clark's covering things up there.''Clark? Who the hell sent Clark up there? You're the star5