"Bowes, Richard - From The Files Of The Time Rangers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bowes Richard)

The captain put out of his mind all thoughts of the Alamo and the Paris Commune and the Dublin Post Office and other times when brave men held out and help did not come. He whistled a fragment of 'You Will Hear Me.'

No trains had arrived or departed the station for the last forty hours. But, as if the song had evoked it, Deveraux felt the rhythm of steel on steel beneath the city. T. R. stopped and listened.


You will hear me in the nighttime,
Look around to find I've gone.
Over empires, over lifetimes,
Look around, my will is done.
Then everyone felt the engines under the Concourse, heard the tramp of Sherman's infantry and Clousson's Marines marching off the trains. Artillery was manhandled from flat cars. Spiral medallions shone on the uniforms of the Rangers who had led them there from Upstream and Down.

From "Pride of the Rangers" by Daniel Ignace, Galaxy Magazine, July 1960.


1.
Half an hour after Logue leaves Jax in the diner, he leans on a pillar of the abandoned elevated railway on Tenth Avenue. He has a baseball cap pulled down over his face. Nearby, a skateboarder in black and maroon school colors bounces on and off a curb. He has olive skin and a spiral design on his cheek. He makes a point of ignoring Robert.

Down the Avenue from the tracks is a stretch of decayed tenements and parking lots, of gas stations and tire shops. A woman pushes a baby carriage full of handbags past them and pauses under the elevated. A muscle man walking west on Thirtieth Street stops and sets down a heavy backpack. An Asian boy and an Hispanic girl on bikes pass by the el, turn and ride back.

A guy gets out of a truck and opens the back to reveal TVs. A pair of junkies carry a carton of CDs. A fat girl pulls up the sleeves of her Ralph Lauren parka to display bracelets and watches. The kids get off their bikes and start showing them around. A Minute Market is in session.

Customers appear from the housing projects further down the Avenue. Cars cruising by suddenly double-park. Their drivers get out. Constantly turning to keep an eye in all directions, they buy and sell.

"Whadayaget?"

"Fiftyeven."

"Giveyatwenny."

"Fugoffmotha."

"Giveyatwennyfive."

A slightly worn Ford Explorer pulls up and sits with its engine running. The rear door opens. Robert steps around a carton of cell phones, crosses the street and heads for it.

A dark man with a bad eye sits at the wheel. The woman inside the open door is dark and wide with bright yellow hair and a Kool stuck in her mouth. She buys a pair of suitcases, hardly used, from a jumpy guy. She snaps up the carriage-load of handbags. She does business fast, palming bills, tossing her goods in behind her.

"Angelica Podesta?" murmurs Robert.

"Get lost," she says not looking at him. The driver has turned in his seat.

"Old Trollo's grandkid?"

"Like I said, get lost." She raises her voice, looks past Robert to a guy in a sweatshirt who stands with briefcases in both hands. "Ten each," she says. The dark man is out of the front seat. He holds an antique tire iron.

Robert pushes the cap back. "Is that any way to treat a fellow Time Ranger?"

"Jesus!" she breathes and holds up her hand. The man halts just behind Robert.