"Bradbury, Ray - Death Is A Lonely Business" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray)

"Was he killed?" I heard myself say.
The policeman turned. "What made you say that?"
"How would, I mean, how would he get in that cage, underwater, if someone didn't, stuff him there?"
The flashlight switched on again and touched over my face like a doctor's hand, probing for
symptoms.
"You the one who phoned the call in?"
"No." I shivered. "I'm the one who yelled and made all the lights come on."
"Hey," someone whispered.
A plainclothes detective, short, balding, kneeled by the body and turned out the coat pockets. From
them tumbled wads and clots of what looked like wet snowflakes, papier-mвchй.
"What in hell's that?" someone said.
I know, I thought, but didn't say.
My hand trembling, I bent near the detective to pick up some of the wet paper mash. He was busy
emptying the other pockets of more of the junk. I kept some of it in my palm and, as I rose, shoved it in
my pocket, as the detective glanced up.
"You're soaked," he said. "Give your name and address to that officer over there and get home. Dry
off."
It was beginning to rain again and I was shivering. I turned, gave the officer my name and address,
and hurried away toward my apartment.
I had jogged along for about a block when a car pulled up and the door swung open. The short
detective with the balding head blinked out at me.
"Christ, you look awful," he said.
"Someone else said that to me, just an hour ago."
"Get in."
"I only live another block...”
"Get in!"
I climbed in, shuddering, and he drove me the last two blocks to my thirty-dollar-a-month, stale,
crackerbox flat. I almost fell, getting out, I was so weak with trembling.
"Crumley," said the detective. "Elmo Crumley. Call me when you figure out what that paper junk is
you stuck in your pocket."
I started guiltily. My hand went to that pocket. I nodded. "Sure."
"And stop worrying and looking sick," said Crumley. "He wasn't anybody..." He stopped, ashamed of
what he had said, and ducked his head to start over.
"Why do I think he was somebody?" I said. "When I remember who, I'll call."
I stood frozen. I was afraid more terrible things were waiting just behind me. When I opened my
apartment door, would black canal waters flood out?
"Jump!" and Elmo Crumley slammed his door.
His car was just two dots of red light going away in a fresh downpour that beat my eyelids shut.
I glanced across the street at the gas station phone booth which I used as my office to call editors who
never phoned back. I rummaged my pockets for change, thinking, I'll call Mexico City, wake Peg, reverse
the charges, tell her about the cage, the man, and, Christ, scare her to death!
Listen to the detective, I thought.
Jump.
I was shaking so violently now that I couldn't get the damn key in the lock.
Rain followed me inside.
Inside, waiting for me was . . .
An empty twenty-by-twenty studio apartment with a body-damaged sofa, a bookcase with fourteen
books in it and lots of waiting space, an easy chair bought on the cheap from Goodwill Industries, a Sears,
Roebuck unpainted pinewood desk with an unoiled 1934 Underwood Standard typewriter on it, as big as a
player piano and as loud as wooden clogs on a carpetless floor.