"Charles de Lint - Mulengro" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

“I didn’t do nothing,” Cleary mumbled.

“No one said you did,” Briggs explained gently. “We just want to ask you what you saw tonight, that’s
all. Think you can do that, Ralph?”

The wino nodded. “They call me Red-eye on the street,” he offered, “on account of the way my eyes get,
you know?”

“Would you prefer to be called that?”

“No. I like being called Ralph better.” He shot a quick glance at Will, then returned his watery gaze to
Briggs. “I used to be a midshipman, you know—out of Halifax. I wasn’t always… you know. Like this.”

Briggs nodded sympathetically. “Times are getting tough again,” he said. “All we can do is just hang in
there the best we can.”

“Yeah. We just gotta hang in there…” His voice trailed off. Briggs let the silence hang for a few
moments before he spoke again.

“So what did you see, Ralph?”

Cleary shrugged. “I was just minding my own business, you know, sitting on the stoop over there,
resting my feet.” He nodded to the front of the indoor parking lot across the street from the mouth of the


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alleyway. “I was just sitting there, when this guy comes by. I thought I might hit him up for some
change, but when he got into the light and I could see him better, I saw he didn’t look a whole lot better
off than me. I thought maybe I’d call him over, offer him a swig, you know, just to be sociable. I had
about a third of a bottle left and I. was feeling pretty good, but then…”

He’d been looking at what he could see of his feet between his legs while he spoke. As his voice trailed
off for a second time, his gaze flicked to Briggs’ face, then back to his shoes.

“What happened then, Ralph?” Briggs prompted him. For a long moment Cleary didn’t say anything.
When he finally spoke, his voice was strained. Scared.

“Did you ever stand in a harbor and… and watch the way the fog comes rolling in?” he asked. “The way
it licks up the streets at first, you know, hanging real low?”

“Yeah, sure.” Briggs wasn’t sure what Cleary was on about, but he wanted to keep him talking.

“Well, that’s what it was like… like a little patch of fog that came rolling up the street, only there was
this guy in the middle of it and the fog just sort of hung around his feet like it was… I don’t know…
following him. The first guy, he stopped in front of the alley when the guy with the fog called out to
him, and then he just sort of faded back into the alley, like he was scared of him, maybe. The other guy
followed and the fog… it…” He looked up at Briggs. “You’re going to say I was drunk, and maybe I