"Samuel R. Delany - Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Samuel R)

Crossed the plastiplex pavement of the Great White Way—I think it makes people look weird, all that
white light under their chins—and skirted the crowds coming up in elevators from the sub-way, the
sub-sub-way, and the sub-sub-sub (eighteen and first week out of jail I hung around here, snatching stuff
from people—but daintily, daintily, so they never knew they’d been snatched), bulled my way through a
crowd of giggling, goo-chewing school girls with flashing lights in their hair, all very embarrassed at
wearing transparent plastic blouses which had just been made legal again (I hear the breast has been
scene [as opposed to obscene] on and off since the seventeenth century) so I stared appreciatively; they
giggled some more. I thought, Christ, when I was that age, I was on a God damn dairy farm, and took
the thought no further.

The ribbon of news lights looping the triangular structure of Communication, Inc., explained in Basic
English how Senator Regina Abolafia was preparing to begin her investigation of Organized Crime in the
City. Days I’m so happy I’m disorganized I couldn’t begin to tell.

Near Ninth Avenue I took my briefcase into a long, crowded bar. I hadn’t been in New York for two
years, but on my last trip through ofttimes a man used to hang out here who had real talent for getting rid
of things that weren’t mine profitably, safely, fast. No idea what the chances were I’d find him. I pushed
among a lot of guys drinking beer. Here and there were a number of well escorted old bags wearing last
month’s latest. Scarfs of smoke gentled through the noise. I don’t like such places. Those there younger
than me were all morphadine heads or feeble minded. Those older only wished more younger ones
would come. I pried my way to the bar and tried to get the attention of one of the little men in white
coats.

The lack of noise behind me made me glance back-She wore a sheath of veiling closed at the neck and
wrists with huge brass pins (oh so tastefully on the border of taste); her left arm was bare, her right
covered with chiffon like wine. She had it down a lot better than I did. But such an ostentatious
demonstration of one’s understanding of the fine points was absolutely out of place in a place like this.
People were making a great show of not noticing.

She pointed to her wrist, blood-colored nail indexing a yellow-orange fragment in the brass claw of her
wristlet. “Do you know what this is, Mr. Eldrich?” she asked; at the same time the veil across her face
cleared, and her eyes were ice; her brows, black.

Three thoughts: (One) She is a lady of fashion, because coming in from Bellona I’d read the Delta
coverage of the “fading fabrics” whose hue and opacity were controlled by cunning jewels at the wrist.
(Two) During my last trip through, when I was younger and Harry Calamine Eldrich, I didn’t do anything
too illegal (though one loses track of these things); still I didn’t believe I could be dragged off to the
calaboose for anything more than thirty days under that name. (Three) The stone she pointed to…

“… Jasper?” I asked.

She waited for me to say more; I waited for her to give me reason to let on I knew what she was waiting
for (when I was in jail Henry James was my favorite author. He really was.)

“Jasper,” she confirmed.

“—Jasper…” I reopened the ambiguity she had tried so hard to dispel.

“… Jasper—” But she was already faltering, suspecting I suspected her certainty to be ill-founded.