"Gardner Dozois - A Kingdom by the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

windows flashing importantly.

Mason got off the bus. There was a puddle at the curb and he stepped in it. He felt water soak into his
socks. The bus snapped its doors contemptuously shut behind him. It rumbled away, farting exhaust
smoke into his face. Mason splashed toward his apartment, wrapped in rain mist, moisture beading on
his lips and forehead. His shoes squelched. The wet air carried heavy cooking odors, spicy and foreign.
Someone was banging garbage cans together somewhere. Cars hooted mournfully at him as they rushed
by.

Mason ignored this, fumbling automatically for his keys as he came up to the outside door. He was
trying to think up an excuse to stay home tonight. This was Tuesday, his bowling night; Kaplan would
be calling in a while, and he'd have to tell him something. He just didn't feel like bowling; they could
shuffle the league around, put Johnson in instead. He clashed the key against the lock. Go in, damn it.
This would be the first bowling night he'd missed in six years, even last fall when he'd had the flu—
Christ, how Emma had bitched about that, think he'd risen from his deathbed or something. She always
used to worry about him too much. Still, after six years. Well, fuck it, he didn't feel like it, was all; it
wasn't going to hurt anything; it was only a practice session anyway. He could afford to miss a week.
And what the fuck was wrong with the lock? Mason sneered in the dark. How many years is it going to
take to learn to use the right key for the front door, asshole? He found the proper key (the one with the
deep groove) with his thumb and clicked the door open.

Course, he'd have to tell Kaplan something. Kaplan'd want to know why he couldn't come, try to argue
him into it. (Up the stairwell, around and around.) Give him some line of shit. At least he didn't have to
make up excuses for Emma anymore—she would've wanted to know why he wasn't going, if he felt
good, if he was sick, and she'd be trying to feel his forehead for fever. A relief to have her off his back.
She'd been gone almost a month. Now all he had to worry about was what to tell fucking Kaplan. (Old
wood creaked under his shoes. It was stuffy. Muffled voices leaked from under doorways as he passed,
pencil beams of light escaped from cracks. Dust motes danced in the fugitive light.)

Fuck Kaplan anyway; he didn't have to justify his actions to Kaplan. Just tell him he didn't want to, and
the hell with him. The hell with all of them.

Into the apartment: one large room, partially divided by a low counter into kitchen and living room—
sink, refrigerator, stove and small table in the kitchen; easy chair, coffee table and portable television in
the living room; a small bedroom off the living room, and a bath. Shit, he'd have to tell Kaplan
something after all, wouldn't he? Don't want the guys to start talking. And it is weird to miss a bowling
night. Mason took off his wet clothes, threw them onto the easy chair for Emma to hang up and dry.
Then he remembered that Emma was gone. Finally left him—he couldn't blame her much, he supposed.
He was a bum, it was true. He supposed. Mason shrugged uneasily. Fredricks promoted over him,

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 A Kingdom by the Sea

suppose he didn't have much of a future—he didn't worry about it, but women were different, they
fretted about stuff like that, it was important to them. And he wouldn't marry her. Too much of a drifter.
But family stuff, that was important to a woman. Christ, he couldn't really blame her, the dumb cunt—
she just couldn't understand. He folded his clothes himself, clumsily, getting the seam wrong in the
pants. You miss people for the little things. Not that he really cared whether his pants were folded right
or not. And, God knows, she probably missed him more than he did her; he was more independent—
sure, he didn't really need anybody but him. Dumb cunt. Maybe he'd tell Kaplan that he had a woman up