"Ellison, Harlan - Objects Of Desire (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

while I went downtown and had a chat with dear Old Doc Death, our coroner. The
Boss saw me heading out, and he put those two fingers in his mouth and whistled
me to a halt, and yelled across the squadroom, "Have you eaten?"

"Since what time?" I answered.

"Since ever. Go get some dinner."

"I got to go downtown to see Dear Old Doc Death."

"Jacobs," he said, without room for argument, "do as I tell you." I said,
yessir, and I went to The Pantry and had a T-bone. Richard of the green light
was there, having a meal. He looked happy in his new shoes. I felt a lot better
about the universe after that. In your heart of hearts, you think a Richard kind
of rummy is going to stoke up on some sweet lucy or a tankard of muscatel, and
so you just don't dip into the wallet for somebody like that. But every once in
a sometime they fool you. This Richard was eating well, so I told the guy behind
the cash register not to take his money, that I was paying for it, and Richard
could maybe have a second meal, or buy a hat, or get a life. It was easier,
after that, to go downtown.

"Not only has his throat been cut literally from ear to ear practically excising
his head from his neck, not only was the rip strong and deep enough to sever the
carotid, the jugular, and the trachea -- we're talking someone with heavy-duty
power! -- but I put his age at something over a hundred, maybe a hundred and
two, a hundred and ten, maybe a hundred fifty, there's no way of judging
something like this, I've never seen anything like it in all my years; but I
have to tell you that this one-hundred-and-two-year-old corpse, this old man
lying here all blue and empty, this old man...is pregnant."

Dear Old Doc Death had hair growing out of his ears. He had a gimp on his
starboard side. He did tend to drool and spit a mite when he was deep in
conversation or silent communication with (I supposed) the spirits of the
departed. But he was an award-winning sawbones. He could smell decay before the
milk went sour, before the rot started to manifest itself. If he said this
headless horseman was over a hundred years old, I might wrinkle my brow -- and
have to lave myself with vitamin E moisturizer later that night -- but I'd make
book he was dead on. Not a good choice of phrase, dead on. Right. I'd bet he was
right. Correct.

"What're we talking here, Doc, some kind of artificial insemination?"

He shook his head. "No, not that easy." He breathed heavily, as if he didn't
want to move forward with the story. But I caught a whiff of dinnerbreath,
anyway. Then he spoke very softly, sort of motioning me in closer. Fettucine
Alfredo. "Look, Francine, I've been at this forever. But with all I've seen, all
I've known of the variety of the human condition...never anything like this. The
man has two complete sets of internal organs. Two hearts. Two livers, kidneys,
alimentary canals, sixteen sinuses, two complete nervous systems -- interlocked
and twisting around each other like some insane roller coasters -- and one of