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

"You live like shit."

I could feel the heat in my cheeks. "I don't have to --"

"No; you don't. But I've watched you for a long time, Francine. I knew your
step-father, and I knew Andy..."

"Leave Andy out of it. What's done is done."

"Whatever. Andy's gone, a long time now he's been gone, and I don't see you
moving along. You live like an old lady, not even with the cat thing; and one of
these days they'll find your desiccated corpse stinking up the building you live
in, and they'll bust open the door, and there you'll be, all leathery and oozing
parts, in rooms filled with old Sunday newspaper sections, like those two creepy
brothers..."

"The Collyer Brothers."

"Yeah. The Collyer Brothers."

"I don't think that'll happen."

"Right. And I never thought we'd elect some half-assed actor for President."

"Clinton wasn't an actor."

"Tell that to Bob Dole."

It was wearing thin. I wanted out of there. For some reason all this sidebar
crap had wearied me more than I could say. I felt like shit again, the way I'd
felt before dinner. "Are you done beating up on me?" He shook his head slowly,
wearily.

"Go home. Get some sleep. Tomorrow we'll start all over." I thanked him, and I
went home. Tomorrow, we'll start all over. Right at the level of glistening
black alleys. I felt like shit.

I was dead asleep, dreaming about black birds circling a garbage-filled alley.
The phone made that phlegm-ugly electronic sound its designers thought was
reassuring to the human spirit, and I grabbed it on the third. "Yeah?" I wasn't
as charming as I might otherwise have been. The voice on the other end was
Razzia down at the house. "The three women...them models....?"

"Yeah, what about them?"

"They're gone."

"So big deal. They were material witnesses, that's all. We know where to find
'em."