"Mona.Lisa.Overdrive" - читать интересную книгу автора (3-Mona Lisa OVerdrive)

She shook her head, feeling ridiculous.


Never mind, the ghost said. I'll look out for you. Heathrow in three
minutes. Someone meeting you off the plane?


My father's business associate, she said in Japanese.


The ghost grinned. Then you'll be in good hands, I'm sure. He winked.
Wouldn't think I'm a linguist to look at me, would you?


Kumiko closed her eyes and the ghost began to whisper to her, something
about the archaeology of Heathrow, about the Neolithic and the Iron
ages, pottery and tools. . . .


Miss Yanaka? Kumiko Yanaka? The Englishman towered above her, his
gaijin bulk draped in elephantine folds of dark wool. Small dark eyes
regarded her blandly through steel-rimmed glasses. His nose seemed to
have been crushed nearly flat and never reset. His hair, what there was
of it, had been shaved back to a gray stubble, and his black knit gloves
were frayed and fingerless. My name, you see, he said, as though this
would immediately reassure her, is Petal.


Petal called the city Smoke.


Kumiko shivered on chill red leather; through the ancient Jaguar's
window she watched the snow spinning down to melt on the road Petal
called M4. The late afternoon sky was colorless. He drove silently,
efficiently, his lips pursed as though he were about to whistle. The
traffic, to Tokyo eyes, was absurdly light. They accelerated past an
unmanned Eurotrans freight vehicle, its blunt prow studded with sensors
and banks of headlights. In spite of the Jaguar's speed, Kumiko felt as
if somehow she were standing still; London's particles began to accrete
around her. Walls of wet brick, arches of concrete, black-painted
ironwork standing up in spears.


As she watched, the city began to define itself. Off the M4, while the
Jaguar waited at intersections, she could glimpse faces through the
snow, flushed gaijin faces above dark clothing, chins tucked down into
scarves, women's bootheels ticking through silver puddles. The rows of
shops and houses reminded her of the gorgeously detailed accessories
she'd seen displayed around a toy locomotive in the Osaka gallery of a