"Higgins, Jack - Prayer For The Dying" - читать интересную книгу автора (Higgins Jack)

There was an agony in Father da Costa's voice that cut into Anna's heart like a knife. "You used me "I" he cried. "In the worst possible way. You've used this church."

"I could have closed your mouth by putting a bullet between your eyes. Would you have preferred that?"

"In some ways I think I would." Father da Costa had control of himself again now. He said, "What is your name?

"Fallon - Martin Fallon."

Is that genuine?"

"Names with me are like the Book of the Month. Always changing. I'm not wanted as Fallon. Let's put it that way."

"I see," Father da Costa said. "An interesting choice. I once knew a priest of that name. Do you know what it means in Irish?"

"Of course. Stranger from outside the campfire."

"And you consider that appropriate?"

"I don't follow you."

"I mean, is that how you see yourself? As some romantic desperado outside the crowd?"

Fallon showed no emotion -whatsoever. "I'll go now. You won't see me again."

He turned to leave and Father da Costa caught him by the arm. "The man who paid you to do what you did this morning, Fallon? Does he know about me?"

Fallon stared at him for a long moment, frowning slightly, and then he smiled. "You've nothing to worry about. It's taken care of."

"For such a clever man, you really are very foolish," Father da Costa, told him.

The door at the main entrance banged open in the wind. An old woman in a headscarf entered. She dipped her fingers in the holy water, genuflected and came up the aisle.

Father da Costa took Fallon's arm firmly. "We can't talk here. Come with me."

At one side of the nave there was an electric cage hoist, obviously used by workmen for access to the tower. He pushed Fallon inside and pressed the button. The cage rose through the network of scaffolding, passing through a hole in the roof.

It finally jerked to a halt and da Costa opened the gate and led the way out on to a catwalk supported by scaffolding that encircled the top of the tower like a ship's bridge.

"What happened here?" Fallon asked.

"We ran out of money," Father da Costa told him and led the way along the catwalk in the rain.

Neither of them heard the slight whirring of the electric motor as the cage dropped back to the church below. When it reached ground level, Anna da Costa entered, closed the gate and fumbled for the button.

The view of the city from the catwalk was magnificent although the grey curtain of the rain made things hazy in the middle distance. Fallon gazed about him with obvious pleasure. He had changed in some supple, indefinable way and smiled slightly.

"Now this I like. Earth hath not anything to show more fair: isn't that what the poet saidP9

"Great God in heaven, I bring you up here to talk seriously and you quote Wordsworth to me? Doesn't anything touch you at all?