"Alexander Jablokov - Dead Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jablokov Alexander)

DEAD MAN by ALEXANDER JABLOKOV

Our last story from Alexander Jablokov, “Market Report,” appeared in our
September 1998 issue. After much too long a hiatus, the author is writing again. He
is most of the way through a novel, Remembering Muriel, and has several other
stories in the works. In his new tale, he relentlessly hunts down the...

****

Near Bellefonte, Pennsylvania

The breakfast rush was over. Pushed-back chairs stood at angles around
tables sticky with syrup. The waitress had slowed down and finally gotten the hair
out of her eyes. She poured the dead man another cup of coffee.

“These yours?”

The waitress didn’t answer the dead man’s question. She turned, instead, to
me. “Had too much Thanksgiving?”

I pushed the turkey and stuffing around on my plate. Chasing the dead man
had made me miss the holiday itself, and this had been an attempt to give myself a
treat. “Not hungry, I guess.”

“So why did you order it? You didn’t have to. I’m not your mother.”

“No,” I said. “You’re not.”

She prodded my backpack with a mustard-stained sneaker toe. “A gal could
trip.” Before I could stop her she stooped and tried to pick it up. “Damn! You travel
with your barbells?”

“Sensing equipment.” I had to say something. “Look for stuff along the old
rail lines. You’d be surprised at what you can find.”

“Really.”

“Yeah! All kinds of things. Lantern pieces. Spikes. Once I even found a
telegraph key. Imagine the messages it must once have sent.” Boring is best for
concealment. It’s the one thing no one ever tries to fake.

A big guy at a table near the door had been leading her with his eyes the whole
time I’d been there. She’d managed to serve him steak, home fries, three eggs sunny
side up, an English muffin, a bran muffin, three cups of coffee, and a mint-flavored
toothpick without ever glancing at him. He’d been glancing at our conversation,
which made me uncomfortable, but he now clapped on a fluorescent orange hunting
cap and lurched out, leaving a $10 bill folded into an origami swan balanced on top
of a napkin dispenser. The waitress scooped it up and, again without looking,
unfolded it and put it into an apron pocket. She snapped a wet rag and wiped down
the checked plastic tablecloth.