"Nancy Kress - Oaths and Miracles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Terry Boothman, for his unique insight on Robert Cavanaugh's doodles;

Miriam Grace Monfredo, Mary Stanton, and Kate Koningisor, for their
generous critiques of early drafts of the novel.

Oaths and miracles are usually followed by deceptive statements.

-General Rules for Statement Analysis, Rule #9, Federal Bureau of
Investigation Interviewing and Interrogation, U.S. Department of
Justice

AUGUST

He that increases knowledge, increases sorrow. -Ecclesiastes 1:18

ONE

.FOURTEEN minutes into the midnight show at Caesars Palace, the
sixth showgirl descending the left side of the Staircase from Heaven
tripped.

Her name was Sue Ann Jefferson, from Amarillo, Texas, although in
Vegas she was known as Taffy. Her long legs had shaken throughout
the 9:00 P.M. show. Under the tight blue-sequined helmet with ice-blue
feathers rising two feet into the air, her face was the color of the
waiter's linen. Her huge brown eyes remained wide open and
unblinking during her fall, which tumbled her and her enormous blue
angel wings forward into the showgirl on the step below.

That girl, the most spectacularly built of a spectacular group, wobbled.
To keep her own balance and restore Sue Ann/Taffy's, she thrust her
gorgeous body backward. Her smile stayed hard and false as the blue
diamonds in her shoulder-length earrings. Over her shoulder she hissed,
"Bitch! Stay off the junk when you working!" Eighteen steps below, the
famous singer in the white dinner jacket sang on, unaware.

Sue Ann lurched upright, took another hip-swaying step downward on
five-inch sequined heels, and wobbled again. This time her knees gave
way. She sat down hard on her step, just as the showgirl above her,
smiling fixedly out at the audience, put out her foot to descend to that
same step. The foot encountered Sue Ann, not firm ground. The other
girl stumbled, gave a small cry, and fell on top of Sue Ann. Both girls
caromed into the spectacular body in front of them. The left side on the
Staircase from Heaven crashed down the steps in a tangle of feathers,
legs, wings, tassels, breasts, and earrings like flying chains.

The audience laughed and pointed. The famous singer half-turned his
head, glimpsed the writhing female pile at the bottom of Heaven, and
kept on singing. His eyes were volcanic rock.