"Brian Lumley - Psychomech 01 - Psychomech" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

aspirations. Offering you false gods. Except that... I feel you are extraordinary!’ He gripped Garrison’s arm and the
blind man could feel the strength flowing back into Schroeder’s fingers, almost as if drawn from his own body.
 ‘What is it you want from me, Thomas?’ he asked.
‘I only want to give, pay my debt.’
‘No, you want something. I know it.’
The other nodded. ‘All right. You are right. But tomorrow will be time enough. For now, all I want is your patience.
Then you will understand, and then you will have to be patient again.’
Garrison sighed. ‘Very well, I’ll be patient.’
‘For six months, maybe a little longer?’
‘What?’ Garrison frowned. ‘Why? What happens in six months?’
‘Exit one old man,’ Schroeder told him. ‘A worn out old man with scrambled guts.’
‘You? You’ll live forever,’ Garrison tried to laugh it off.
‘Oh? Willy says so too. But tell the grass it must not bend in the wind nor wither in the drought, eh?’
‘What is this?’ Garrison cried. ‘You don’t want my pity, for God’s sake! You’re not grass to bend so easily.’
‘But I feel the wind blowing, Richard.’
‘You’ll live forever!’ Garrison shouted, angry again.
Schroeder gripped his arm tighter still, digging in his nails. ‘It’s just possible,’ he said. ‘Yes, maybe I will. With your
help, Richard Garrison, with your help . . .’

What was left of the evening and early night was strangely empty. Koenig helped Garrison change into a grey shirt
and crisp new light-blue suit flamboyantly cut. With open collar, handkerchief flopping from breast pocket, his feet
clad in Wue suedes which were surely out of fashion, Garrison felt better than he had felt for years - and yet at the
same time he felt somehow empty, like the night.
At 9.30 after a small late meal, he and Koenig went to the bar. This was in Schroeder’s own private suite, where low
moody music was carried on a cooling breeze from open windows. There was bad brandy for Garrison and tiny glasses
of sweet, sticky Commanderia, another reminder of his Cyprus days.
But still the night was empty and Garrison began to feel depressed. Maybe it was the drink. He drank too much,
chatted too much, put on too much of a show. Yes, he was putting on a show - for Schroeder. Anything, just so long
as the industrialist (surely much more than any common or garden industrialist) remained calm and did not get
overheated or excited.
Mina, Schroeder’s cool, efficient secretary, sat with Garrison at the bar, held his hand, talked a pidgin-English that
both attracted and repulsed him. He was attracted, too, by her sensuality; and also repulsed by her easy, casual
manner. She was simply amusing him, as she had doubtless been ordered to do. Pretending, as he was pretending. It
meant nothing, served only to deepen the emptiness.
Vicki, on the other hand, seemed to be avoiding him. She sat with Schroeder at a small table, spoke German all night
(in which Garrison was not especially well versed), finally excused herself but without saying goodnight, and did not
return. Only Willy Koenig held the thing together at all, until about 11.30 when he suddenly said:
‘Herr Garrison, you have had enough!’
‘D’you think so, Willy?’ Garrison patted Mina’s hand. ‘Do you think so, Mina?’
‘They both think so,’ said Schroeder, who now sat behind the bar performing Koenig’s duties. ‘And so do I.
Besides, it’s well past bar-closing time.’
‘Bar-closing time?’ Garrison repeated. ‘I thought we only did silly things like that in England!’
‘Hexen stunden!’ said Mina, mysteriously.
‘Witching hour? Midnight?’ Suddenly Garrison realized how late it was. Suddenly, too, he wondered why he felt the
effect of his drinking more than the others felt theirs. When was the last time he’d drunk - or even wanted to drink - to
this extent? Damn it, he had not had too much - he simply wasn’t used to it any more, that’s all.
‘Is it at all possible,’ he chose his words carefully and used them with the deliberate dexterity of a man close to
inebriation, ’that I might have a coffee? Or even ... a pot of coffee?’
Koenig chuckled and went out of the room.
‘Well,’ said Schroeder. ‘Day One, Richard.’