"Paul J. McAuley - Cross Roads Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

"Don't pull no gun on me," the burly man said, half-angry, half-fearful, and swung clumsily at Turner and
turned halfway around and sat down with comic suddeness.
The door of the jook joint opened. Yellow light fell across the yard. A slightly-built man in a chalk-stripe
suit stepped out, a guitar slung across his back, a fedora tilted on his head. It was Robert Johnson. He
looked directly at Turner and said, "Why, Isaac. You come back. I always wondered if you would."



Robert Johnson soon disengaged himself from the three hangers-on, refusing a drink from the enamel jug
but somehow acquiring a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He took a long swallow from a half-pint bottle of
whiskey he took from his jacket pocket, and passed it to Turner. The bootleg whiskey was as raw as his
songs. Turner managed not to cough, passed the bottle back, and Robert Johnson took another swallow
and lit a cigarette and held it jauntily in the corner of his mouth. "Well all right," he said with satisfaction,
and exhaled a riffle of smoke.

They stood in the warm dark, looking at the lights of the little town across a rough pasture where the
unfathomable codes of fireflies winked on and off amongst the weeds.

Robert Johnson said, "When I saw you back there, Ike? Thought for a moment I'd been wrong all along
about who you were. Thought you were the devil after all, come for my poor soul."

He spoke with the grave care of the profoundly drunk, although he didn't look drunk at all.

"I'm not who you think I am," Turner said.

"You're not no devil, that for sure. Never forgot what you taught me, Ike, and never did figure out why
you did it. One of the boys on the porch said you were a talent scout. That just a line you spinnin, or you
in some other business now?"

"I just came to hear you play."

"I was good, wasn't I?"

"Better than I'll ever be."

"I learnt a lot from you, Ike, and I'm still learning. That barrelhouse shake-up ain't nothing to my best. I
got stuff that'll put some real upset in your backbone. Tomorrow, when I'm not so drunk as I am now, I
want to play them for you."

There was nothing Turner would have liked better. He said, "I have to move on tonight."

"Yeah? Maybe I come along with you."

"That really isn't possible."

"It ain't?" Robert Johnson looked sideways at Turner when he didn't reply. "I guess you don't have to tell
me where you goin or where you been. You look good though, Ike. Not a year older. Me, I been
through some bad times and some good times. I lost me two good women and a baby, I travelled all
over this land like a vagabond, I been in jail, I been ridden out on a rail, but I got my singing put down on