"Michael Scott Rohan - Chase the Morning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rohan Michael Scott)

and calm and predictable, all of it. Strange, perhaps, that so many exotic
commodities should pass through these offices, in a manner of speaking, and
yet leave never a trace behind. Cinnamon, manganese, copra, alligator pepper,
sapphires; we handled them by the tonne as readily as sheet steel or crude
oil. All the trade goods of the world, and yet none ever came within miles of
this place; I'd only ever seen them on rare visits to docks and airports. Only
their legal identities passed through my hands, in notes of shipment and bills
of lading and Customs inventories that left nothing in the air but the faint
dry taint of toner ink. When I opened the door of my own office I smelt it;
but there was also Clare's flowery perfume, and the girl herself shuffling
little sheaves of documents on her immaculate desk.
'Steve! Hallo! I wasn't expecting you so soon! How's your poor arm? It
isn't anything serious, is it? I mean, slipping in the rain like that? You
might really have hurt yourself!' I'd woken late, exhausted, with my arm
swollen and stiff; I'd had to phone in with some sort of excuse. Yet now it
seemed more like the truth; I could almost see it happening. A slip, a gash -
far more likely than a knife in the hands of some weird dockland thug. Far
easier to believe; I was close to believing it myself. 'It's not too bad,
thanks. Bit stiff.'
"You're sure?' I was a little startled. Her intense blue eyes were very
wide and concerned. She half rose. 'Look, just sit down a moment and I'll get
the First Aid box -'
I grinned, rather uneasily. All this concern, it wasn't the sort of thing
I was used to. 'Give you half a chance and you'll have me swathed up like King
Tut!' Of course, she'd been the office first-aider since that course last
year. She must be itching to find some use for it; she'd had nothing better so
far than Barry cutting his thumb on the cap of a whisky bottle. That would
account for it. 'No thanks, love, I, er, got it seen to. Any calls?'
I was allowed to pass on to my desk with a small sheaf of mail, a
circular from the Brazilian Aduana, and instructions to sit down and take it
easy. Dave Oshukwe was at his desk already, head down over his terminal,
rattling keys; he lifted a limp brown hand to me, leaving a comet of expensive
cigarette smoke in the air, but thankfully didn't look up. I settled down in
my armchair, flicked on my terminal and settled back to let it warm up and log
on. The firm leather upholstery of the chair enveloped me and bore up my sore
arm, the chrome of the recline lever cool beneath my fingers. I touched the
wood of the desk, solid under glassy layers of polish and varnish. I ran a
finger along the terminal casing, mirror-smooth and clean and dustless, and
felt the faint shiver of the current beneath. This - this was what it was all
about.
I'd been half off my head last night. Hallucinating, almost. Sick and dizzy
from that stab, no doubt about it, half drunk and unhappy; seeing everything
through a haze. Small wonder I'd cast a romantic aura round places that were
shabby or just plain squalid, over people - well, good-hearted enough, okay,
but underprivileged, uneducated, simple, rough. Or since we were forgetting
the euphemisms, downright crude and backward. I'd turned something utterly
ordinary into a strange, feverish experience. That was the truth beneath the
dream. All this was real. This was every day, this was my life. Here was Clare
with a cup of coffee, just like every day; only for once she hadn't tried to
slip me sweeteners instead of sugar. 'You need building up!' she said. 'If