"Michael Swanwick - A Small Room in Koboltown" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

trusted to turn out the troops in the upcoming election and crossing out those who
had a history of pocketing the walking-around money and standing idle on election
day or, worse, steering the vote the wrong way because they were double-dipping
from the opposition. The door between Toussaint’s office and the anteroom was
open a crack and Will could eavesdrop on their conversation.
“Grandfather Domovoy was turned to stone last August,” Jimi Begood said,
“so we’re going to have to find somebody new to bring out the Slovaks. There’s a
vila named—”
Ghostface snapped a rubber band around a bundle of envelopes and lofted
them into the mail cart on the far side of the room. “Three points!” he said. Then,
“You want to know what burns my ass?”
“No,” Will said.
“What burns my ass is how you and me are doing the exact same job, but
you’re headed straight for the top while I’m going to be stuck here licking envelopes
forever. And you know why? Because you’re solid.”
“That’s just racist bullshit,” Will said. “Toussaint is never going to promote
me any higher than I am now. Haints like seeing a fey truckle to the Big Guy, but
they’d never accept me as one of his advisors. You know that as well as I do.”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to be here forever, are you? In a couple of years,
you’ll be holding down an office in the Mayoralty. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if
you made it all the way to the Palace of Leaves.”
“Either you’re just busting my chops, or else you’re a fool. Because if you
meant it, you’d be a fool to be ragging on me about it. If Toussaint were in your
position, he’d make sure I was his friend, and wherever I wound up he’d have an
ally. You could learn from his example.”
Ghostface lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “Toussaint is old school. I’ve
got nothing to learn from a glad-handing, pompous, shucking-and-jiving—”
The office door slammed open. They both looked up.
Salem Toussaint stood in the doorway, eyes rolled up in his head so far that
only the whites showed. He held up a hand and in a hollow voice said, “One of my
constituents is in trouble.”
 The alderman was spooky in that way. He had trodden the streets of Babel for
so many decades that its molecules had insinuated themselves into his body through
a million feather-light touches on its bricks and railings, its bars and brothel doors,
its accountants’ offices and parking garages, and his own molecules had in turn been
absorbed by the city, so that there was no longer any absolute distinction between
the two. He could read Babel’s moods and thoughts and sometimes—as now—it
spoke to him directly.
Toussaint grabbed his homburg and threw his greatcoat over his arm. “Jimi,
stay here and arrange for a lawyer. We can finish that list later. Ghostface, Will—you
boys come with me.”
The alderman plunged through the door. Ghostface followed.
Will hurried after them, opening the door and closing it behind him, then
running to make up for lost time.
Ghostface doubled as Toussaint’s chauffeur. In the limo, he said, “Where to,
Boss?”
“Koboldtown. A haint’s been arrested for murder and we got to get him off.”
“You think he was framed?” Will asked.
“What the fuck difference does it make? He’s a voter.”
Koboldtown was a transitional neighborhood with all the attendant tensions.