"Lavie Tidhar - The Gunslinger of Chelem" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tidhar Lavie)

He liked his job, but for those days when he had to get out of bed, get
dressed, drink coffee, wear dark shades, take those energy pills of Michal’s and go
to some damned place in the middle of nowhere. Before noon.
“So what did he do?” he said now. “What could be so important that I have
to get up for it? My range—”
“Your range isn’t enough,” Michal said. “You need to be physically close.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Raphael said, and he smiled.
“Don’t start,” Michal said.
They drove in silence.
“So what did he do?” Raphael said.
“Didn’t you see?”
“What?”
“The dream. Before you woke up.”
He tried to remember. Fragments came back to him, became at last a whole
memory. The town, the hour, the sun. The gunslinger.
 The shot, and then ... nothing.
“He doesn’t just shoot people,” Raphael said.
“No.”
“He’s good,” Raphael said. “The town itself wasn’t too detailed, more like a
blueprint for a building than a building itself, but the focus was extraordinary. Even
from a distance, even second-hand, you can feel it. He built that dream carefully, and
he has enough power to hold it there. Who are the people he shoots?”
“You won’t believe it,” Michal said.
Outside, the view was green; trees and square, blooming fields. A pterodactyl
circled high overhead, became suddenly a yellow plastic duck, and disappeared.
Raphael cursed all the people who overslept. Apart from him, of course. For him it
was work.
“He lives somewhere near where Yokne’am used to be. He called the place
Chelem. The town exists even when he’s awake. You could say he is stuck in the
dream. And in the dream, he’s the best gunfighter there ever was. Better than Billy
the Kid, better than Doc Holliday, better than Jesse James, better than—”
“I get it,” Raphael said. “He’s good. Nu?” It occurred to him that Michal was
becoming a little too enthusiastic about her subject.
“So people come to him. You understand? They come from all over the
country. All over the world. He’s killed more than thirty people so far—at least
those we know of. They come to challenge him. Gunfighters. People egg each other
on in the pub—let’s see you take on the gunslinger of Chelem.”
“The gunslinger of Chelem?” Raphael said. “Who came up with that name?”
“The papers,” Michal said, “Cohen just doesn’t sound the same.”
“So what do you want me to do, exactly? Fight him? A stand-off at high noon
with guns drawn?”
Michal smiled and stopped the car. “I knew you’d understand.” She opened
the door and got out of the car. Outside, the green had turned to desert.
“We’re there.”
****
Raphael napped. It is a thing different from sleep.
Raphael napped and dreamed of graves. Chelem’s cemetery spread out
before him. Chelem’s cemetery was wide. Spacious. It had personality.
It had more than thirty graves.
 He approached the gravedigger, a short, bald man who lacked distinct facial