"Howard Waldrop - Occam's Ducks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

So it was that two years later, on April 12, 1922, Mantan Brown found
himself, at eight in the morning, in front of a large building in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
He had seen the place the year before, when he had been playing a theater down the
street. Before the Great War, it had been part of Nestor or Centaur, or maybe the
Thantouser Film Company. The Navy had taken it over for a year to make
toothbrushing and trench-foot movies to show new recruits, and films for the public
on how to spot the Kaiser in case he was working in disguise on your block.
It was a commercial studio again, but now for rent by the day or week. Most
film production had moved out to the western coast, but there were still a few--in
Jersey, out on Astoria, in Manhattan itself--doing some kind of business in the East.
Mantan had ferried over before sunup, taken a streetcar, and checked in to the
nearby hotel, one that let Negroes stay there as long as they paid in advance.
He went inside, past a desk and a yawning guard who waved him on, and
found a guy in coveralls with a broom, which, Mantan had learned in two years in the
business, was where you went to find out stuff.
“I’m looking for The Man with the Shoes,” he said.
“You and everybody else,” said the handyman. He squinted. “I seen you
somewhere before.”
“Not unless you pay to get in places I wouldn’t,” said Mantan.
“Bessie Smith?” said the workman. “I mean, you’re not Bessie Smith. But
why I think of her when I see you?”
Mantan smiled. “Toured with her and Ma Rainey last year. I tried to tell jokes,
and people threw bricks and things at me ‘til they came back on and sang. Theater
Owners’ Booking Agency. The TOBA circuit.”
The guy smiled. “Tough On Black Asses, huh?”
“You got that right.”
“Well, I thought you were pretty good. Caught you somewhere in the City.
Went there for the jazz.”
“Thank you--”
“Willie.” The janitor stuck out his hand, shook Mantan’s.
“Thank you, Willie. Mantan Brown.” He looked around. “Can you tell me
what the hoodoo’s going on here?”
“Beats me. I done the strangest things I ever done this past week. I work
here--at the studio itself, fetchin’ and carryin’ and ridin’ a mop. Guy rented it two
weeks ago--guy with the shoes is named Mr. Meister, a real yegg. He must be makin’
a race movie--the waiting room, second down the hall to the left--looks like Connie’s
Club on Saturday night after all the slummers left. The guy directing the
thing--Meister’s just the watch chain--name’s Slavo, Marcel Slavo. Nice guy, real
deliberate and intense--somethin’s wrong with him, looks like a jakeleg or
blizzard-bunny to me--he’s got some great scheme or somethin’. I been painting
scenery for it. Don’t make sense. You’d think they were making another Intolerance,
but they only got cameras coming in Thursday and Friday, shooting time for a
two-ruler. Other than that, Mr. Brown, I don’t know a thing more than you do.”
“Thanks.”
The waiting room wasn’t like Connie’s, it was like a TOBA tent-show
alumnus reunion. There was lots of yelling and hooting when he came in.
“Mantan!” “Why, Mr. Brown!” “Looky who’s here!”
As he shook hands he saw he was the only comedian there.
 There was a pretty young woman. a high-yellow he hadn’t seen before, sitting
very quietly by herself. She had on a green wool dress and toque, and a