"Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Roadside Picnic (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

They both walked out to the car. Redrick got in the driver's seat, the
Butcher next to him. He immediately bent over the back seat to palpate
Burbridge's legs. Burbridge, subdued and withdrawn, muttered pathetically,
promising to shower him with gold, mentioning his deceased wife and his
children repeatedly, and begging him to save at least his knees. When they
got to the clinic, the Butcher cursed at not finding the orderlies waiting
at the driveway and jumped out of the moving car to run inside. Redrick lit
another cigarette. Burbridge suddenly spoke, clearly and calmly, apparently
completely calm at last:
"You tried to kill me. I won't forget."
"I didn't kill you, though," Redrick said.
"No, you didn't...." He was silent. "I'll remember that, too."
"You do that. Of course, you wouldn't have tried to kill me." He turned
and looked at Burbridge. The old man was nervously moving his lips. "You
would have abandoned me just like that," said Redrick.
"You would have left me in the Zone and thrown me in the water. Like
Four-eyes."
"Four-eyes died on his own," Burbridge said gloomily. "I had nothing to
do with it. It got him."
"You bastard," Redrick said dispassionately, turning away. "You son of
a bitch."
The sleepy rumpled attendants ran out onto the driveway, unfurling the
stretcher as they came to the car. Redrick, stretching and yawning, watched
them extricate Burbridge from the back seat and trundle him off on the
stretcher. Burbridge lay immobile, hands folded on chest, staring resignedly
at the sky. His huge feet, cruelly eaten away by the jelly, were turned out
unnaturally. He was the last of the old stalkers who had started hunting for
treasure right after the Visitation, when the Zone wasn't called the Zone,
when there were no institutes, or walls, or UN forces, when the city was
paralyzed with fear and the world was snickering over the new newspaper
hoax. Redrick was ten years old then and Burbridge was still a strong and
agile man--he loved to drink when others paid, to brawl, to catch some
unwary girl in a corner. His own children didn't interest him in the least,
and he was a petty bastard even then; when he was drunk he used to beat his
wife with a repulsive pleasure, noisily, so that everyone could hear. He
beat her until she died.
Redrick turned the jeep and, disregarding the lights, sped home,
honking at the few pedestrians on the streets and cornering sharply.
He parked in front of the garage, and when he got out he saw the
superintendent coming toward him from across the little park. As usual, the
super was out of sorts, and his crumpled face with its swollen eyes mirrored
extreme distaste, as though he were walking on liquid manure instead of the
ground.
"Good morning," Redrick said politely.
The super stopped two feet in front of him and pointed with his thumb
over his shoulder.
"Is that your handiwork?" he asked. You could tell that those were his
first words of the day.
"What are you talking about?"
"The swings, was it you who set them up?"