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

the heavy hair that fell over her shoulder. But her smile had frozen--a
sugary grin on a tan face. Then she swirled the glass, listening to the
tinkle of the ice cubes.
"Both legs?"
"Both. Maybe below the knees, maybe above."
She put down the glass and pushed back her hair. She was no longer
smiling.
"Too bad," she said. "And that means you...."
Dina Burbridge was the one person he could have told how it happened in
all the details. He could have even told her how they drove back, his brass
knuckles ready, and how Burbridge had begged --not for himself even, but for
the children, for her and for Archie, and promised him the Golden Ball. But
he didn't tell her. He pulled out a pack of money from his breast pocket and
tossed it onto the red mat right at her long naked legs. The notes fanned
out in a rainbow. Dina absentmindedly picked up several and examined them,
as though she had never seen one before but wasn't that interested.
"This is the last earnings, then," she said.
Redrick leaned over from the chaise longue and pulled the bottle from
the ice bucket. He looked at the label. Water was dripping along the dark
glass and Redrick held the bottle away from himself, so as not to drip on
his pants. He did not like expensive whiskey, but he could force himself to
have a slug at a time like this. He was just about to put the bottle to his
mouth when he was stopped by indistinct sounds of protestation behind him.
He looked around and saw that Hamster was painfully dragging his feet across
the lawn, holding a glass of clear liquid in both hands. The exertion was
making the sweat pour off his dark wooly head, and his bloodshot eyes had
practically popped out of their sockets. When he saw that Redrick was
looking at him he extended the glass in despair and sort of mooed and
howled, opening his toothless mouth ineffectually.
"I'll wait, I'll wait," Redrick said and shoved the bottle back in the
bucket.
Hamster finally limped over, gave Redrick the glass, and patted his
shoulder shyly with his arthritic hand.
"Thanks, Dixon," Redrick said seriously. "That's just what I need right
now. As usual, you're right on top of things."
And while Hamster shook his head in embarrassment and rapture and
convulsively slapped himself on the hip with his good arm, Redrick raised
the glass, nodded to him, and gulped down half. Then he looked at Dina.
"You want?" he asked meaning the glass.
She did not reply. She was folding a bill in half and in half once
again, and then again.
"Cut it out," he said. "You won't be lost. Your old man...."
She interrupted him.
"And so you dragged him out," she said. She wasn't asking, she was
stating a fact. "You carried him, you jerk, through the whole Zone, you
redheaded cretin, you dragged that bastard on your back- bone, you ass. You
blew an opportunity like that."
He was watching her, his glass forgotten. She got up and stood in front
of him, walking over the scattered money, and stopped, her clenched fists
jammed into her smooth hip, blocking out the entire world for him with her