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

pulled it up with all his strength, and before the opened trapdoor landed on
the floor he had jumped head first into the gray cold prison of the wine
cellar.
He fell on his hands, somersaulted, jumped up, and ran hunched over,
seeing nothing, counting on his memory and luck, into the narrow passageway
between cases of bottles, knocking them over as he went past, hearing them
fall and shatter in the passage behind him. Slipping, he ran up some
invisible steps, threw his body against the door with its rusty hinges, and
found himself in Ernest's garage. He was shaking and panting, there were
bloody spots swimming before his eyes and his heart was beating heavily with
strong jolts right in his throat, but he did not stop for a second. He ran
to the far corner, and scraping his hands, tore into the mountain of garbage
that hid the place where the boards had been removed from the wall. He lay
down on his stomach and crawled through, hearing his jacket tear, and when
he was out in the narrow courtyard he crouched down behind the garbage cans,
pulled off his jacket, threw away his tie, gave himself a quick once-over,
brushed off his pants, straightened up, and ran into the yard. He dove into
a low smelly tunnel that led to the next courtyard. He listened for the
whine of the police sirens as he ran, but there weren't any yet, and he ran
faster, scaring playing children, dodging hanging laundry, crawling through
holes in rotten fences-trying to get out of the neighborhood as fast as
possible, before Captain Quarterblad could cordon it off. He knew the area
very well. He had played in all the yards and cellars, the abandoned
laundries, and the coal cellars. He had plenty of acquaintances and even
friends here, and under different circumstances he would have had no trouble
in hiding out, even for a week, in the neighborhood. But he hadn't made a
daring escape from arrest under Captain Quarterblad's very nose, adding an
easy twelve months to his sentence, for that.
He was very lucky. On Seventh Street a parade of some brother hood or
other was making raucous progress down the street. Two hundred of them, just
as disheveled and filthy as he was. Some looked worse, as though they had
spent the evening crawling through holes in fences, spilling the contents of
garbage cans on themselves, maybe after having spent the night rowdily in a
coal bin. He ducked out of a doorway into the crowd, cutting across it,
pushing and shoving, stepping on feet, getting an occasional fist in his
face, and returning the favor, until he broke out on the other side of the
street and ducked into another doorway. Just then the familiar disgusting
wail of the patrol cars resounded, and the parade came to a grinding halt,
folding up like an accordion. But he was in a different neighborhood now,
and Captain Quarterblad had no way of knowing which one.
He approached his own garage from the side of the radio and electronics
store, and he had to wait while the workmen loaded a van with television
sets. He made himself comfortable in the ragged lilac bushes by the
windowless side of the neighboring houses, caught his breath and had a
cigarette. He smoked greedily, crouching down and leaning against tile rough
fireproof wall, touching his cheek from time to time, trying to still the
nervous tie. He thought and thought and thought. When the van with the
workers pulled away honking into the driveway, he laughed and said softly
after them: "Thanks, boys, you held up this fool ... and let me think." He
started moving quickly, but without rushing, cleverly and premeditatedly,