"Let's All Kill Constance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray Douglas)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

DOWNSTAIRS, I edged to the front of the theater and stared down. Then I stepped into the orchestra pit, and edged to the back wall and peered though a door into a long hall that diminished into complete night and a night inside that night, where all the old abandoned dressing rooms were.

I was tempted to call a name.

But what if she answered?

Far off down that black corridor, I thought I heard the sound of a hidden sea, or a river flowing somewhere in the dark.

I put one foot forward and pulled back.

I heard that dark ocean heave on an endless shore again.

Then I turned, and went away up through the great darkness, out of the pit into the aisles with everyone gone, rushing toward the doors leading out to an evening sky most dearly welcome.

I carried Rattigan's incredibly small shoes over to her footprints and placed them neatly down to fit.

At which instant I felt my guardian angel touching my shoulder.

"You're back from the dead," said Crumley.

"You can say that again," I said, staring at the wide red doorway of Grauman's Chinese with all those film creatures swimming in the dark.

"She's in there," I murmured. "I wish I knew a way to get her out."

"Dynamite tied to a bundle of cash might do it."

"Crumley!"

"Sorry, I forgot we were talking about Florence Nightingale."

I stepped back. Crumley regarded Rattigan's tiny shoes lodged in prints put down a long, long time ago. "Not exactly ruby slippers," he said.