"Barker, Clive - Lost Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

undernourished features suggested Puerto Rican extraction, but that-and
the fact that she was heavily pregnant-was all Harry had time to grasp
before she hurried away down the stairs.

Listening to the girl descend, Harry knew that Norma had been wrong. If
Cha'Chat had been here, such a perfect victim would not have been allowed
to escape with her eyes in her head. The demon wasn't here.

Which left the rest of Manhattan to search.

The night before, something very peculiar had happened to Eddie Axel. It
had begun with his staggering out of his favorite bar, which was six
blocks from the grocery store he owned on Third Avenue. He was drunk, and
happy; and with reason. Today he had reached the age of fifty-five. He
had married three times in those years; he had sired four legitimate
children and a handful of bastards; and-perhaps most significantly-he'd
made Axel's Superette a highly lucrative business. All was well with the
world.

But Jesus, it was chilly! No chance, on a night threatening a second Ice
Age, of finding a cab. He would have to walk home.

He'd got maybe half a block, however, when-miracle of miracles-a cab did
indeed cruise by. He'd flagged it down, eased himself in, and the weird
times had begun.

For one, the driver knew his name.

"Home, Mr. Axel?" he'd said. Eddie hadn't questioned the godsend. Merely
mumbled, "Yes," and assumed this was a birthday treat, courtesy of
someone back at the bar. Perhaps his eyes had flickered closed; perhaps
he'd even slept. Whatever, the next thing he knew the cab was driving at
some speed through streets he didn't recognize. He stirred himself from
his doze. This was the Village,surely; an area Eddie kept clear of. His
neighborhood was the high Nineties, close to the store. Not for him the
decadence of the Village, where a shop sign offered "Ear piercing. With
or without pain" and young men with suspicious hips lingered in doorways.

"This isn't the right direction," he said, rapping on the Perspex between
him and the driver. There was no word of apology or explanation
forthcoming, however, until the cab made a turn toward the river, drawing
up in a street of warehouses, and the ride was over.

"This is your stop," said the chauffeur. Eddie didn't need a more
explicit invitation to disembark.

As he hauled himself out the cabbie pointed to the murk of an empty lot
between two benighted warehouses. "She's been waiting for you," he said,
and drove away. Eddie was left alone on the sidewalk.