"Bowes-ShadowAndGunman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bowes Richard)

As I stepped forward, Max appeared on my left. He had a bad gleam in his eyes.
His hand was in his pocket. At my right hand was Dr. X, who lisped, "Say, we
have a prior date!"

"Joe!" My shout got the Gallery's attention. Guys peered out of alcoves. Dr. X
got his hand over my mouth. Max snapped something and stuck it up to my nose. It
smelled like sweaty socks.

"Amyl nitrite," I heard Joe say as my head spun. Guys started zipping their
flies; boys edged away. "You're hijacking the kid!"

"I'm a licensed psychiatrist," Dr. X told him. "This is an escaped patient?'
Their voices sounded like I was under water. Then the hands were gone from my
face.

People started to run. A fleeing kid opened a fire door. An alarm began ringing.
Someone yelled, "Raid!" Fresh air rushed in and my head cleared. Max was on the
floor with a bloody lip.

I saw that Joe had slammed Dr. X against a wall. "Get out!" he yelled. Like a
rabbit, I bolted down the fire escape.

For a while I just put distance between that place and myself. Finally, pain
stabbed my side and I lay behind an empty loading dock in an alley. My heart
would not stop pounding. My nose bled. I passed out wondering what had happened
to Joe, who had fought for me. My Shadow said, "None of this would have happened
if we'd gone to visit Uncle Jim."

Later I was awake and dry-heaving through the fence around the train yard. A cop
car raced by and I tried to shrink into the sidewalk. My Shadow said, "Stacey
told Dr. X where you'd be." All I wanted was to die.

Then I stood beneath an el with a steam whistle screaming inside my ears. A hand
was in my pocket. Said my Shadow, "Take a red. Steady your head." I tried to
swallow dry-mouthed and choked on the pill. If Dr. X didn't kill me, I thought,
my Shadow would.

From a bridge, I tossed every pill and prescription onto a busy expressway. To
exorcise my double, I chanted over and over, "Stay away from me. Stay away from
me."

Blood pounded like something was busting out of my brain. He whispered in my
ear, "You'll miss me while I'm gone." Later, huddled aching on a park bench, I
spotted a flash of red. When I turned, there was no MG. My Shadow was gone and I
felt empty.

On the roaring subway home I frantically searched the faces visible amid bags
and boxes from Filene's and Jordan's, from Raymond's and R.H. White's. A woman
on the first burst of Christmas shopping formed the word "Disgusting" as she and