"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 2 - The Shadow Dancers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

who shielded them, but it didn't stop there. Fact was, I knew what I saw in Sam,
but I never will know just what he saw in me, but he's the only white man I ever
been around who never showed one ounce of racism or racial hangups. Sam quit the
Bristol force-he never was too comfortable on the vice squad anyway-and came
down with what little he had to try and make the agency work. We kinda hoped if
maybe a white ex-cop was around some of the black folks would give us more
business, and it did bring in some, but not nearly enough. We got married at
city hall-the bride wore jeans-and even that had a price. My relatives didn't
approve at all, and his relatives were even madder than mine. I was still poor
and broke, but it didn't really matter no more.
Fact was, I grabbed for Sam 'cause I needed somebody bad, but I really fell in
love with him. Real bad. I ain't never been in love with nothin' or nobody
before or since like this. From the moment we moved in together, he was the only
thing important in my whole life. He kept the agency goin' by sheer willpower
mostly for my sake, as it turned out, and he never would believe me when I told
him I'd be happy if he got a salaried job doin' most anything and I played house
and mommie, but it's true.
I know, I know-on the outside it looks like black woman makes it in the cold
world, but I never saw my case written up in Jet or Ebony or even the National
Enquirer. If you got the brains and the education and the skills and the drive
then go for it, baby, but I ain't ever gonna have them things and I just ain't
one for crusades. If Women's Lib wants to nail me for it, that's all right, but
I didn't see no cases from them when I was a woman-owned business. Sam told me
he didn't mind if I kept my name, but I minded; outside of the bed, it was the
only way I could really show him just how much he meant to me. Besides, I like
the look I get from people when they find out somebody who looks and talks like
me is Brandy Horowitz. A Jewish American Princess I'm not.
The trouble is, my life's still all cliffhangers. I was about to pack it in when
Sam showed in the nick of time and saved me. When we both were gonna pack it in
as detectives and him take a security guard's job down in Delaware and me be a
housewife, in walked a case that changed everything. Started out as a little
mob-related thing and wound up with us discoverin' the biggest secret since the
A-bomb, maybe bigger.*
*For a complete account of this case, and all the gory details, read The
Labyrinth of Dreams, Tor Books, 1986.
Don't ask me how it works, or how it's possible, but it's so. It ain't possible,
but it is and that's that. Sorta like if God came down and worked miracles in
front of everybody -it would convince even most atheists. Well, this thing's
like that. I ain't sure I believe in flyin' saucers, neither, but if one landed
in front of me and little green men got out and asked for directions, I think I
would.
There ain't just one universe, there's millions of 'em, maybe more, and they all
exist smack dab on top of each other. No, that's not right-they're all in the
same place, only nobody and nothin' in one can see or hear or sense the
existence of the others. They all started from the same creation, but they
spread out at different speeds and don't ask me no more. I ain't the smart one,
and even Sam can't really explain it. They say there seems to be no end to
them-they stretch onwards to eternity on both sides of us. Because there's so
many, almost anything that mighta happened in our universe but didn't happened
somewheres else. Like, everybody says how lucky I am-I always seem to get better