"Jack Dann - Ting-A-Ling" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

felt hung over; and as he looked around his rented house, forgetting for the instant that
needed a cigarette, he remembered his dream . . . running through the clattering
passenger cars of the Silver Challenger. "Momma," he whispered, then jerked his head to
side, as if embarrassed.
But eventually the light burned away the dream. He found the cigarettes in his bed, the
pack of Chesterfields crumpled, the matches tucked inside the cellophane wrapper; an
he sat on the edge of the alcove, his legs dangling, and smoked in the bright yellowish light.
Below him was a large living room with its huge seven-foot-tall stone fireplace. He had bo
a white bearskin rug for the hearth, and on the wall was an eagle, talons extended, wing
outstretched, a bronzed predator caught in midnight. It belonged to Jimmy's landlord N
Romanos. He could almost touch his pride-and-joy James B. Lansing loudspeakers that just
about reached the ceiling. Below . . . below him was the mess of his life: his bongos, scatte
records and album covers, dirty dishes, dirty clothes, cameras and camera equipment,
crumpled paper and old \newspapers and books ... a library on the floor. The walls were
covered with bullfighting posters and a few of his own paintings, but pride of place was gi
to a bloodstained bullfighting cape that was cut into spokelike shadows by the bright wheel
lamp that hung between the beams of the ceiling. Jimmy gazed at the cape and remembered
when the Brooklyn-born matador Sidney Franklin had given it to him as a souvenir. That w
in Tijuana. Rogers Brackett had introduced Jimmy to the matador, who was a friend of Erne
Hemingway. Brackett introduced him to everyone. All he ever wanted in return was Jimmy
cock.
But Brackett knew everyone.
Jimmy could still feel the dark presence of his recurrent nightmare. It blew through him
hot, fetid air, the hurricane of a fucked-up past. . . of memory. He had named it, thus making
tangible, absolutely real.
Black Mariah. Black Mariah. Black Mariah . . .
Suddenly frightened, feeling small and vulnerable as his thoughts swam like neon fish in
deep, dark water, he huddled close to himself on the landing. He wanted to cry.
Momma . . .
He flicked his half-finished cigarette in a high arc across the room and wondered if it w
start a fire. If it did, he would sit right where he was like a fucking Buddha and die without
moving a muscle.
If it didn't. . . he would race tomorrow.
The phone rang again. He picked up the receiver.
"Hi," Marilyn said. "You ready to go out with me?"
Jimmy laughed. "Why'd you hang up on me?"
"Because you were treating me bad. I've changed. The new me doesn't take shit from
anybody, not even from the person I love more than-"
"More than who?"
"Anybody."
"More than Arthur Miller?" he teased.
She laughed. "Maybe a little, but you'd better see me now because who knows what cou
happen later."
"You're married, remember?" Jimmy said.
"But not for long, honey." There was a long pause, and then Marilyn said, "No, not for
long." The sadness was palpable in her voice.
"Well, you want me to hang up again or what? ..."
"No."
"You going to see me then? . . . Please, Jimmy, I don't want to be alone right now. I'll co
over to you." Then, changing mood, "And who knows, we might both get lucky. Anyway, I'l