"Thomas M. Disch - The Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

flake of rust. So each time heтАЩd come back to Wythe Lane, heтАЩd
futzed with the car, keeping it tuned and polished. An investment.
AngieтАЩs shadow got the keys from the kitchen drawer and
went out to the garage and started up the Buick and backed it
straight into the garage door. Each of the four little panes of glass
in the door was cracked, but they didnтАЩt shatter. The shadow didnтАЩt
know quite what to do. It tried to raise the garage door, but it had
got stuck to the BuickтАЩs bumper. It got back into the car and put it
into Drive and managed to tear the back bumper off the car. And
that was it for the Buick. Its battery was dead. The shadow wasnтАЩt
too stupid to understand that.
At that point AngieтАЩs shadow gave up on any idea of having a
night on the town and went for a walk in the night air, which was
freedom enough after all the time it had sat beside Angie in the
house, doing nothing and wishing Angie were dead. It walked
through the nearest backyards, setting a few dogs to barking, and
then along a drainage ditch, where it finally fell asleep beside a
cyclone fence designed to keep the neighborhood children from
wandering onto the highway. Shadows need their sleep the same as
people.
The shadow was awake and back in charge at the first
glimmer of direct sunlight. For someone who had spent the night
in a drainage ditch Angie looked in pretty good shape. Her
metabolism had risen to the occasion, and though she was stiff in
all her limbs, once her shadow had got her on her feet and brushed
off the dead leaves, she looked like any other old lady standing in a
drainage ditch at five A.M. on a May morning. Ordinarily just that
would have been unusual and embarrassing enough to have
incapacitated Angie, but the shadow had no compunctions about
the neighbors and what they might have thought. It was aware of
them, but only as a cockroach might be aware of the jars and boxes
in the cupboard it inhabits, as potential sources of what it needed.
One of the neighbors in question appeared before the shadow
now, Natalie, Mrs. DeaverтАЩs teenage daughter. She said, тАЬMrs.
SweetwaterтАФyouтАЩre up early.тАЭ
The shadow smiled, and extended AngieтАЩs hand to be shaken.
It said, тАЬCould I have a cigarette.тАЭ When there was no immediate
response, it remembered to add, тАЬPlease.тАЭ
тАЬA cigarette? IтАЩm afraid I donтАЩt smoke. I didnтАЩt think you did
either, Mrs. Sweetwater.тАЭ
 тАЬI used to. Then I didnтАЩt for a while. Now IтАЩm a smoker
again.тАЭ The shadow smiled its most plausible smile, but it resolved,
even as Natalie politely disengaged and started jogging again, not
to risk another such encounter. The strain of pretending to be even
such a simple creature as Angie Sweetwater was too taxing.
The shadow returned along Wythe Lane to AngieтАЩs little brick
house, drawn there by its memory of something on the kitchen
counter. And it was there still, unemptied, the ashtray in which
Lucille had stubbed out her three cigarettes last night. One of the
things that Angie, and her shadow, had enjoyed about LucilleтАЩs