"Gardner Dozois - Flash Point" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

Flash Point
by Gardner Dozois


Ben Jacobs was on his way back to Skowhegan when he found the abandoned car. It was parked
on a lonely stretch of secondary road between North Anson and Madison, skewed diagonally over the
shoulder.

Kids again, was Jacobs' first thoughtтАФmore of the road gypsies who plagued the state every summer
until they were driven south by the icy whip of the first nor'easter. Probably from the big encampment
down near Norridgewock, he decided, and he put his foot back on the accelerator. He'd already had
more than his fill of outer-staters this season, and it wasn't even the end of August. Then he looked more
closely at the car, and eased up on the gas again. It was too big, too new to belong to kids. He shifted
down into second, feeling the crotchety old pickup shudder. It was an expensive car, right enough; he
doubted that it came from within twenty miles of here. You didn't use a big-city car on most of the roads
in this neck of the woods, and you couldn't stay on the highways forever. He squinted to see more detail.
What kind of plates did it have? You're doing it again, he thought, suddenly and sourly. He was a man as
aflame with curiosity as a magpie, andтАФhaving been brought up strictly to mind his own businessтАФhe
considered it a vice. Maybe the car was stolen. It's possible, a'n't it? he insisted, arguing with himself. It
could have been used in a robbery and then ditched, like that car from the bank job over to Farmington.
It happened all the time.

You don't even fool yourself anymore, he thought, and then he grinned and gave in. He wrestled the
old truck into the breakdown lane, jolted over a pothole, and coasted to a bumpy stop a few yards
behind the car. He switched the engine off.

Silence swallowed him instantly.

Thick and dusty, the silence poured into the morning, filling the world as hot wax fills a mold. It
drowned him completely, it possessed every inch and ounce of him. Almost, it spooked him.

Jacobs hesitated, shrugged, and then jumped down from the cab. Outside it was betterтАФstill quiet,
but not preternaturally so. There was wind soughing through the spruce woods, a forlorn but welcome
sound, one he had heard all his life. There was a wood thrush hammering at the morning, faint with
distance but distinct. And a faraway buzzing drone overhead, like a giant sleepy bee or bluebottle,
indicated that there was a Piper Cub up there somewhere, probably heading for the airport at
Norridgewock. All this was familiar and reassuring. Getting nervy, is all, he told himself, long in the tooth
and spooky.

Nevertheless, he walked very carefully toward the car, flat footed and slow, the way he used to walk
on patrol in 'Nam, more years ago than he cared to recall. His fingers itched for something, and after a
few feet he realized that he was wishing he'd brought his old deer rifle along. He grimaced irritably at that,
but the wish pattered through his mind again and again, until he was close enough to see inside the parked
vehicle.

The car was empty.
 "Old fool," he said sourly.

Snorting in derision at himself, he circled the car, peering in the windows. There were skid marks in
the gravel of the breakdown lane, but they weren't deepтАФthe car hadn't been going fast when it hit the