"Andy Duncan - The Executioners' Guild" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Andy)

"We don't need anything more to sell, Lord knows," Mrs. Blackburn said as she
passed the tablecloths and aprons. She realized she was still wiping her hands
as she walked, and flung the corner of her apron down. "Enough trouble these
days selling what we have, I don't care what Mr. Roosevelt says about the
forties being better, the forties ain't got to Andalusia yet."
"I have nothing to sell," the stranger said with a slight smile, setting down
his suitcase and spreading his hands. He turned briefly to Stumpy Turlis, as if
for confirmation. "I'm only passing the time. I came in to look around, where
it's cool."
"There's cooler places than this," Mrs. Blackburn said, fetching up behind the
hardware counter and folding her arms. But her heart wasn't in it. The old man
looked not only sad, but tired, and in that ridiculous winter outfit, too.
Strange that he didn't seem to be sweating. They regarded each other across the
counter. Lying between them was Stumpy Turlis, who eyed Mrs. Blackburn and
pulled his nearly empty Coca-Cola bottle back across his chest, out of her
reach.
"I ain't in the way, am I?" Stumpy Turlis quavered. "If I am, I can move. I
don't want to be no trouble."
"Hush up," Mrs. Blackburn hissed, slapping her palm onto the counter near his
head. "What brings you to town, mister?"
She knew this was rude, and half expected no answer at all, but her curiosity
was piqued, and besides, she felt she had to wrest the moment back from Stumpy
Turlis somehow. Whose store was this, anyway? Well, her husband's, but weren't
husbands and wives the same person under God's law?
Without seeming in the least disturbed, the stranger said: "To meet a man. A
colleague. He's not from here, either," and he pronounced it eye-ther, "but we
have some business to discuss, and this seemed a . . . convenient place." He
smiled at her and at Stumpy Turlis, clasped his hands across his belly, then
added, "It's a lovely town. The forests are much more hilly than I had expected.
Mountainous, practically. Do you get much snow?"
"Not since I been here," Stumpy Turlis volunteered, "and I been living here
since ought-four. Working the sawmill. That's where I done busted my head with
the plank." After a pause, he clarified: "At the sawmill. You ever get hit in
the head with a plank, mister? Oh," he said, beneath Mrs. Blackburn's
thunderhead gaze. "Oh, I guess I done asked you that, ain't I?"
"Think nothing of it," the stranger said, and did an extraordinary thing: He
reached out and patted Stumpy Turlis on the shoulder. "You've nearly finished
your Coke, I see. Shall I buy you another?" Mrs. Blackburn stared at the
stranger in wonderment. "I presume there's an icebox, a cooler? Ah, here it is.
It's a rare thing," he said, lifting the lid and plunging one hand among the
cubes, "to be welcomed with a friendly word in an unfamiliar town. Most rare."
With a cascading avalanche sound, he pulled forth a fresh Coca-Cola, slick and
shiny and dripping, one bit of ice sliding down into the waist of the bottle.
"Here you are. Madam? Care for a drink? No? All right, then." He pulled out
another and ignored the bottle opener on the wall to pop the cap against the
edge of the countertop, catching it in his other hand as it flipped and
pocketing it so quickly Mrs. Blackburn almost missed where it went. Without
sitting up, Stumpy Turlis, with the grace of years of practice, reached up and
slightly behind his head for the bottle opener, popped the cap, then swooped the
neck to his lips without spilling a drop, gulping just as the foam surged forth.