"Kathleen Ann Goonan - Angels and You Dogs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

"I don't know anything. I just know that Lulu goes out with her dog
every Wednesday evening and that tonight she was just about hysterical
about not being able to come and gave me this address and told me to
come." And what about those angels, I wanted to ask, but didn't.
"I'm a channeler. I channel dead people. In this case, Ambrose X.
Thibideaux."
"Ambrose is a dead person?"
"Look, maybe we shouldn't do this. I'm in a hurry. You're sure this is
okay with Lulu? There's professional confidentiality involved in this
situation."
"Who is he?"
"You really don't know."
"Like I said. Lulu rents a room from me. I know that this dog is not fully
housebroken and that he bites my clients on the ankles and that Lulu is
crazy about him."
"Ambrose is her husband. No, no," he raised his free hand as if stopping
traffic. "That's not what I mean. Ambrose is in another place now. He
went there six years ago." He stroked the dog and looked toward the far
side of the parking lot absently. He frowned. "He has a lot to say right
now. I gotta do this. Damn. It's gonna cost me an extra half hour in
PlaySpace Hell."
"You can get him a toy."
"I gotta do that anyway."
Ambrose was not as he seemed? I smothered a laugh that would have
been exceedingly rude. But the underlying sense of deep sadness I was
feeling about Charles was overshadowed by an even stronger sense of pity
for Lulu. I hadn't realized that she was insane, although I supposed her
parents had tried to tell me. "Okay. All right. Where?"
"Right over there." Jack gestured toward the open storage bin, which
was faintly lit within.
He went inside the bin, and I followed. Two-thirds of the space was
filled with furniture and boxes roped and tied up all the way to the ceiling
like captives of a moving rodeo. The pile looked dangerously unstable. TWO
MEN AND DOG CRUSHED IN TRAGIC STORAGE-CHANNELING MISHAP . On the narrow, free
floor space was a black blow-up mattress. A trouble light hung from the
back of a crooked wooden chair, a thick yellow electrical cord snaking
away. Jack gestured toward a low, green-striped beach chair in the corner.
"You can sit there. You got a good memory?"
"Fair. Why?"
He pulled some torn shower curtains hanging from a wire across the
door together for privacy. "I guess I should record this." He fiddled with a
boom box next to the mattress. "That will be an extra three bucks for the
tape."
"Couldn't you just tell her?"
He shook his head and lay down on the black mattress without taking
off his wing-tips. I noticed they were scuffed. He had Ambrose lie down
next to him, paws parallel in the manner of a miniature Mexican sphinx.
"I don't remember. I mean, I'm not here. I have to make room for the
being I'm channeling. Did she give you a list?"
"A list?"