"Ron Goulart - The Curse Of The Demon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

RON GOULART

THE CURSE OF THE DEMON

IT WASN'T REALLY AN earthquake that caused the ground to open up and swallow the
second most popular child star in Hollywood. But during the period of national
mourning that followed the incident, Dan Barner didn't feel it would be wise, or
in any way helpful' to his screen writing career, to speak out and explain what
actually had taken place. The notion that the cute, freckle-faced
twelve-year-old that they knew and loved as Kenny McNulty was a complete and
total fraud wouldn't have set well with the movie-going public.

Besides which, if Dan had mentioned that he'd precipitated the whole business by
releasing a demonic spirit from an ancient bronze chest, it would most certainly
have given rise to serious doubt as to his sanity. And while being considered
eccentric can sometimes help forward a career in movies, a reputation for being
totally bonkers is almost always a handicap.

Dan had come into possession of the venerable casket, which was about the size
of a shoe box and etched all over with blurred mystical symbols, on a chill,
rainy evening early last year. He hadn't the slightest premonition that it would
lead him to fame and fortune or that the battered old metal box would cause the
disruption of the Oscar award ceremonies this year.

He was residing in a ramshackle cottage in a weedy cul-de-sac on the outskirts
of Westwood at the time the fateful chest entered his life. The cottage, which
was surfaced with stucco the color of peach yogurt, was all his second wife had
left him after she'd divorced him a year and a half ago and he still had sixteen
more years of mortgage payments to go. The lawn had long since died.

Dan was close to being forty-one, although he still wrote thirty-eight on any
form that asked for his age. That particular stormy night he was sitting at his
desk in his narrow den, hunched, scowling at his portable electric typewriter.
For several weeks now it had refused to print the letter B. The lopsided desk
was piled high with the various versions of the opening scenes of the new
screenplay he was working on.

Last autumn, during a 6.3 quake, all the books had come tumbling down off the
shelves. Dan, who'd been in an emotional slump for quite some time, had left the
two hundred some books, mostly old paperbacks, sprawled exactly where they'd
landed.

Tonight, as the heavy rain slammed down on the imitation thatch roof, tiny
pearls of water were dripping down through the crack in the peach colored
ceiling and hitting at a pile of old Cold War spy thrillers. The only things on
the warped wooden book shelves were a framed photo of his first wife in her high
school graduation robe and a bunch of dusty wax grapes.
The phone rang.

Jerking upright out of the slight doze he'd been nodding into, Dan grabbed up