"Charles L Grant - Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

"You're crazy, you know that, Gordon."
"Just get me the jobs, Viv, that's all I ask."
"It takes a special kind of training. I've told you it's not like learning lines from a holovid script!"
"I'll learn."
"But, Gordon, you'll have to improvise! That's all the whole thing is, except for the effects. You're given an outline and you bluff your way through it. It takes years to learn it right."
"I've done it before, you know that. What's the big fuss? You'll get your percentage."
"You don't get it, do you?"
"I'll learn. That's all there is to it."
"You don't get it at all."

There was a wave of nostalgia that had, for the briefest of lightning-lit moments, the old-style theaters rejuvenated, rejoicing, rehiring actors and producers and directors and

such. Lord, how we tried. But the wave flattened, sad by the time I was making those dream-tapes for children, nothing was left but the must, the dust, and the drifting in and out.

3

I went into my home: living room, bedroom, alcoves for lav and ovenwall. All in shades of black and white.
I ate, not tasting, and stared at the Keylofts across the street. I watched a news summary and discovered the playwrights I had attacked were recovering. Euphemisms abounded, but the message was the same: person or persons unknown.
God, I wished that hadn't been so bloody damned true.
And fifteen minutes later, Philip and Helena came for a visit and I fed them their eager rations of stories about my taping day. All the time watching Helena, as though Philip were only a ghost along for the ride.
"He sounds like an insect I worked for once," Philip said of the director. Philip was fifteen years older than my own thirty-seven (Helena was four years younger). He enjoyed reminiscing about the, as he called it, flesh-and-blood theater he had been in, but it was a dream that he livedHelena told me he had been a minor bit player who seldom had lines and was lucky to find two weeks' work in fifty. I don't know why, perhaps because of Helena, but he liked me. "An insect, Gordon. Stamp him out. You won't miss him. I promise you."
"Oh, don't be a fool," Helena muttered. "He has to finish the contract." She was sitting cross-legged in the center of the floor, swirling a snifter half full of a brandy I had hoped to save for another, more special, occasion. Not that just being able to look at her wasn't special-and the moment I thought that was the first time I realized that I'd fallen in love. "Gordy, you can't pass up that money, you know. I mean, that's as far as it goes. No money, no food. How much simpler can it get?"
Philip, who was portly and conscientiously pompous, nodded and retrenched, scratching at his hairless scalp. "She's right, you know. There's no sense ranting about artistic integrity when you have to provide bread for the table."
"It isn't fair," I mumbled.
calming deep breath and began talking. Explaining. Describing. Telling her everything and knowing that if she wanted to, she could run out to the Blues and probably collect a reward. The police were always giving out rewards. It was part of the system of mutual cooperation and protection. I stopped my confession only once, when her hands left my shoulder. But I finished. And when I was done, everything that had been keeping me upright deserted me. I .sagged. She caught me and led me into the bedroom. And this time there was a catharsis of a sort. The weight of the attempted murders was, not lifted, but lessened. And I'm ashamed to admit that I was doubly relieved that she had not run to the Blues, for the reward. .
And when we lay on the bed, each to a side, and did not touch or attempt to peel off our clothes, I knew she did not pity me, but loved me instead.
"I can't believe they're not really dead," I said into the darkness when the silence grew too long for me to accept. "But from the report I heard--and would you believe it was only just before you came here?-from what I heard, none of them will be the same when they recover. The worst part is: now that I've told you I don't feel guilty anymore. And that's got to be wrong! I wonder if I should stick around until I'm caught. I'm bound to be, you know. One of them must have seen something. And if my name and picture go out through the network, there's no place I can hide. Not for long, anyway,"
But Gordy, it's been nearly two weeks. If the police knew something, they'd be busting already."
I smiled. Grinned. Shook my head even though I knew she couldn't see it. "What's their hurry? I haven't tried to leave the country." '
"Maybe . . . maybe you were lucky. Maybe they didn't know who it was, didn't recognize you, I mean."
I rolled over onto my side, one arm up against my cheek. I tried to see her, but couldn't. But I saw her anyway. "I keep telling myself that. It's a hope, I guess. I wish I knew."

"Gordy?"
"I'm awake."
"Are you wondering if I hate you for what you did? I mean, I did a show for one of them a year or so ago."
"A little, I think."

"Well, it's dumb, but I don't. I'm a bit frightened, though." "I know that one well enough, don't I? Two weeks, and I still can't figure out why I did it."
"You were angry. Furious. That's obvious enough."
"Sure, but why? It wasn't the first time I was ever in a flop." I worked at a laugh, then, to take the sting out. "When you think about it, I guess, they're all flops, aren't they?"
"Of course they are. You just don't know why."

"Gordy, I want to help you."
"Escape?"
"No. I want to find out what's going wrong. I don't want it to happen. I...I have some scripts in my loft. I keep them under the bed, and when I get too depressed I read them."
"Scripts I don't need, believe me."
"No, not those kind. I mean real play scripts. Shakespeare, Williams, Miller, Chekhov . . . people like that. I'll bet I have more than two dozen of them. I got them . . . well, let's say they just gravitated into my gorgeous little fingers when I was visiting friends . . . places."
"God, Helena, you're a crook!"
"Look who's talking. It's funny, Gordy, but I'll bet I know almost every line of them by heart. It ifiust have been nice, not to have to make up things as you went along. It's all down there, just like your cinema things. 'When beggars die there are no comets seen.' You sure can't improvise something like that, can you?"