"Grant, Charles L - Rest Is Silence, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

"No choice," Val said. "No goddamned choice."

"It's the principle of the thing," I said, suddenly angry. " don't know why the hell we let that man push us around like this. Christ, we're like children as far as he's concerned."

"Principle," said Val in her maddeningly calm way, "does not put bread on the table."

And silence. I remembered when I had been as idealistic as' Marty Schubert, and mourned myself those days. I began to see just why he had reasons for hating me, and I wondered if, in fact, he had. Right then, it suddenly mattered very much. Not only did I care that he understood what I was doing and why I didn't fight` the world as he did, I was also a little frightened. For the last two:, weeks, pranksters of a most unfunny lot had been dumping mutilated fowl on our doorsteps. Mine (two barn owls) were missing their hearts, Wendy's and Val's their entrails. Jolliet, too, had been similarly victimized, and although we had been passing the incidents off on some kid who was too eager to delve into the literal meanings of the occult in Shakespeare's more gruesome moments, I couldn't help thinking of Marty, his rage, and those tears in his eyes.

"My God," I finally shouted, getting out of my chair and 'w tossing the pencil into the wastebasket. "Whose damnable idea was this in the first place?"

"Mine. "

I looked up and Marty came in, hands clasped in front of him _
like a marching priest. Wendy jumped off the desk and punched
him twice on the arm, hard. He laughed and ducked playfully
away from her further attack. Val threw an eraser at him, and
stalked around until I slumped against the chalkboard and glared:
at him. "Traitor," I said.

Marty smiled innocently. "I thought you wanted me to go` along with him."

"Oh, brother," I said. "That was the general idea, yes, but."" did you have to go for assistant god? A Shakespearean ball?` Jesus, Marty, couldn't you have done better?"

He glanced around at the three of us, shrugged and appropriated my chair. Immediately he sat, his feet were crossed on: the desk's top, scattering several papers. "But Willy is his=
favorite man. All I did was kind of ease him around until he fell into it himself. He, uh, really didn't care for it at first. It took a lot of talking." He smiled again, but this time there was no mirth, and I knew he was lying. Jollier would have died before going through a year, a goddamned day with Lear, Hamlet and all the rest of the bloody crew. Marry, for his own reasons, knew exactly what he was doing. I didn't know if the women caught on, but I didn't like it and abruptly lost the will to banter any more. The game had turned sour; I wanted to spit.

"I wish you hadn't done it," I said.

Marty shrugged his indifference to my opinion.

Val, meanwhile, was mimicking an ultra sensuous walk up and down an aisle, tossing kisses to the pale green walls. "I'm not ashamed to say that Cleopatra would suit me just fine."

"You'll make an asp of yourself," I said.

"You'll go to hell for that, " she said and blew me a kiss, a real one, and I couldn't help but admit to myself that she could easily slay my bachelorhood dragon.

"Too obvious," Wendy said, off on a track of her own. "Why not beat the bastard at his own game and go as the conspirators? Who knows, maybe the Ides of March'll come early this season."

"That's the spirit," Marty said, abandoning my chair and heading for the door, a little too quickly. "I might be Marc Antony. "

"But he was a double-Grosser," Wendy said.

"Yeah," he answered. "How about that?"

After he'd gone, I picked up a piece of chalk and began scribbling what I could remember of the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech on the blackboard. It helped me not to think.

A few minutes later, Val picked up her coat and purse and took Wendy by the arm. "Come on, bird girl," she said. "Let's hit the road. Eddie, if all you've got is your famous TV dinners, drop around. I'll see what the larder has hidden from payday. "

I stopped writing and nodded without committing myself. Then I listened to their heels tracing a unison beat down the hall. Outside my window I could hear a snowball fight. From the back of the school came the muffled shouts of an afternoon basketball game, the cadenced pounding of feet responding to a cheer. "I still don't like it," I said to the empty chairs.