"James E. Gunn - The Magicians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

Just inside the door I stopped and turned the card over.
In the center of the card was a circular seal. Imprinted blackly over it were two lines of type.
"Call me GABRIEL," it said, "or pay me five dollars."
That was funny enough, but it wasn't the funniest part. There was no way the card could have got
into my pocket. No one could have put it there. The suit had just come back from the cleaners. I had put
it on before I came out this morning.
"Gabriel," I muttered to myself. I knew who Gabriel was: one of the archangels. Carried
messages. Blew trumpets. That was a hell of a name for a man.
Coventions. Brass doors with eyes in them. Invisible walls. Angels. I shivered. It was getting to
be a habit.
The Crystal Room was pleasant enough. It wasn't the biggest meeting room in the hotel, but it
was one of the most attractive and it was private, A huge crystal chandelier hung from the center of the
ceiling and gave an excuse for the name of the room. Two smaller chandeliers flanked the big one. The
ceiling and walls were painted a deep rose and flocked like an old-fashioned whorehouse. The carpet on
the floor was burgundy. The hanging crystal picked up rose and red, alternating, blending, flashing as they
swayed gently and tinkled together.
A stage had been installed at the far end of the room. It was draped in black like a bier, and
black velvet provided a backdrop from ceiling to floor behind the stage. Several chairs were lined up
neatly at the back of the stage. In front of them was a lectern. Between me and the platform were rows
of wooden chairs; I counted thirteen rows of thirteen chairs each. A few of the chairs were occupied, but
most of the people in the room were standing, clustered into small groups, conversing casually or in a few
cases with animation. I looked them over carefully, but my man wasn't among them.
The scene was typical of hundreds of professional meetings that take place in hundreds of hotel
meeting rooms every day all over the country. Once a year men and women assemble to discuss their
single shared interest, to talk shop, to listen to the latest advances in their professions, to raise standards,
to elect officers. And to indulge in some heavy drinking, character assassination, and casualтАФand
sometimes not so casualтАФsex.
The men here were distinguished and well dressed, although none of them were in evening
clothes: suits predominated, most of them dark, although occasionally among them was a swinger with
long hair and jeans. The womenтАФthere were more women than menтАФwere all young and beautiful; not
just ordinary beautiful but exquisitely, improbably beautiful. I had never seen so many beautiful women in
one room before, not even when I tailed one wandering spouse backstage at a musical comedy. Up
close those faces had been a little the worse for greasepaint and the bodies a bit droopy with dissipation.
I had the feeling that the faces and bodies I saw here would be as implausibly lovely up close and
undressed as they looked from a distance.
But what was their profession? Doctor, lawyer, college professor? In what profession do the
women outnumber the men?
If I moved a few steps to the right, I could get a better look at a truly spectacular Junoesque
redhead. Like a fool, forgetting my reason for being there, I moved a few steps to the right. My foot
caught in something. I stumbled. As I pitched forward my arms reached out for support. They closed
around something softly rounded and yielding. It gasped. I looked up Into a pair of blue eyes that were
crinkled with sudden laughter. I was pressed tightly against a delightful figure.
"You see?" the girl said in a soft, low voice. "Redheads are unlucky."
"For who?" I asked.
"I don't think you will fall down now," she said, "if you should let go."
I straightened and let my arms drop. "I stumbled over something," I said, and looked down at the
dark red carpet suspiciously. There was nothing nearby that I could have stumbled over. I would have
thought I was tripped but there was nobody nearby except the girl, and she was in front of me.
"It's better to stumble than to fall," she said. "Especially for La Voisin. She's a hag, really. You
wouldn't believe. Fifty if she's a day."