"Herbert, Frank - The Santaroga Barrier" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

Dasein stiffened at the abrupt challenge. "I'm tired," he said. "I want a night's sleep."

"Passing through, I hope," the man grumbled. He shuffled to the counter, pushed a black registry ledger toward Dasein.

Dasein took a pen from its holder beside the ledger, signed.

The clerk produced a brass key on a brass tag, said: "You get two fifty-one next to that dang' couple from L.A. Don't blame me if they keep y' awake arguing." He slapped the key onto the counter. "That'll be ten dollars . . . in advance."

"I'm hungry," Dasein said, producing his wallet and paying. "Is the dining room open?" He accepted a receipt.

"Closes at nine," the clerk said.

"Is there a bellboy?"

"You look strong enough to carry your own bag." He pointed beyond Dasein. "Room's up them stairs, second floor."

Dasein turned. There was an open area behind the stagecoach. Scattered through it were leather chairs, high wings and heavy arms, a few occupied by elderly men sitting, reading. Light came from heavy brass floor lamps with fringed shades. A carpeted stairway led upward beyond the chairs.

It was a scene Dasein was to think of many times later as his first clue to the real nature of Santaroga. The effect was that of holding time securely in a bygone age.

Vaguely troubled, Dasein said: "I'll check my room later. May I leave my bag here while I eat?"

"Leave it on the counter. No one'll bother it."

Dasein put the case on the counter, caught the clerk studying him with a fixed stare.

"Something wrong?" Dasein asked.

"Nope."

The clerk reached for the briefcase under Dasein's arm, but Dasein stepped back, removed it from the questing fingers, met an angry stare.

"Hmmmph!" the clerk snorted. There was no mistaking his frustration. He'd wanted a look inside the briefcase.

Inanely, Dasein said: "I . . . uh, want to look over some papers while I'm eating." And he thought: Why do I need to explain?

Feeling angry with himself, he turned, strode through the passage into the dining room. He found himself in a large square room, a single massive chandelier in the center, brass carriage lamps spaced around walls of dark wood paneling. The chairs at the round tables were heavy with substantial arms. A long teak bar stretched along the wall at his left, a wood-framed mirror behind it. Light glittered hypnotically from the central chandelier and glasses stacked beneath the mirror.

The room swallowed sounds. Dasein felt he had walked into a sudden hush with people turning to look at him. Actually, his entrance went almost unnoticed.

A white-coated bartender on duty for a scattering of customers at the bar glanced at him, went back to talking to a swarthy man hunched over a mug of beer.

Family groups occupied about a dozen of the tables. There was a card game at a table near the bar. Two tables held lone women busy with their forks.

There was a division of people in this room, Dasein felt. It was a matter of nervous tension contrasted with a calmness as substantial as the room itself. He decided he could pick out the transients -- they appeared tired, more rumpled; their children were closer to rebellion.

As he moved farther into the room, Dasein glimpsed himself in the bar mirror -- fatigue lines on his slender face, the curly black hair mussed by the wind, brown eyes glazed with attention, still driving the car. A smudge of road dirt drew a dark line beside the cleft in his chin. Dasein rubbed at the smudge, thought: Here's another transient.

"You wish a table, sir?"