"James P. Hogan - The Proteus Operation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

America could save itself by going Fascist, and the wailing about doom and destruction of liberal-
minded adolescents. But this? It was crazy. It didn't go with the times, either -- or with
Ferracini's present mood.

After a few bars of incomprehensible vocal harmonizing, a male soloist came in with the
lyric. Winslade tapped his fingers on the armrest beside him and nodded his head in time with the


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beat.

'Pardon me, boy,
Is that the Chattanooga choo-choo?
Yeah, yeah, track twenty-nine,
Boy, you can gimme a shine.'

Ferracini brought a hand up to cover his brow and shook his head, moaning tiredly. "Claud,
gimme a break. I've just got off a sub that we've been cooped up in for days. We were over the
other side for six weeks...I don't need this right now"

'You leave the Pennsylvania station 'bout a quarter to four,
Read a magazine and then you're in Baltimore,
Dinner in the diner,
Nothing could be finer,
Than to have your ham n' eggs in Carolina.'

Winslade turned the volume down. "Glenn Miller. Would you believe I used to dance to
that?"

Ferracini stared at him incredulously, as if seriously wondering for the first time if
Winslade really had gone insane. "You? Dance?"

"Certainly" A faraway look came into Winslade's eyes. "The Glen Island Casino was the best
spot, off the Shore Road in New Rochelle, New York. That was the prize booking for all the big
bands then. It had the glamour and the prestige. The main room was up on the second floor, and you
could walk out through big French windows and look right across Long Island Sound. All the kids
from Westchester County and Connecticut went there. Ozzie Nelson played there, the Dorsey
Brothers, Charlie Barret and Larry Clinton...You really don't have any idea how the world was
before the fall of Europe and the Nazi atomic attack on Russia, do you, Harry?"

Ferracini stared dubiously at the box in Winslade's hand and listened for a few seconds
longer. "It doesn't make sense," he objected.

"It doesn't have to make sense," Winslade said. "But it's got a positive, confident sound
to it. Doesn't it give you an uplift, Harry? It's happy, free, alive music -- the music of people
who had somewhere to go, and who believed they could get there...who could achieve anything they
wanted to. What happened to that, I wonder."