"LOSTCITY" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Joseph)

Across the potholed macadam, seedy warehouses and vacant lots filled with
trash sat behind an uneven brick walk.
In the wall were nooks, phony arches in the pseudo-gothic facade,
that harbored an occasional wino or bag lady, where once street vendors
had hawked their goods to prosperous tradesmen. There weren't many
cutthroats about, because few men in gray business suits like Mayer's
walked the crumbling cement this close to the waterfront.
But Mayer was different. He made a good living catering to the
temporary financial needs of transient sailors. He was known as an
honorable man in a seamy business; and anyone molesting him would have had
to answer to an authority more fearsome by far than the cops--the Seaman's
Benevolent Committee and Waterway Neighborhood Association, for whom he
brokered.
What he did was mostly legal; and his employer helped a lot of
sailors down on their luck--for a high interest rate. Only those who could
pay off and did not suffered from the long arm of Seaman's Benevolent.
Also, as the police had retreated from the docks and the slums, the
organization more and more enforced the peace of the area, a task outside
the law that the lack of law had made necessary. Mayer had nothing to do
with collections or enforcement.
On his way to work this chill fall morning, he heard a viscous,
rumbling cough that he'd run across too many times on drunkard's row.
Pneumonia.
He searched out the noise to find a shabby brown-haired woman sitting
doubled over at the back of a deep alcove. He couldn't help noticing a
huge door in the rear wall.
"Woman, woman," he sighed, "what a mess you are."
She looked up and swigged at a bottle she produced from the folds of
her soiled blue dress. Coughing again, she began to choke on the alkie.
"Ach, old fool," Mayer said sadly, grabbing the container of hooch
and flinging it into the street, where it shattered. "I'll get you some
help before you cough your lungs out."
The female continued to rumble and shudder; and Mayer walked into the
street. "Hey!" he yelled to a passing car. "Call an ambulance! We've got a
sick lady here."
The vehicle went on, its driver not even turning his head. "You're an
old fool too, Mayer, if you think someone will stop and listen in this
neighborhood."
He looked to the warehouses across the street. Probably not open this
early. Then he remembered the door. He was sure it had never been there
before, but any port in a gale. Maybe it was more temperate in there.
To his surprise he found it unlocked and the darkness beyond almost
tropical. "Come on, lady. Get in here where it's warm."
Mayer tried to pull her up, but sensed her weakness. "Ach, you're far
gone." Grunting, he dragged the limp woman to the opening, lifted her over
the crooked step, and deposited her inside. He rolled her flat on her
tummy, hoping she wouldn't drown in her own fluids. A cold wind blew in
through the door.
Straining his eyes into the dark, he sensed a smooth, narrow tunnel
lit by a violet light from somewhere beyond. He shut the big door to close