"Alexander Jablokov - Fragments Of A Painted Eggshell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jablokov Alexander)

"Asmodeus was captured and imprisoned by Raphael in a deep dark prison. Raphael, you see, was
Toby's guardian angel."

"What color were his feathers?" Rue, who didn't seem particularly interested in the story, managed to
force the question out.

"Guardian angels don't have wings with feathers," Paula said, suddenly inspired. "They have brightly
colored wings like butterflies." And Raphael, she hoped and prayed, had the yellow- and-black wings of
a Tiger Swallowtail.

"That's good," Rue said. "I'll go to sleep now."

"Good night, dear."

Paula put the dishes in the washer, then noticed a brightly colored brochure lying on the counter.
Superimposed on a photo of a handsome collection of Colonial Revival houses amid huge dark maples, a
good-parts version of a New England town, was the title OUR NEW FAMILY. Oh, God, she thought.
A brochure to advertise a family? Nice houses, though. She wouldn't mind living there herself.

Inside a bunch of happy children played some obsolete game, ring-around-the-rosie, or something. Their
heads were thrown back in laughter and their long hair streamed like comets. One she recognized as
Miriam-Selena's daughter Kali, another as a younger Rue, brought together here with the other children
of the proposed family through the miracle of computer image creation. Their parents, Mark among them,
watched adoringly. It was an image impossible to create with a single camera shot: everyone was in
perfect focus. And Mark's teeth had been straightened.

Paula tore the brochure into tiny pieces, stuffed it down the garbage disposal, and went to bed.

#

"Look, boss, you gotta understand," Virgie said. "Leo's a retired madman." She fluffed her hair, then set
her hard hat back down on it.

Paula watched the level readout as the array of hydraulic jacks lowered the house down onto its newly
poured concrete foundation. The house was small and ugly, sided in asphalt, and many of its windows
were already cracked. She waited tensely for one of them to shatter, but the house just groaned once
when it touched its new foundation. Her team checked the alignment of the sill, then pulled out the jacks
and threw them on the truck. The damn things were rented, and not cheap.

"You mean he's retired from being mad?" Paula said, as she checked the foundation for cracks. She'd
caught the pourer trying to stiff her on the percentage aggregate. You had to watch everything.

"Hardly. He seems to be more freelancing, if you know what I mean."

"I'm not sure...."

The scrofulous little house had been hauled out of a neighborhood of similarly abused old structures, its
old foundation hole to be turned into a swimming pool for the house in front. But, Paula wondered as she
looked around at the warehouses, weeds, and broken concrete of this abandoned industrial area, why