"R. A. Lafferty - Melchisedek 02 - Tales of Midnight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

MORE THAN MELCHISEDECH

VOLUME TWO
TALES OF MIDNIGHT


Book One

'There be two men of all mankind
That I'm forever thinking on:
They chase me everywhere I go --
Melchisedech, Ukalegon.'
[Edwin Arlington Robinson. Two Men.]

1

Well, who was Ukalegon? Skalsky says that Ukalegon was a woman and
no man at all; and that she was, in all ways, the negation of Melchisedech.
But did the poet E. A. Robinson understand that?

In the year 1946, Duffey started off on a week's trip from which, as
it would happen, he would never return.
Now it was the case that Casey Szymansky, who had moved the Crock
out of Duffey's place to more plush quarters, said that he was going on a
trip the same day. Neither told the other any more about it. They were on
tolerable terms with each other by then, but not on really good terms. There
had been quite a bit of property and money coming to Duffey out of his
partnership with Gabriel Szymansky after Gabriel's death. Duffey hadn't
taken all that he was entitled to, but he had taken more than Casey thought
he should have. And Duffey now owned that particular building, the building
on the poor street that had once housed Gabriel's pawn shop.
"Yes, all agreements and papers are in order, Duffey, and they show
such things as belonging to you," Casey and his lawyer had said, "but we
don't beheve the faces of those papers." But they had settled it without
excess bitterness, Duffey taking a little shorter stick than he should have
had.
This day, they left Chicago on the same train and on the same coach,
though they had not been seeking each others' company. It wasn't really
embarrassing, but it might have been just a little stuffy. It was always a
problem how an Olympian should handle a Tinan who was in open rebellion.
"I'm sorry about your nose, Duffey," Casey said as they sat
together.
"Oh, that's all right," Duffey told him. It was the first time they
had mentioned it since it had happened. Duffey had had his nose broken (it
wasn't the last time it would happen) in an altercation with goons of the
new people who were associated with Casey on the Crock. New people they
were, but with old goons. The goons had been the same old slant-faced men
out of Duffey's unrealities. Well, did they keep spares for them? Duffey had
done in one of those slant-faces as a follow-up of the altercation, and he
hadn't heard from them since.