"Geoffrey A. Landis - Hot Death On Wheels" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

that perfect edge that would keep the rear-end from floating right off the
street at top speed. Other streetpunks had their cars all dolled up, with
cherry-slick enamel and white-wall tires and fancy hi-fi radios. Except for
the chrome, Den's rod was slick glossy black with only a white skull on the
hood and the words Hot Death on Wheels. He didn't
have nothing inside, not even a tach, because he knew every quaver of his
engine and could always tell just exactly what he was doing by the sound.

He left behind everything on the road. He didn't even have a
rearview mirror because nobody ever came up behind him, no baby, not
even once.

One summer night the hot wind was blowing out of the mountains, and
he'd beat everything on the road, no contest. We'd gone to the drive-in,
where all the streetpunks would hang out in the back row, smoking Luckies,
making a great show of ignoring the girls, and arranging races. But nobody
would race with Den; they'd all been beaten so bad that they wouldn't even
look him in the eye, just stood there pretending they couldn't see him.

That night was hot, the wind blowing down from the desert like the
devil had forgotten to close the gates of Hell. Den stared down the other
drivers contemptuously, not saying a word, then he threw down his
cigarette and just got in his car and gunned it. Rev up a car like his and
you
can feel it as much as you hear it, thunder like to shake you to pieces. He
took off, out into the mountains, screeching wheels like a coyote gone mad
and leaving us all behind in a cloud of burnt rubber and gas fumes.

I heard the story later, in bits and pieces. I believed it then, and,
all
these years and too many miles later, I goddamn still believe every word of
it
now.

He went through the mountains at about a hundred miles an hour, he
told me, twisting and turning like a mountain-goat, but he'd built that car
to
hold onto the road no matter what, and by God it did, and he headed
straight out through the desert, cactus and sagebrush and then a thousand
miles of nothing but darkness and stars, nothing else, not even cows, not
even cactus.

He'd left California so far behind in the night, with the hot wind razor-
whipping past him, that he could be in Arizona, or even Kansas, but the
roads were wide and straight and empty and just made for street racing.

And then-- this is the part you might not believe, kid, but I swear I
heard
it straight, and he wasn't smiling when he said it; so laugh and I'll goddamn
knock your teeth in, I'm telling you.