"George R. R. Martin - WC 4 - Aces Abroad" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

haven't introduced our host. This delightful man has the charming name of
Charlemagne Calixte. I believe he's a policeman or something. He's going with us
to the hounfour."
Digger nodded and Calixte inclined his head in a precise, nondeferential bow.
"Are you a devotee of voodoo, Monsieur Calixte?" Chrysalis asked.
"It is the superstition of peasants," he said in a raspy growl, thoughtfully
fingering the scar tissue that crawled up the right side of his face. "Although
seeing you would almost make one a believer."
"What do you mean?"
"You have the appearance of a loa. You could be Madame Brigitte, the wife of
Baron Samedi."
"You don't believe that, do you?" Chrysalis asked. Calixte laughed. It was a
gravelly, barking laugh-that was as pleasant as his smile. "Not I, but I am an
educated man. It was the sickness that caused your appearance. I know. I have
seen others."
"Other jokers?" Digger asked with, Chrysalis thought, his usual tact.
"I don't know what you mean. I have seen other unnatural deformities. A few."


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"Where are they now?" Calixte only smiled.
No one felt much like talking. Digger kept shooting Chrysalis questioning
glances, but she could tell him nothing, and even if she had a inkling of what
was going on, she could hardly speak openly in front of Calixte. Wilde played
with Calixte's swagger stick and cadged drinks from the bottle of clairin, cheap
white rum, that the Haitian took frequent swallows from himself. Calixte drank
over half the bottle in twenty minutes, and as he drank he stared at Chrysalis
with intense, bloodshot eyes.
Chrysalis, in an effort to avoid Calixte's gaze, looked out the window and was
astonished to see that they were no longer in the city, but were traveling down
a road that seemed to cut through otherwise unbroken forest.
"Just where are we going?" she asked Calixte, striving to keep her voice level
and unafraid.
He took the bottle of clairin from Wilde, gulped down a mouthful, and shrugged.
"We are going to the hounfour. It is in Petionville, a small suburb just outside
Port-au-Prince."
"Port-au-Prince has no hounfours of its own?"
Calixte smiled his blasted smile. "None that put on such a fine show"
Silence descended again. Chrysalis knew that they were in trouble, but she
couldn't figure out exactly what Calixte wanted of them. She felt like a pawn in
a game she didn't even know she'd been playing. She glanced at the others.
Digger was looking confused as hell, and Wilde was drunk. Damn. She was more
sorry than ever that she'd left familiar, comfortable Jokertown behind to follow
Tachyon on his mad, worthless journey. As usual, she only had herself to depend
on. It had always been like that, and always would. Part of her mind whispered
that once there had been Brennan, but she refused to listen to it. Come to the
test, he would have proved as untrustworthy as the rest. He would have.
The driver suddenly pulled the limo to the side of the road and killed the