"George R. R. Martin - WC 5 - Down and Dirty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

file:///F|/rah/George%20R.%20R.%20Martin/Martin,%20George%20R.%20R%20-%20Wildcards%205%20-%20Down%20And%20Dirty.txt

Wildcards V: Down And DirtyDown And Dirty
Book 5 of Wildcards
Edited by George R.R. Martin
ISBN: 0-553-27463-5


October 1986 - April 1987


Only the Dead Know Jokertown
by John J. Miller


I
Brennan moved through the autumnal night as if he were part of it, or it were
part of him.
The fall had brought a coolness to the air that reminded Brennan, however
palely, of the Catskills. He missed the mountains more than almost anything, but
as long as Kien was free they were as unattainable as the ghosts of dead friends
and lovers that had lately come to haunt his dreams. He loved the mountains as
surely as he loved all the people he'd failed down through the years, but who
could love the dirty sprawl of the city? Who could even know the city, could
even know Jokertown? Not him, certainly, but Kien's presence bound him to
Jokertown as solidly as chains of adamantine steel.
He crossed the street, entering the half block of urban debris that bordered the
Crystal Palace. With the sixth sense of the hunter he could feel eyes follow him
as he passed through the wreckage. He shifted the canvas bag that carried his
broken-down bow to a more comfortable position, wondering, not for the first
time, what sort of creatures chose to make the mounds of junk their home. Once
or twice he heard twittering rustles that weren't the wind and glimpsed flashes
of movement that weren't shifting moonshadow, but no one interfered as he swung
up onto the rusted fire escape hanging down the Palace's rear wall. He climbed
silently to the roof, went through the security system that would have given him
pause if Chrysalis hadn't keyed him to it, and entered through the trapdoor that
opened on the Palace's third floor, Chrysalis's private domain. The corridor was
totally dark, but he avoided, by memory the delicate stands cluttered with
antique bric-a-brac and let himself into her bedroom. Chrysalis was awake.
Sitting naked on her plush winecolored fainting couch, she was playing solitaire
with a deck of antique playing cards.
Brennan watched her for a moment. Her skeleton, her ghostly musculature, her
internal organs, and the network of blood vessels that laced through it all were
delicately lit by rosy light from the Tiffany lamp hanging above the couch upon
which she'd spread her cards. He watched the articulated skeleton of her hand
flip through the deck and turn over the ace of spades.
She looked up at him and smiled.
Her smile, like Chrysalis herself, was an enigma. Difficult to read because her
face was only lips and smudges of ghostly muscle on her cheeks and jaw, it could
have meant any of the thousand things a smile could mean. Brennan chose to