"Robert McCammon - Night Calls The Green Falcon" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCammon Robert R)

book, and looked at the yellowed newspaper clipping from the Belvedere,
Indiana Banner of March 21st 1946, that said HOMETOWN FOOTBALL
HERO HOLLYWOOD BOUND. There was a picture of himself, when he
was still handsome and had a headful of hair. Other clippings тАУ his
mother had saved them тАУ were from his high-school and college days, and
they had headlines like BOOMER WINS GYMNASTIC MEDAL and
BOOMER BREAKS TRACK MEET RECORD. That was his real name:
Creighton Boomershine. The photographs were of a muscular, long-legged
kid with a lop-sided grin and the clear eyes of a dreamer.
Long gone, Cray thought. Long gone.
He had had his moment in the sun. It had almost burned him blind, but
it had been a lovely light. He had turned sixty-three in May, an old relic.
Hollywood worshipped at the altar of youth. Anyway, nobody made his
kind of pictures anymore. Four serials in four years, and then тАУ
Cut, he thought. No use stirring up all that murky water. He had to get
back to bed, because morning would find him mopping the floor in the
Burger King three blocks west and Mr. Thatcher liked clean floors.
He closed the memory book and put it aside. On the floor was a section
of yesterdayтАЩs LA Times; heтАЩd already read the paper, but a headline
caught his attention: FLIPTOP KILLER CHALLENGES POLICE. Beneath
that was a story about the Fliptop, and eight photographs of the street
people whose throats had been savagely slashed in the last two months.
Cray had known one of them: a middle-aged woman called Auntie
Sunglow, who rocketed along the boulevard on roller skates singing
Beatles songs at the top of her lungs. She was crazy, yes, but she always
had a kind tune for him. Last week sheтАЩd been found in a trash dumpster
off Sierra Bonita, her head almost severed from her neck.
Bad times, Cray mused. CouldnтАЩt think of any worse. Hopefully the
police would nail the Fliptop before he тАУ or she тАУ killed again, but he
didnтАЩt count on it. All the street people he knew were watching their backs.
Something struck the wall, in JulieтАЩs apartment. It sounded like it might
have been a fist.
Cray heard the springs squalling, like a cat being skinned alive. He
didnтАЩt know why she sold her body for such things, but heтАЩd learned long
ago that people did what they had to do to survive.
There was another blow against the wall. Something crashed over. A
chair, maybe.
Cray stood up. Whatever was going on over there, it sounded rough.
Way too rough. He heard no voices, just the awful noise of the springs. He
went to the wall and pounded on it. тАЬJulie?тАЭ he called. тАЬYou all right?тАЭ
No answer. He put his ear to the wall, and heard what he thought might
have been a shuddering gasp.
The squall of the springs had ceased. Now he could hear only his own
heartbeat. тАЬJulie?тАЭ He pounded the wall again. тАЬJulie, answer me!тАЭ When
she didnтАЩt respond, he knew something was terribly wrong. He went out to
the corridor, sweat crawling down his neck, and as he reached out to grip
the doorknob of JulieтАЩs apartment he heard a scraping noise that he knew
must be the window being pushed upward.
JulieтАЩs window faced the alley. The fire escape, Cray realised. JulieтАЩs
customer was going down the fire escape.