"Fat Tuesday" - читать интересную книгу автора (McDonald Ian)

Reconcile your soul with the saints of the boulevard.

And the big hoload for Diet-Coke on the side of the National Lottery Office
says: ANNUNCIATO.

The name, tastefully iconised in spray-can platinums and razor blues, tumbles
away through holospace. The spotlights of the Lobos pin and pluck you naked as
one of the chickens Madre Amparo takes to the shrine of St Anthony. The back
streets off St DominicТs Preview are loud with the whisper click of
switchblades.

TRUST ME. I WILL PROTECT YOU.

Lasers sear the night. Brave, bold howling Lobos fall back swearing screaming
clutching burns gashes scars. A new ingredient in the city perfume of sweat,
shit, smoke and semen: scorched flesh. Glass guitar in hand, Annunciato is safe
behind a wall of flickering laserlight.

A miracle.

STAY HERE. SOMEONE WILL COME TO HELP YOU, says the hoload.

СWhat who why how?Т says dazed and confused Annunciato.

The big BVM videowall on the Credit and Loan fills with starry starry night. A
pair of strawberry luscious lips rezz up on the startrek sky. Fruit comes
tumbling out of the mind of the Coca-Cola CompanyТs videographics computer;
bananas, pineapples, oranges, guava, mango, piled up like Mr SocksТ stall in
Birimbao Plaza. A womanТs face fills in behind the lips, beneath the
tutti-frutti hat. Blessed Virgin Mary was never like this.

LA MIRANDA, says the videowall as, with a wink and a smile, the woman fades into
the Alto California night. Los Lobos howl and smash the big chrome wrenches that
are their ritual weapons against the oily concrete. But the lasers hold them.

A light. And a voice. A womanТs voice. Flashlight beams, a vision, riding down
on an extending fire escape out of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the
U-Bend-We-Mend. Silver lamщ from the peak of her baseball cap to the tips of her
boots, a jingle-jangle of ripped-off hood ornaments around her neck, the Six
Mystic Stars of Subaru.

Angel of mercy, and, incredible of incredibles, white.

Annunciato thought they had all died out in their rotting haciendas and Tudor
mansionettes years ago.

СYou come now, right now,Т she says. Her Angeleёo is appalling. СRight now, you
come. La Miranda, she cannot go on drawing this much power from the grid for
long time. Catholic engineers come, shut her down. So you come, come now.Т He