"A. R. Morlan - Dear DB" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morlan A R)

something about, "You boys protect the young _gringo,_ okay?" but I didn't
really _think_ about it until after I took a second look at the proof sheets
(noticing the initials of the guy who typeset my story in the upper left hand
corner of the first page he was the one that the editor at _Gore Magazine_
wrote to me about; she said that he really liked "that D.B. Winston's stuff"
if I remembered her letter correctly), and even then, I figured that Mr. H.
made a simple mistake ... but after I went to the drugstore, what Mr.
Hernandez said began to niggle at the back of my mind.
Not that the trip to the drugstore and back was eventful but, in a way,
that _was_ the problem. All I had picked up was a box of tampons, some cheap




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typing paper (is there any other kind?) and a few stamps from one of those
mini mail-box shaped dispensers (the kind that gobbles your quarters and
usually forgets to stick out a tongue of stamps), and even though a few of the
toughs from the neighborhood were lounging around the counter and by the door
for once they didn't give me a hard time. Once, one of them offered to help me
"put in" a feminine product (shades of Dead Fred and his "can I trim your
bush?" remarks), but this time they just stood around gassing, playing with
the dials on their boom boxes (which I swear grow out of their shoulder
blades) and scaring the bejesus out of out-of-towners who happen to find
themselves in this part of the city (not your highlight tourist attraction
here!). And I actually made it _back_ to the apartment house unaccosted
...and I didn't have the boys along for moral support, either. (When I
walk the dogs, _no one_ approaches me if the _boys_ don't scare them off,
there's always the option of beaning someone over the head with the pooper
scooper!)
But _that_ day, I only figured I'd lucked out. It wasn't until I called
the super to come and take a look at my leaking faucet (the roaches were
taking sides for swimming teams in my sink) a week later that I realized
something was _wrong,_ really off-kilter. For one thing, Mr. H. who usually
broke both legs running to come spend time with the _gringa_ made some excuse
about not being able to make it until after supper. I figured that perhaps he
didn't realize it was _me,_ the "Preety _senyorita,_" so I said who was
calling, taking pains to pronounce my name _very_ plainly, and after I did,
there was this _pause_ on his end of the line, and I could hear this
Spanish-language radio or TV station in the background (like something out of
"The Possession of Joel Delaney," the part when Shirley MacLame goes slumming
in search of help for her brother) and only after I'd shouted _"Hello?"_ into
the speaker a few times he came back on the line, muttering that he'd be up
right away, but before I hung up I heard him grumble something about the
_"loco gringo"_ At the time, I thought to myself, _Maybe you should write "I
Am Woman" across the front of your tee,_ since it _did_ seem funny ... then.
As it was, Mr. H's visit was uneventful; he growled that he had his food
waiting on the hotplate, and hurriedly fixed the faucet, but as he was leaving
(and Mr. "Do Not Disturb Night Job Sleeping" Door Sign as if a "Night Job" was
an entity that needed sleep! was just leaving _his_ apartment across the