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

hall), Hernandez happened to say to himself, "Goddamn _loco gringo_
sonsabitch," which prompted Mr. "Night Job Sleeping" to chortle "Goo'night,
fellah" at me. I almost sicced Wolfie and Duke on him, but figured, why waste
the effort? They might have gotten food poisoning from the jerk. I decided to
get them to bark at his door some day ... his sign didn't say "No _Barking!_"
However, I didn't get a chance to mull over the day's events; since the
_BQ_ editor called; would I consider some last-minute editing on "The Mouth
That..."? Nothing major, just a few changes near the end? After scrambling
around for a copy of the MS (not much of a scramble, considering the size of
my Roach-Motel room) I dictated the changes over the phone, and at that point
things _really_ began to get weird, for between lines, he kept asking "Got a
cold, D.B.?" "Can you speak up?" "Bad connection," and I wouldn't have paid
any undue attention to that if I'd still been living in Ewerton, where bad
connections were the norm but he was calling from an office only a couple of
miles away at the most! After he hung up I told myself I'd have to get
Super-super to come and look at it (since Ma Bell was slaughtered, calling the
phone people is a fool's errand!) when he got himself some glasses, or after I
made up my "I Am Woman" shirt.
And that was when things were still fairly _normal._
Two weeks later I got my check for "The Mouth That..." and I went to
the bank to try and cash it. I hadn't been in for about a month, but that
isn't an eternity ... yet the teller, a woman who I _thought_ would recognize
me (I'd been to her a few times before, during other visits) acted like I'd
caught the first ship from Mars and landed on the roof of the building five
minutes before, and jumped down to the lobby through the ceiling. Now I'm not




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a naive person, even though I was born and raised in a small town. I'm aware
of the fact that New Yorkers simply don't have the _time_ to be slavishly
polite to every Tom, Dick, and Henrietta who walks through the door (unless
they work at Bloomies and are busy trying to get you to submit to a cosmetic
makeover _then_ they act like they'll sell you the city for a string of beads
and some feathers!) but I was expecting a teller at _my_ bank to treat me like
a _human being._
The woman gave me a strange look when I submitted my check and passbook
(for deposit of part of the check; I'm not crazy enough to spend the whole
thing at a pop), looking from the book to me and back again, like something
wasn't computing for her. She began to act as if I'd just handed her a
scribbed note topped with the words "This is a Stickup!" and stammered
something about needing some "recent identification," and I reached over, took
my things, and said for her to forget it, and left, while she stared at me as
if I was Al Pacino carrying a long flower box under one arm. While I walked to
the subway station, I began to think about the past few days and decided that
the Big Apple (as the folks back home love to call it when I phone them in the
background I can hear Mom yell "Arlin, c'mere, it's our girl calling from the
Big Apple!") had gone wormy for me. I mean, Ewerton was bad it was deeply
entrenched in that old system of "Oh, you're Arlin Winston's girl," or "Her?