"Murphy, Pat - Departure" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Pat)

groggy from lack of sleep. The candle had burned itself out and an "I Love Lucy"
rerun was on. The cats yowled at her and she dumped dry cat food in their dish.
Hurriedly, she dressed and walked four blocks to the subway station. As she
walked, her breath made clouds of steam in the cold air.

The temperature in the subway station was tropical, the humid air heavy with
pungent odors. The advertisements that hung on the white tiled walls had been
decorated with spray paint in jungle colors: great slashes of greens brilliant
reds and blues, like the plumage of exotic birds.

As Jan waited for her train, she noticed an old woman wandering down the
platform, peering into the face of each commuter she passed. The woman wore a
man's overcoat and sculled black shoes. Her hair, as gray and tangled as rag
paper stuffing spilled from beneath her knit cap. In one hand, she carried a
pink plastic shopping bag crammed full of clothing. As she drew near, Jan could
hear her muttering to herself. Jan looked away, pretending great interest in the
advertisement across the way.

The smiling woman in a cigarette ad had been artfully disfigured by a graffiti
artist: her ears were slightly point ed and tipped with tufts of fur; her smile
had been subtly altered -- the teeth sharpened with a careful touch of paint.

"They come out at night," the old woman said, stepping between Jan and the
advertisement. "Out of the dark." The woman's eyes were the muddy brown of
coffee that's been left in the pot too long and her hands moved in an uneven
rhythm that was unrelated to her words. She glanced down suddenly, as if
startled by the movement of her own hands. There was a smear of red spray paint
on the cement at her feet and she stared at it fixedly. "Blood of the beast,"
she said and then she lifted her eyes and regarded Jan with an unnerving smile.

"It's just paint," Jan said.

The old woman shook her head and continued smiling. Though she had not asked for
money, Jan fumbled in the bottom of her purse for change and spilled her
findings into the woman's hand: a crumpled dollar bill, a quarter, a couple of
dimes.

The woman's eyes lingered on Jan's face. "They come out at night and no one
knows where they go," she muttered dreamily. Her smile grew broader, a wide
unthinking grin. "No one knows." She laughed, a high brittle sound, like glass
bottles shattering on a city street.

Jan backed away from the woman and the rumble of an approaching train drowned
out the laughter. Jan fled on the train. When she looked back through the steamy
window, the old woman waved and Jan looked away.

Jan had a temporary position in a legal office, typing endless briefs into a
word processor. She worked in a small windowless cubicle at the back of the
office. Through the cubicle's open door, she could see men in suits hurry up and
down the hall on their way to meetings. She typed, letting the words flow