"Kim Newman - Castle In The Desert-Anno Dracula 1977" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

didn't have to stay on the plantation any longer. They spread.

The first vipers in California were elegant European predators, flush with centuried fortunes and
keen with red thirsts. In the early '60s, they bought up real estate, movie studios, talent
agencies (cue lots of gags), orange groves, restaurant franchises, ocean-front properties, parent
companies. Then their get began to appear: American vampires, new-borns with wild streaks. Just as
I quit the private detective business for the second time, bled-dry bodies turned up all over town
as turf wars erupted and were settled out of court. For some reason, drained corpses were often
dumped on golf courses. Vipers made more vipers, but they also made viper-killersтАФincluding such
noted humanitarians as Charles MansonтАФand created new segments of the entertainment and produce
industries. Vampire dietary requirements opened up whole new possibilities for butchers and
hookers.

As the Vietnam War escalated, things went quiet on the viper front. Word was that the elders of
the community began ruthless policing of their own kind. Besides, the cops were more worried about



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draft dodgers and peace-freak protesters. Now, vampires were just another variety of Los Angeles
fruitcake. Hundred-coffin mausolea were opening up along the Strip, peddling shelter from the sun
at five bucks a day. A swathe of Bay City, boundaried by dried-up canals, was starting to be
called Little Carpathia, a ghetto for the poor suckers who didn't make it up to castles and
estates in Beverly Hills. I had nothing real against vipers, apart from a deep-in-the-gut crawly
distrust it was impossible for anyone of my generationтАФthe WWII guysтАФto quell entirely. Linda's
death, though, hit me harder than I thought I could be hit, a full-force ulcer-bursting right to
the gut. Ten years into my latest retirement, I was at war.

To celebrate the bicentennial year, I'd moved from Poodle Springs back into my old Los Angeles
apartment. I was nearer the bartenders and medical practitioners to whom I was sole support. These
days, I knocked about, boring youngsters in the profession with the Sternwood case or the Lady in
the Lake, doing light sub-contract work for Lew ArcherтАФdigging up family records at county
courthousesтАФor Jim Rockford. All the cops I knew were retired, dead or purged by Chief Exley, and
I hadn't had any pull with the D.A.'s office since Bernie Ohls's final stroke. I admitted I was a
relic, but so long as my lungs and liver behaved at least eight hours a day I was determined not
to be a shambling relic.

I was seriously trying to cut down on the Camels, but the damage was done back in the puff-happy
'40s when no one outside the cigarette industry knew nicotine was worse for you than heroin. I
told people I was drinking less, but never really kept score. There were times, like now, when
Scotch was the only soldier that could complete the mission.




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