"Andrew J. Offutt - Gone With the Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

Gone with the Gods

There are many inventions you never hear about because no one has found a good use for
them.

ANDREW J. OFFUTT

I was gagging my way through the day's third Gothic novel, trying to get myself into perpetrating one
of the damned things so some artist could perpetrate another cover with an uptight-looking young woman
in the foreground and a castle or old house in the backgroundтАФwith a light in one window. It was one of
those times when any sort of interruption was welcome, even a ringing phone.
The phone rang.
I bounced "The Castle of Malfoie" off the far wall and reached for a cigarette with my right hand. My
left went after the phone. I am totally incapable of handling a telephone without a cigarette. I try to
control the nasty things, but on those days when I have to answer and place several calls, the tobacco
industry gets a break. And I wake up next day with a throat like a piece of old harness leather.
"Hello, this is Harvey Moss," I said, wiping a book of matches off the desk.
"Harvey sweetheart, howsa boy?"
"Doing my damnedest to get into an Otranto mood, Mark," I said, with plenty of put-upon weariness
in my voice. Mark Ventnor's voice, naturally, was one I recognized instantly. I hunched my left shoulder
to hold the phone against my ear while I tore off a match and lit up.
"Otranto? Otranto?"
I sighed smokily. "The gran-daddy of all Gothic novels, Mark. Very old novelette, by a gent named
Walpole, may his soul sizzle sickly!"
"Oh yeah, oh yeah, that Otranto," Mark Ventnor said in that raspy high voice of his. Sounds like Ed
McMahon doing W. C. Fields, sober. With a cold. And about to cry. "Well, forget that Gothic jazz,
Harvey sweetheart. I got something I need you to do."
"Last week you needed me to do a Gothic," I reminded him. "By the first."
"That was last week. I just had a really weird phone call, Harvey. A really odd call."
"Me too," I muttered, "this one." More loudly I said, not without trepidation, "Tell me about it,
Mark."
"Yeah. Listen Harve, I just had a call from an old fraternity brother of mine, Dr.тАФ"
"Hey, I never knew you were in a fraternity," I said, reaching for the ashtray and not quite making it.
If it's true that ashes are good for rugs, I should keep one on my desk instead of a blotter. The ash is
always longer than it should be; the tray is always a few centimeters too far away.
"Uh yeah, yeah, I was," he said, half blown away by the interruption. "Sure I was: It was a long time
ago," the cueball-headed boss of Morpheus Books added unnecessarily. "So an old fraternity brother,
Dr. Ben Corrick, called me today."
"Marvy," I said, "and you want me to ghost a book about his earthshaking new diet plan, right?"
There was a brief accusing silence, heavy with hurt. Then: "Harvey, this call is costing me money. It's
my nickel, remember. Things are not so good I should listen to you shoot off your mouth every time I
open mineтАФand before I close it. IтАФ"
"Right, Mark. Sorry."
I heard his sigh. Oh Lord. I'd done it again. I resisted apologizing for having interrupted to apologize.
The silence just sort of sat there for awhile, surly.
"Ben Corrick isn't a medical doctor," Mark said in the manner of the teacher in a
retarded-I-meanexceptional class. "He has one of those PhD's. You know. In physics.
Like . . . ah, you know, physics. He's stayed on at the old school all these years while I've been
working my ass off up here in New York, and he's been working on an invention."
I curbed the automatic impulse to comment. An invention. Oh boy.