"Lewis Padgett - Compliments of the Author" - читать интересную книгу автора (Padgett Lewis)

had a queer feeling that he was on the verge of a mysteryтАФan important one, somehow. Only he couldn't find the key.
The hell with it. Gwinn was a screwball. This volume meant nothing. Or ...
It was growing chilly. Tracy, with a wry mouth, dropped the book on the seat beside him and started the engine.
The one inexplicable thing was the discovery of his name on the volume's brown cover. Previously it had had Gwinn's
nameтАФor had it? Thinking back, he wasn't quite certain. At any rate, the doubt was comforting.
He backed the car, turned, and drove on down the canyon, branching into Laurel, the main thoroughfare. As
usual, there was plenty of traffic, since the road was a short cut between Hollywood and the Valley.
The accident came not quite without warning. On the left of the road was a gully; on the right, an overhanging
tree. The headlights picked out something definitely abnormal about that tree. For the second time Tracy saw the gray,
rugose, sagging face of a hag, toothless mouth agape in a grin, the deformed head nodding as though in
encouragement. He was quite certain that, mingled somehow with the trunk and branches, was the monstrous figure of
a woman. The tree had become anthropomorphic. It was wrenching, straining, hunching its heavy shoulders as it
swayed and lurched toward the road.
It fell. Tracy caught his breath and jammed his foot down on the accelerator, swinging the car to the left. The cold
motor stuttered hesitantly, without gaining speed, and that was unfortunate. The tree crashed down, and a heavy
branch seemed to thrust itself under the wheels. Tires blew out with sickening bangs. The breath-stopping sickness of
imminent danger froze Tracy into paralysis as the coup├й went over the curb, toppling, skidding down, turning over and
over till it came to rest on its side.
Tracy's head rang like a bell; white flashes of pain lanced through it. He was jammed awkwardly behind the
steering wheel, which, luckily, had not snapped off. He had avoided impalement, at any rate. He reached fumblingly for
the key to snap off the ignition, but a flicker of fire told him he was too late.
The car was ablaze.
Painfully Tracy tried to right himself. The shatterproof glass had not broken, and he thrust upward against the
door, now above his head. It was jammed. He could see stars through the glass, and a coiling veil of thin smoke that
partly obscured them. A reddening glow grew brighter. When the fire reached the gas tank . . .
He heard distant shouts. Help was coming, but probably it would not come in time. With a choking cry Tracy
strained up against the door; he could not budge it. If he could break the glassтАФ
He sought for a tool. There was none. The dashboard compartment was jammed, and, in his awkward position, he
could not remove a shoe to hammer against the glass. The acrid smell grew stronger. Red light flickered.
The sharp corner of something was jammed against his side, and Tracy, hoping it might be a loose bit of metal
heavy enough to serve his purpose, clutched at it. He found himself staring at the book. The white circle on the cover
was luminous, and traced darkly against the whiteness were two Arabic numerals:
25
The need for self-preservation sharpens the faculties. It was instinct that brought vividly to Tracy the memory of
what he had read on Page 25 of the book. The enigma of the message was suddenly elucidated.
"Try the windshield."
Tracy thrust at the long plate glass with his palm, and the windshield fell out. A breath of cool air blew in against
his sweating face. The crackling of flames was very loud now.
He kept a tight grip on the book as he wormed his way through the gap, skinning his shin rather badly; and he
ran down the gully, gasping for breath, till the red firelight had faded. A booming roar told him the gas tank had
exploded. Tracy sat down, feeling weak, and looked at the book. It was an oblong, darker shadow in the faint
moonlight.
"My God," he said.
 After a while he put the book in a pocket of his tattered topcoat and clambered out of the gully. Cars were parked
along the curb, and men were moving about, using flashlights. Tracy walked back toward the crowd.
He was conscious of irritation at the impending scene. The only thing he wanted, just now, was a chance to
examine the book privately. There was a point at which skepticism stopped. Tracy had run up against enough news
curiosa in the past to retain a certain amount of credulity. The whole thing might be merely a coincidenceтАФbut he
didn't think so.
There was a confusion of questioning, loud, rather pointless conversation, and assurances, on Tracy's part, that