"Edgar Pangborn - A Better Mousehole" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pangborn Edgar)

weakness.
And why don't you? says the Judge. As if I didn't know.
Because, says Dr. West, I car-ried them outdoors to see them in the sun, was disturbed by the
telephone, set them down in a thicket, answered the phone, at which you bent my ear for a half-hour
about a detective story you plan to start writing any day. When I got back the two halves were gone.
Naturally, says the Judge. Na-turally.
Gone, says Dr. West, from a patch of soft earth in the thicket that showed no footprints.
We left it at that. Ever since, I been thinking about it. Only minutes now till closing time or I would flip
my lid.
Dr. West was not lying or he would of done a mermaid story. That don't mean it was the whole truth.
How could anybody ever tell that like they say in the law courts? Maybe the bugs bit him before they
went off through the hole in the screen? One bite would be enough to show him what it does to you.
Could we sort of share them?


I would like that. Something's gentled me down lately. I got no jealousy about him and Lulu going
off together like they done this afternoon. I don't seem to have no angry feelings of no kind except about
drowning Irma in the bathtub if it was practi-cal. Aw, I guess I mean I might make that type joke, a man
couldn't do no such thing. Be-sides it could be my fault Irma is like she is. How about that, Al?
Anyhow I'd sooner Lulu went off with Dr. West than with say this salesman looks like a shaved pig
and wants a beer.
Beer. Why can't they ask for something unusual just once so I would have to think about it and stop
thinking?
Five minutes still to closing.
It was last night Irma found me with my bugs and called them flies. I bet she believes that. It was the
finest part of my dream тАФ gone, clobbered, and here's Irma in her nightgown come down and turned on
the light, standing there all bones and bad temper saying Drunk as a pig, now I see where the profits go,
all down your gut. Her that used to talk like a lady, and had them goldy lights in her hair. Flies, she says,
flies everywhere.
She don't know about the hole, my better mousehole, or she would of poured cleaning fluid down it,
and they would of come out and fixed her little red wag-on. I would not like that to hap-pen. It's funny
how gentle I feel nowadays. I used to be what they call a Ruffed Diamond.
I guess Irma will have took her twenty-year grouch to bed by now. Oh no, it wasn't like that all of
them twenty years, not by no means тАФ but my Jesus. I'm supposed to be some damn God-almighty
Apollo Valentino Rock-efeller or I'm no good? I'm good in them dreams. I been seven feet tall and
bronzy, ready when-ever I said so.
There they go again about that thing, in Jonesburg where the lady shot up a radio-teevy store account
she claimed the noise spoiled her dreams. Look тАФthings like thatтАФit can't mean these bugs areтАФ
I won't have a dream tonight though. I won't, till I can get a real talk with Dr. West. Well, speak of
the тАФ


It has come to be morning, hot and quiet outside in that gold-en street. I better try to think through
what happened, and what Dr. West said.
When he come in at closing time I seen he wanted talk same as me. I told him stick around, I closed
up, doused the front lights, we carried a Jameson into the back room. He flung down a shot and said, I
took Lulu up to my place. The Judge too. Johnny Blood'll be gone another couple weeks, but I suppose
may-be the Judge'll be missed.
 Missed? I says.
He says, Don't be like that. Al. The Judge is asleep and dream-ing, Lulu is asleep and dream-ing, and