"Rohan,.Michael.Scott.-.Chase.the.Morning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rohan Michael Scott)
'Just careless, I guess. Decoyed me to the door and jumped me. Kind of subtle, by their lights.'
'Daj. Let's hope they not learrning brains. But why so much trouble? What's in that warrehouse, anyhow?'
'Just the usual.' Jyp sounded puzzled. 'A few old loads that've lain there months now, and the stuff out of the Iskander, docked this morning from out West. Nothing unusual in that. Black lotus for Patchie's, a couple of gross merhorse skins that Mendoza's shipped up from Te Arahoa on spec and died on the market. A load of flamewood planks for the trade, indigo, peppers and coffee from Huy Brazeal, auk down - twenty bales of it! - and a few tons of dried Conqueror Root and Night-eye for the shops on Damballah Alley. Not the sort of stuff a man can pilfer to any profit; it'd take more'n three to carry off any worthwhile pickings. There was a load of black-devil rum, fifty hogsheads, but Sutler Dick picked that up not four hours after it come in.'
'Maybe nobody tells the Volfs,' puffed Myrko.
'Maybe ...' echoed Jyp, but he didn't sound convinced. I was just about to ask him what all those daft-sounding commodities were meant to be when Katjka distracted me - with a vengeance. I jerked rigid with agony, and all but kicked over the table. It felt exactly as if, having cleaned the wound off gently, she'd suddenly pulled it sharply open, sunk her teeth in it and sucked hard. I looked down and saw that that was exactly what she had done. What's more, she was still doing it. I sank back trembling, unable to speak, and saw Jyp grinning at me.
'Could be dirt in the wound, remember? Filthy things, Wolf blades, you never know. That's how Katjka's folk deal with it, and I can vouch for it working, b'lieve me. Mind you, they're all vampires in her corner of the world, anyhow!'
Katjka looked up, and spat my blood accurately onto his trousers, which looked like glossy leather; he wiped it off with a snort.
'The company you keep, you shouldn't be so high and mighty, pylot! Not too painful now, no, my Stefan?'
I managed a grin of sorts, as she picked up the slivovitz bottle and began to wash the wound with the blazing spirit. 'Can't think of anyone I'd rather be eaten by,' I managed, and she giggled.
'Especially marinado? Okay! Then I put a little more salve on this, so, and bandage it up, and in a day or so you are right as rain - all right, dajT
I breathed out hard, and managed half a smile. Jyp handed me the bottle, but I shook my head. 'Thanks, but I've had enough. Got to drive home.'
'With that arm? Think you'll be all right? Better you doss down here for the night. Try Myrko's robber steak, with french fries and a demi of old Vara Orsino - put hair on your chest and lead in your pencil, that! And for your afters a tumble with Katjka - set you up a wonder, she will! And you give him the very best, you hear, lass, the real sailor's holiday! My treat, right? It's Wolf-meat I'd be if it wasn't for my old mate Steve -'
I blinked a bit and stole a glance at Katjka. Jyp's casually commercial attitude didn't seem to bother her, if anything it flattered her. 'Well ...' I said, and she turned those large grey eyes on me. I had a suspicion they'd stripped many a seaman of his inhibitions, if nothing worse. But I reached for my shirt.
Tou're not goink? she enquired in hurt disbelief. It was obviously a routine line, but she seemed to mean it. Or was that the routine as well? But Jyp and Myrko were looking just as crestfallen.
'Hey, c'mon,' protested Jyp, creasing up his young-old face. T was goin' to give you a party - I owe you, remember? Can't leave me feeling like an ungrateful louse, can you? And Katjka all limbering up for it, too! Sit down! Stay! You're among friends!' That almost got me, that last word. Among friends -I was, I felt it, as I hardly ever had all my life. I faltered. Ahead of me that light was changing again, and all of me longed to put my foot down and race through it - away, out, into that dreaming sunset, chasing some new dream of my own. Some kind of fulfilment I couldn't imagine -something to fill up the shell ...
But I felt the twinge in my arm as I drew on my shirt, and my own blood stuck it clammily against my skin. I stamped on the brake. No more rushing in, not tonight. 'I know. I'm sorry. Another time, maybe, but -I've got to go. If I can find my car, that is. I parked it in Tampere Street, wherever that is from here.'
For a moment I was horribly afraid they would all ask what a car was. But Jyp, though he was obviously hurt and disappointed, said casually, 'Okay, Steve. I understand. Another time it is. Suppose I should be getting back to the warehouse myself. Tampere, right, that's back behind here, round the corner ahead, past the big old bonded store, first left then right, right again and straight down; at the end you'll see it. Got that? I'll come show you the way.'
'If it's that simple, I'll manage, thanks. You get back to your work. I don't want to make things hard for you. And thanks - thanks for the puncture repair, Katjka. And - and the drink, Myrko ... Thanks, all of you -' I was sounding like an idiot. I was nervous, I didn't want to offend these weird, warm people. Myrko just grunted, but Katjka smiled.
'All right, Stefan. Make it soon, hah?'
'Yah,' laughed Jyp, 'while I've still got some dough!'
'Whether he has or not,' said Katjka calmly.
Jyp turned on her with his bony jaw dropping; she menaced him with her fist, and he turned back to me. He looked me up and down a moment, as if sizing me up anew. 'Yah, you come back, you hear? One way or t'other I'll bet you will. And hey, be you looking for me, you can't find me, you ask for Jyp the Pilot, right? Just that. Jyp the Pilot. Ask anyone, they all know me. Anyone, right! Be seeing you, Steve.' He leaped up and wrung my hand with startling strength. 'And thanks, man; thanks!'
I stopped at the door, and looked back, reluctant. It seemed dark and cold out there, and I didn't want to let this fragile shred of life and colour go so easily forever. What chance is there you'll ever come back to a dream? Myrko had vanished into the shadows, Jyp had his head in Katjka's lap, but it was me she was watching. She smiled, and inhaled slowly. I looked down, and lifted the latch. The door creaked twice, and I was exiled into the sea-wind, bitterly cold and heavy with harbour stenches and the last few drops of rain. Hastily I raised my collar, and it whipped the points about my ears in mockery. The cobbles glistened and glittered now under a newly clear moon, and I had no trouble seeing my way. I turned once to look back, but the wind dashed stinging salt into my eyes and hurried me on with invisible hands.
Jyp's directions were straightforward enough. Which was just as well, for there was nobody else to ask; the streets still seemed to be deserted. I saw the bonded warehouse ahead the moment I rounded the corner, a louring mountain of a place that had once been imposing; now eyepatches of rusty corrugated iron filled its lower windows, and barbed wire crawled about the broken crenellations of its outer walls. First left was obvious enough, too, but it didn't look - or smell - very prepossessing; even as alleys went this was the dregs. I hesitated, could he have forgotten this, and meant some broader way further on? But when I stepped back to look I saw there wasn't one; the road curved around to the right. Holding my breath, I was just about to take the plunge when I heard a slight scrape, and a flicker of motion caught my eye, back at the corner I'd just turned. But when I looked around there was nothing, and I thought no more about it. The alley was as foul as I'd expected, the water that plashed around my hapless shoes awash with pale shapeless things half floating, its muddy shallows releasing a terrible stench as I disturbed them. Fortunately it wasn't long. When the puddle ended I stopped for a moment to tip the foulness out of my shoes and scrape them clean. But as I leant one-handed against the grimy bricks I heard that sound again, echoing slightly down the alley. Forgetting my squishy feet, I turned and looked suddenly back almost frozen to the spot. There came just a whisper of movement, no more than a flicker; but it seemed as if for one moment some huge bulky shadow had filled the alley's other end, blocking off the light. Though it was gone almost at once, there was no way I could deny it, search though I might for such a shadow among the broken cobbles. I swallowed. Somebody didn't want me to see them. Why? Because they were following me, that was why; it had to be. But who? Jyp, maybe, seeing his guest safe - no, hardly. But I could find out easily enough. All I had to do walk right back around that corner and confront - him? Them? Or ... what?
A sudden tremendous splashing erupted from the alley, as if something was charging headlong through that puddle, charging with heedless ferocity. Perhaps I yelled; certainly I fled. Down the street I pounded, noticing only that it was mercifully wide and short on shadows, and had smooth cinder pavements that scuffed muddily under my feet. My breath seemed to go shallow very suddenly, and bands of agony sprang up around my head; my injuries were beginning to tell. Where now? Where next? I couldn't even remember. I stopped, bewildered, panting, and looked up at the skies. And what I saw there drove out all other thoughts, even of what might any moment round that corner behind me.
The moon was afloat, it seemed, sailing above a sea of cloud. By its light the clouds were transformed, spread out beneath it into a landscape of shimmering night-bound beauty, low hills and the sea beyond, the sea and islands. But that alone could not have held me, in the state I was. What bound me to the spot was the almost tangible shock of recognition. Beyond all possibility, yet equally beyond all doubt, it was the same landscape the sunset had shown me, at least three hours earlier. The same, yet - as you might expect - seen from a slightly different angle. I began to shake; had the blow affected my brain? Yet I'd never felt more sure of anything; both visions burned together in my brain, the seas of gold and silver. Bewildered, I looked down, and saw, above that landscape mirrored in a stagnant gutter, a sign on the grimy wall. Beneath the gutterings of spray paint it read, quite clearly, Tampere Street. I ran forward wildly, and there, not a hundred yards from the corner, was my car.
Forgetting all else, I bolted for it. But now, somehow, the wind was in my face, whirling up cinder dust to sting my eyes, buffeting me on the slippery cobbles; it felt like a hand holding me back, barring me from my refuge, my escape. A filthy rag of polythene hissed out of the gutter and tangled itself lovingly around my ankles; I kicked it free and trampled on it like some living menace. But I was there, my hand fell on the wing, its steel cold beneath the smooth paintwork. I fumbled for my keys, barely catching them as the wind sought to whisk them from my numbed fingers into the drain beneath, yanked the door open and plunged in.
It was slow to start; I almost flooded the carburettor in my impatience. I forced myself to sit still a moment while the wind buffeted the car, staring into my rear-view mirror at the darkness I'd come out of. Then I tried again, my foot light upon the pedal, and heard the blessed cough and rumble of the engine, felt its vibrations stronger than the wind. I slipped it into gear, twisted the wheel and all but threw the car out from the kerb, growling across the cobbles. Only once I looked back, but the street's end was in deeper shadow still; anything or nothing might have been lurking there. Then I turned out into the main road, into Danube Street where there was lighting that worked, cold and orange though it was, and the prospect at least of the noise and colour and company, the safety of the city I knew. It came crazily into my head how for the ancient Romans the Danube was a barrier of civilization, holding barbarism at bay; but it was not a comforting thought, for at the end that barbarism had come rolling across the Danube in an overwhelming wave. I slowed, waited at the junction and turned, and there it all was. Noise, colour, company, safety - but all of it strange, all men about me strangers. Safe, but strangers. Suddenly the trade didn't seem so good, the escape less of an escape. Had that light really been red? Or had I just been afraid to see it was amber? I couldn't answer. I was tired, sore, and I hadn't eaten.
I went home, and threw something into the microwave. Hard. CHAPTER TWO
1 UULi OFFICE NEXT MORNING pulled me sharply back. Everything seemed solid and familiar, everything was bright and sunlit and unmysterious, from the squeak of the fake-mosaic tiles under my shoes to the sweet smile from Judy behind the switchboard. This morning, too, it was nicely flavoured with sympathy.
'Hallo, Steve - how's the arm?'
'Oh, it's okay, thanks. Settling down.'
There was nothing mysterious about these corridors, all light-flooding windows and cool daffodil-yellow walls, no dark corners, no strange atmospheres. After last night they felt businesslike, bracing, reassuring. The only smells in the conditioned air were fresh polish and coffee and the warm tang that surrounds VDUs and other office electronics, with an acetonal whiff of nail varnish and menthol cigarettes as I passed the typists' room; clean and calm and predictable, all of it. Strange, perhaps, that so many exotic commodities should pass through these offices, in a manner of speaking, and yet leave never a trace behind. Cinnamon, manganese, copra, alligator pepper, sapphires; we handled them by the tonne as readily as sheet steel or crude oil. All the trade goods of the world, and yet none ever came within miles of this place; I'd only ever seen them on rare visits to docks and airports. Only their legal identities passed through my hands, in notes of shipment and bills of lading and Customs inventories that left nothing in the air but the faint dry taint of toner ink. When I opened the door of my own office I smelt it; but there was also Clare's flowery perfume, and the girl herself shuffling little sheaves of documents on her immaculate desk.
'Steve! Hallo! I wasn't expecting you so soon! How's your poor arm? It isn't anything serious, is it? I mean, slipping in the rain like that? You might really have hurt yourself!' I'd woken late, exhausted, with my arm swollen and stiff; I'd had to phone in with some sort of excuse. Yet now it seemed more like the truth; I could almost see it happening. A slip, a gash - far more likely than a knife in the hands of some weird dockland thug. Far easier to believe; I was close to believing it myself. 'It's not too bad, thanks. Bit stiff.'
"You're sure?' I was a little startled. Her intense blue eyes were very wide and concerned. She half rose. 'Look, just sit down a moment and I'll get the First Aid box -'
I grinned, rather uneasily. All this concern, it wasn't the sort of thing I was used to. 'Give you half a chance and you'll have me swathed up like King Tut!' Of course, she'd been the office first-aider since that course last year. She must be itching to find some use for it; she'd had nothing better so far than Barry cutting his thumb on the cap of a whisky bottle. That would account for it. 'No thanks, love, I, er, got it seen to. Any calls?'
I was allowed to pass on to my desk with a small sheaf of mail, a circular from the Brazilian Aduana, and instructions to sit down and take it easy. Dave Oshukwe was at his desk already, head down over his terminal, rattling keys; he lifted a limp brown hand to me, leaving a comet of expensive cigarette smoke in the air, but thankfully didn't look up. I settled down in my armchair, flicked on my terminal and settled back to let it warm up and log on. The firm leather upholstery of the chair enveloped me and bore up my sore arm, the chrome of the recline lever cool beneath my fingers. I touched the wood of the desk, solid under glassy layers of polish and varnish. I ran a finger along the terminal casing, mirror-smooth and clean and dustless, and felt the faint shiver of the current beneath. This - this was what it was all about.
I'd been half off my head last night. Hallucinating, almost. Sick and dizzy from that stab, no doubt about it, half drunk and unhappy; seeing everything through a haze. Small wonder I'd cast a romantic aura round places that were shabby or just plain squalid, over people - well, good-hearted enough, okay, but underprivileged, uneducated, simple, rough. Or since we were forgetting the euphemisms, downright crude and backward. I'd turned something utterly ordinary into a strange, feverish experience. That was the truth beneath the dream. All this was real. This was every day, this was my life. Here was Clare with a cup of coffee, just like every day; only for once she hadn't tried to slip me sweeteners instead of sugar. 'You need building up!' she said. 'If you've lost a whole lot of blood like that -'
'Hey, don't I get any?' demanded Dave.
-Clare sniffed. 'Yours is coming. Steve's hurt himself!'
'Oh yah, I heard.' He peered around his terminal. 'How's you, me old massa? Can't be too bad, he's still upright, enney? Not on crutches or in a bathchair or anything!'
'Can't you see how pale he is?' Clare protested, so fervently it took me aback.
Dave crowed. 'Me you're asking that? All you palefaces look alike to me -' He ducked as Clare swiped at his ear. 'Okay, okay, maybe he does look a bit green! That's usual - good night out, was it, Steve? Wasser name then?' Dave's real accent came from a very upmarket school, better than mine, but he would try to sound like an East End kid.
'Come on, Dave, I cut my arm, that's all.' I turned to Clare, still fussing over me, trying to find out what sort of bandage I had on and getting my eyes full of long blonde hair. 'Better get him some coffee too, love, or he'll be impossible all morning. Instead of just improbable. Oh, and ask Barry if he's spoken to Rosenblum's yet...'
It gave me an excuse to get rid of her. I needed it. Clare in this mother-hen mode unnerved me. By the time she got back I could be comfortably sunk in my work, much too busy to let things get personal again. 'And you, Dave, anything turned up on this Kenya container mess yet?'
He lounged over to the printer and ripped off the protruding form. 'Just sorting it out when you came in, boss. Been sitting up a branch siding near the airport, getting mouldy. They're scrubbing it out now, with apologies. I've slapped on demurrages up to today, but told them to t*ang on to it till we see if there's some kind of return lo^d we can get.'
'proj-n Kenya? Should be, for a refrigerated container. That's well done, Dave.' I typed for some listings on my terminal, and peered down them. 'I'll get on to Hamilton, for a start- and see if he wants an extra half-tonne of red snapper this week. Meanwhile, could you get me those roughs of the German veg oil contract? And all that EEC crap abov╗t shipping it -'
The phone buzzed before I could pick it up. 'Barry for you,' said Clare, 'about the Rosenblum's business -
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