"Theodore Sturgeon - Shottle Bop" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

thrive. Use it for self-glorification, as a basis for boasting, or for revenge, and you will suffer in
extreme. Remember that, now."
"But what is it? HowтАФ"
"I am selling you a talent. You have none now. When you discover what kind of a talent it i
will be up to you to use it to your advantage. Now go away. I still don't like you."
"What do I owe you?" I muttered, completely snowed un-der by this time.
"The bottle carries its own price. You won't pay anything unless you fail to follow my directio
Now will you go, or must I uncork a bottle of jinnтАФand I don't mean London Dry?"
"I'll go," I said. I'd seen something swirling in the depths of a ten-gallon carboy at one end of
counter, and I didn't like it a bit. "Good-by."
"Bood-gy," he returned.
I went out and I headed down Tenth Avenue and I turned east up Twentieth Street and I ne
looked back. And for many reasons I wish now that I had, for there was, without doubt, someth
very strange about that Shottle Bop.

I didn't simmer down until I got home; but once I had a cup of black Italian coffee under my
I felt better. I was skeptical about it at last. I was actually inclined to scoff. But somehow I di
want to scoff too loudly. I looked at the bottle a little scornfully, and there was a certain someth
about the glass of it that seemed to be staring back at me. I sniffed and threw it up behind some
hats on top of the closet, and then sat down to unlax. I used to love to unlax. I'd put my feet on
doorknob and slide down in the uphol-stery until I was sitting on my shoulder blades, and as
old saying has it, "Sometimes I sets and thinks, and sometimes I just sets." The former is e
enough, and is what even an accomplished loafer has to go through before he reaches the latter
more blissful state. It takes years of practice to relax sufficiently to be able to "just set." I'd lear
it years ago.
But just as I was about to slip into the vegetable status, I was annoyed by something. I tried
ignore it. I manifested a superhuman display of lack of curiosity, but the annoyance persisted
light pressure on my elbow, where it draped over the arm of the chair. I was put in the unpleas
predicament of having to concentrate on what it was; and realizing that concentration on anyth
was the least desirable thing there could be. I gave up finally, and with a deep sigh, opened my e
and had a look.
It was the bottle.
I screwed up my eyes and then looked again, but it was -still there. The closet door was open
had left it, and its shelf almost directly above me. Must have fallen out. Feeling that if the da
thing were on the floor it couldn't fall any farther, I shoved it off the arm of the chair with
elbow.
It bounced. It bounced with such astonishing accuracy that it wound up in exactly the same s
it had started fromтАФon the arm of the easy-chair, by my elbow. Startled, I shoved it violently. T
time I pushed it hard enough to send it against the wall, from which it rebounded to the shelf un
my small table, and thence back to the chair armтАФand this time it perched cozily against
shoulder. Jarred by the bounc-ing, the stopper hopped out of the bottle mouth and rolled into
lap; and there I sat, breathing the bittersweet fumes of its contents, feeling frightened and silly
hell.
I grabbed the bottle and sniffed. I'd smelled that somewhere beforeтАФwhere was it? UhтАФ
yes; that mascara the Chinese honkytonk girls use in Frisco. The liquid was dark тАФsmoky blac
tasted it cautiously. It wasn't bad. If it wasn't alcoholic, then the old man in the shop had foun
darn good substitute for alcohol. At the second sip, I liked it and at the third I really enjoyed it
there wasn't any fourth because by then the little bottle was a dead marine.
That was about the time I remembered the name of the black ingredient with the funny sm
Kohl. It is an herb the Ori-entals use to make it possible to see supernatural beings. S