"Michael Swanwick - Walking Out" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

The manager of the building was a fat Mongolian who was more
interested in his saxophone than in showing the flat. Terry stood, hands
behind his back, looking at the Buddhist woodcuts on the wall while the
man finished a snatch from Rhapsody in Blue. Then he sighed and put
down his instrument. Lumbering, he led the way to the fourth floor.
The present tenant was, according to the hardcopy, a high-wire artist
who was joining an Uptown circus. He squatted on the floor, greasing
parts of a disassembled unicycle. He didn't even look up, but just grunted.
"Most of building is squatters," the super said, with an expansive
gesture. "Only this guy is movers. No face canal, si? No face canal."
"No face canal is right," Terry muttered. He stared out the window into
a filthy airshaft with a few vegetable gardens down below. Some kids were
playing wall ball. They had those garish knee and elbow grips that were all
the craze nowadays, and were swarming up the walls three and four floors.
One of them made a face at him.
He smiled back at her. I'm leaving the city, little girl, and you're not.
 One look was enough, though. The super was glad to get back to his
music. He called an absentminded "Adios, good buddy amigo," after
Terry. There was a strong Hispanic component in this neighborhood; he
probably thought he was speaking English.
Off to prospect number two in Little America.
Little America was as motley a place as its namesake. The prospect was
a two bedroom flat that had been created by knocking out the walls
between two pre-War flats. It faced the street, and between the clash of
bicycle bells and street musicians, fishmongers, vegetable-carvers, poetry
slammings (Terry had signed a petition against slamming once, but the
Street Poets Union had power, and a popular argument that they were a
"humanizing influence" on the city) and people laughing, he would
never've gotten any sleep.
The super was ethnic Kenyan, with skin as purple as a plum. She had an
overprecise New Oxford accent and said she was working on an
interactive software history cycle. "You and half the universe," Terry said,
and she cheerily agreed. But when he suggested she look into some place
outside the city, where rents were cheaper, her expression changed to one
of offended hauteur. "Look at the apartment. Rent it or don't," she
snapped. "Be quick about it. I haven't the time for any nonsense from the
likes of you."
In the actual case, there wasn't any real choice. The baby would never
get any sleep in this bedlam. And Krissie might like this sort of
neighborhood, but as far as Terry was concerned it was exactly the sort of
overcrowded chaos that he wanted to get away from.
"I'll pass," he said.



Third time was the charm. The apartment was on the top floor,
windows on three sides, with solid oak floors. They hadn't learned how to
grow oak by the plank until ten years ago, so he could only imagine how
much it had cost new. There was a modern kitchen with a tap-line to the
local shops so he wouldn't have to be trotting all the way across the street