"Lawrence Treat - Fortunes Fadeaway" - читать интересную книгу автора (Treat Lawrence)

and the car had swerved and gone into a ditch. ItтАЩs stretch of swamp and I couldnтАЩt put him out here.
the only time in my life I was ever hurt. We were Not this mild meek little fellow who was pouring
both rushed to the hospital and put in adjoining out his heart. But at the next townтАФ
beds. Me and Warrington Dodd. I wished I didnтАЩt have that plane flight ahead of
тАЬI guess youтАЩve read about him. His genius for me. I slowed up. The road wasnтАЩt slippery, but I
the theatre, his knack of creating types. He could might blow a tire or hit an obstruction or have to
reach into anybody, find an acting personality and jam on my brakes, and I didnтАЩt want to take
develop it. He did with me, though IтАЩd never even chances. Not with Harley Bogan beside me.
thought of the stage. IтАЩd always had too many He began telling about the thing itself, the event
things on my mind.тАЭ that had catapulted him into a fame so grotesque
It was a peculiar remark and I followed it up. that it earned him a night club engagement where
тАЬWhat sort of things?тАЭ I asked. he was billed as тАЬThe Original Jinx: If YouтАЩre
He muttered something that I didnтАЩt catch. If I Superstitious, DonтАЩt Come!тАЭ A bright idea, though
had, I think IтАЩd have stopped the car then and there it hadnтАЩt worked out.
and thrown him out. We were passing through a тАЬWith the play about to open,тАЭ he said docilely,
collection of shacks that I suppose you could call a тАЬI thought my luck had changed. I had a career and
village, but it was such a poverty-stricken little a good job and Warrington Dodd. And I was in
settlement that I doubt whether he could have hurt love.тАЭ
it. I didnтАЩt dare look. The pathos of his meek,
тАЬIt was on account of a fly,тАЭ he said. тАЬA fly that sensitive face would have been too much.
lit on the end of my nose. My arms were strapped тАЬSheтАЩs Libby Lubelle, of the movies,тАЭ he went
down and I couldnтАЩt brush the thing off. I sort of on. тАЬBut at that time she was just a dreamy,
switched my nose, like this, and Dodd was ambitious little kid with a small part in the show.
watching.тАЭ We were in love, and the day before the opening
I looked. His brown eyes were sad, doleful, and we celebrated by going out to the country. But we
when he moved the muscles at the side of his face, got drenched in the rain and caught cold, both of
drawing up and distorting his mouth, the effect was us.тАЭ
so horrific, so ineffably tragic, that I can still see it. I knew the rest of it. Bogan had played the
Agony, grief, sufferingтАФhis face was the complete kindly old father, the defeated in life, and the
expression. climax of the play was his reception of his
His story began to wander, but the drift was wayward daughter. But as he stretched out his arm
plain. Dodd regarded that accident as fateтАЩs towards her, that first night, Fate dealt its master
presentation of the born tragedian. Dodd offered stroke.
him a part, taking him to New York, finding a play, He had acted smoothly, deftly, despite a slightly
casting it, building up the publicity. hoarse voice. He reached his cue line, raised his
With a shock, I remembered. Harley Bogan, the arms and extended them in a gesture of pardon. He
perfect jinx. After the thing happened, he became a was about to speak.
ten daysтАЩ sensation. The press publicized him as the His head lifted up, hesitated; his nostrils
absolute in hard luck. Flood, earthquake, tornado twitched. Involuntarily Bogan opened his mouth
dogged his path. Seventeen motor accidents, two and drew in his breath. Than his face contorted as
train wrecks, a fallen elevator, a house that never before had been seen in the glare of
collapsed. The list was prodigious and fantastic and footlights. His arms and body cried dramatically
incredible and true. No one person could have тАЬMy daughter!тАЭ while the rest of him reacted to the
survived it all. But Bogan had. overweening power of a mighty sneeze.
I remembered the untimely end of Warrington For a second there was complete silence. Then
Dodd. Asphyxiated by carbon monoxide from a someone in the front row tittered. The titter caught
 FORTUNEтАЩS FADEAWAY 3

on, traveled through the house, swept to the rear of at all. It was she, watching from the wing. She
the orchestra and bounded to the balcony. The sneezed.тАЭ