"Vukcevich-CountOnMe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vukcevich Ray)

RAY VUKCEVICH

COUNT ON ME

It didn't confuse me that the new occupant of apartment 29A was a woman. The
Father of Lies is nothing if not inventive. The number 29A is, of course, the
Number of the Beast in base 16, and 16 is the atomic number of Sulfur. Base 16
is commonly called "hex." It was all too obvious.

Celia Strafford looked to be in her early thirties -- 32, to be precise, since
2, 3, and 37 are the prime factors of 666, and she looked too old to be 23, and
I"m 37, and she looked younger than me, so ergo, as they say, 32. I'm speaking
of the age of her body; I couldn't know the age of the creature inside. She wore
her long red hair loose down her back. I watched her closely as she stooped to
pick up a box to lug up the stairs to her new apartment. She wore cut-off jeans
and an abbreviated yellow halter top. Her legs were that strange golden tan you
only see on women. I've never been able to figure how they achieve that color.
She wore no shoes.

Her old red Chevy looked right at home among the junkers in the street. Ours is
not the nicest street in Las Vegas.

"You must be my new neighbor," I said when I met her on the stairs. "I'm Palmer
Jones I live next door. When you have time, I'll tell you 476 wonderful things
about this place." My little test -- 476 is the Number in base 12; there aren't
really any wonderful things about this dump. I just wanted to see what she'd do
with the Number.

She shifted her box and poked out a hand for me to shake -- blood red nails, I
noted. Cool, cool skin. Her touch made me tremble.

"I'm Celia." She gave me a deceptively nice smile, but it didn't fool me. I
could see points of evil light flickering in her green eyes, I was sure of that,
even if my mention of the Number hadn't gotten a rise out of her.

I already knew her name, too, having sneaked a peek at her lease agreement while
ostensibly chatting with our muddleheaded manager about the deplorable
conditions of my pipes. Later, I'd looked up "Strafford" in my Oxford History of
Britain, and, sure enough, Thomas Wentworth, the first Earl of Strafford, was
listed in the index. A little digging in Johnson's A History of the English
People revealed that Strafford was executed in 1641, and 1641 is the Number of
the Beast base 7. I don't believe in coincidences.

"So, what do you do, Palmer?"

I hate that question. It always catches me off guard. "I was in the Army," I
muttered. I didn't mention that I am actually Brother Palmer of the Secret Order
of Morse.