"Karl Edward Wagner - At First Just Ghostly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

AT FIRST JUST GHOSTLY
Karl Edward Wagner
I. Beginning Our Descent
His name was Cody Lennox, and he was coming back to England to die, or maybe just to forget,
and after all it's about the same in the long run.
He had been dozing for the last hour or so, when the British Airways stewardess politely offered
him an immigration card to be filled in. He placed it upon the tray table beside the unfinished game of
solitaire and the finished glass of Scotch, which he must now remember to call whisky when asking at the
bar, and this was one of the few things he was unlikely to forget.
Lennox tapped his glass. "Time for another?"
"Certainly, sir." The stewardess was blonde and compactly pretty and carefully spoke BBC English
with only a trace of a Lancashire accent. Her training had also taught her not to look askance at first class
passengers who declined breakfast in favor of another large whisky.
Lennox's fellow passenger in the aisle seat favored him with a bifocaled frown and returned to his
book of crossword puzzles. Lennox had fantasied him to be an accountant for some particularly corrupt
television evangelist, doubtlessly on an urgent mission to Switzerland. They had not spoken since the first
hour of the flight, when after preflight champagne and three subsequent large whiskies Lennox had
admitted to being a writer.
Fellow passenger (scathingly): "Oh, well thenтАФname something you've written."
Lennox (in apparent good humor): "You go first. Name something you've read."
In the ensuing frostiness Lennox played countless hands of solitaire with the deck the stewardess
had provided and downed almost as many large whiskies, which she also dutifully provided. He
considered a visit to the overhead lounge, but a trip to the lavatory convinced him that his legs weren't to
be trusted on the stairs. So he played solitaire, patiently, undeterred by total lack of success, losing
despite the nagging temptation to cheat. Lennox had once been told by a friend in a moment of drunken
insight that a Total Loser was someone who cheated at solitaire and still lost, and Lennox didn't care to
take that chance. Eventually he fell asleep.

Cody Lennox liked to fly first class. He stood a rangy six-foot-four, and while he still combed his
hair to look like James Dean, his joints were the other side of forty and rebelled at being folded into a
747's tourist-class orange crates. He was wont to say that the edible food and free booze were more
than worth the additional expense on a seven-hour flight, and his preventive remedy for tedium and for
jet-lag was to drink himself into a blissful stupor and sleep throughout the flight. Once he and Cathy had
flown over on the Concorde, and for that cherished memory he would never do so again.
He still hadn't got used to traveling alone, and he supposed he never would.
He looked through the window and into darkness fading to grey. As they chased the dawn, clouds
began to appear and break apart; below them monotonous expanses of grey sea gave way to glimpses of
distant green land. Coming in over Ireland, he supposed, and finished his drink.
He felt steadier now, and he filled out the immigration card, wincing, as he knew he would, over the
inquiry as to marital status, etc. He placed the card inside his passport, avoiding looking at his
photograph there. There was time for another hand, so he collected and reshuffled his cards.
"We are beginning our descent into London Heathrow," someone was announcing. Lennox had
nodded off. "Please make certain your seatbelts are fastened, your seat backs are in the upright position,
your tray tables areтАж"
"The passengers will please refrain," prompted Lennox, scooping up the cards and locking back his
tray. "Batten the hatches, you swabs. Prepare to abandon ship."
"Do you want to know why you never won?"
"Eh?" said Lennox, startled by his seatmate's first attempt at conversation since the Jersey shore.
The mysterious accountant pointed an incisive finger toward the cabin floor. "You haven't been
playing with a full deck."