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

and aggressive Germans who simply shoved to the front of it all.
Lennox was very tired and somewhere on the verge of a hangover, when the next black Austin
stopped for him. He tossed his cases into the missing left-side front seat and pulled himself into the back.
After the 747 the back seat was spacious, and he stretched out his long legs.
He said: " The Bloomsbury Park Hotel. Small place on Southampton Row. Just off Russell Square."
"I know it, gov," said the driver. "Changed the name again, have they?"
"Right. Used to be the Grand. God only knows what it was before that"

II. Lost Without a Crowd
It was not much after nine when the cab made a neat U-turn across Southampton Row and landed
Lennox and his cases at the door of his hotel. In addition to changing its name, the Bloomsbury Park
Hotel had changed management half a dozen times in the dozen or so years that Lennox had been
stopping there, but the head porter had been there probably since before the Blitz, and he greeted
Lennox with a warm smile.
"Good to see you again, sir."
"Good to be back, Mr. Edwards."
It had been about a year since his last stay here, and Edwards remembered not to inquire about his
wife.
The newest management had redone the foyer again; this time in trendy Art Deco, which fitted as
well with the original Art Nouveau decor as did the kilt on the golden-ager tourist who was complaining
his way across the lobby in tow of his wife.
Jack Martin was at the reception desk, scribbling away at a piece of hotel stationery.
"Hello, Jack."
"Cody! I don't believe it! I was just writing you a note telling you where I was staying."
"Synchronicity, good buddy. When'd you get here?"
"Flew in Sunday from L.A. Still coping with jet-lag, but I walked over here to see whether you'd
checked in yet. Had breakfast? Guess they fed you on the flight. How was it?"
"OK. Anything you can walk away from is OK. Here, better let me register."
Lennox filled in forms while Martin worked on a cigarette. No, his room wasn't ready yet, but
Lennox had expected that, and the porters would see to his cases in the meantime.
The girl at the desk was auburn-haired, Irish, and half Lennox's age, and he wondered if she'd been
here last time. Probably so, or else she was instinctively cheeky.
"You're very popular, sir. Two calls for you already."
"More likely ten, judging by my usual luck with hotel switchboards." Lennox studied the messages.
"Mike Carson says to give him a ring and I owe him a pint. And the other oneтАФfrom a Mr. Kane?"
"He said he'd be getting in touch."
"Never heard of him. Social secretary from Buckingham Palace, isn't he? Come on, Jack. Let's go
get something to drink."
"Pubs won't open until eleven," Martin pointed out.
"Let me show you my private club."

There was a minimart just down Southampton Row from the hotel, and Lennox bought Martin a
carton of orange juice and two cans of lager for himself. Cosmo Place was the alleyway that connected
onto Queen Square, where there were vacant benches beneath the trees. Lennox was just able to keep
his hands from shaking as he popped his first lager.
Martin was trying to solve the juice carton. "So, Cody. How are things going?"
It was more than a casual question and Lennox hated the glance of watchful concern that
accompanied it, but he had grown accustomed to it all and it no longer hurt so bitterly.
"Can't complain, Jack. They Do Not Die! is still hanging high on the lists, and Mack says the sharks
are in a feeding frenzy to bid on my next one."