"Patrick Welch - Westchester Station extract" - читать интересную книгу автора (Welch Patrick)

smiled. "Your towel, sir," he beamed and indeed flourished a large white
towel.
I approached and took it from him and was surprised to find it was hot to
the touch. I reveled in the feel of the warm cotton as I rubbed my face
and hands vigorously before handing it back. He returned it to his coat
without a word. "Thank you. Thank you very much."
"Anything else, sir?" he asked in a monotone.
His manner suggested seriousness, so I looked down at my ruined suit. "If
you could do it, I could sure use a new pair of pants," I replied only
half facetiously.
"Pants." He muttered something while waving his hands, reached once again
into his coat, and produced a bouquet of roses. "Flowers! Damned I be! Has
my magic totally forsaken me?" He tried again; this time he withdrew a
pair of gray herringbone trousers. A perfect match to mine. I noticed that
his hand shook slightly as he gave them to me.
"I would think your magic is working exceptionally well," I complimented
as I admired his work. How did he do that?
"But unpredictably," he muttered. "It is not the way of Merlin to make
mistakes. Yet it seems every incantation..." His voice trailed off.
Merlin. The trousers nearly fell from my hand. Could this be the magician
of Camelot? Of course it couldn't be. But after my recent encounters with
a werewolf, Judge Crater, Atlas and too many others, why not? If
Westchester could lead me to the lands of Greek Mythology, it surely had
the power to bring another mythology here. "Of Camelot?" I asked, half
fearful of his answer.
He seemed to take affront at my question. "Of course. Is there any other
Merlin? What is wrong with me?" The last he addressed to himself.
I studied him. An old man, shrunken by age. A face wrinkled yet impassive.
I noted that his hands shook slightly even as he sat. "Perhaps it is
Westchester that is the problem. Perhaps your magic will not work properly
here," I offered.
He threw up his hands. "If only it were so. I am here because my magic has
failed me elsewhere. Twice with tragic result. Am I laboring under
another's spell? Have the gods abandoned me? Why?"
"Perhaps I can help. Or at least try," I added hurriedly when he frowned
at me. "In repayment for what you've given me."
"You are no magician. I doubt you are even an apprentice. What can a mere
mortal possibly know about magic?"
I had heard the last, although with another vocation substituted,
countless times in my advertising career, first as an artist, then as an
account executive. My counter was always the same: the owner/company
president/advertising manager is too close to his product and often can't
see the forest for the trees. He needs an independent, unbiased viewpoint
to find the solution to his problem. You've come a long way, Robert. From
marketing to magic in less than one day. "I will know whatever you care to
tell me. Then we'll see. Two heads, after all, are better than one."
He considered, then nodded. "Then know you this. A duke summoned me. A
fire was threatening one of his farmholds. I called down a shower of rain.
Instead we were deluged by wheat. The property was, as you may surmise,
totally destroyed. A knight of the realm asked me to assist him in the