"Kate Wilhelm - Julian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

At the address Stella Johnson had given there was a gas station that had gone
out of business so long ago that it was boarded up with wood turned ashen
with age; twelve-foot trees were growing from the cracks in the broken
concrete, and many years' accumulation of dumped trash behind it made a hill
as high as its roof. He was not surprised. The license number had been bogus
also.

For three days he had scurried around town looking up women named Johnson,
then he had given it up. There was no reason to believe her name was less
phony than any other information she had given.

Julian sat by the pool in his parents' back yard, and although he heard his
mother approach, he did not look up. He waited to see if she had found yet
another way to ask the two questions they besieged him with every day: What
is the matter? and what are your plans?

"Julian? You okay?"

"Sure, Mother."

They had been so happy to learn that he had lost his phobia about water. For
a week his parents had been practically manic in their relief, only to have
new apprehensions creep in that made them exchange worried glances, or,
worse, avoid looking directly at each other when he was around. He could
imagine their whispered conversations about him when they thought he was
sleeping. -Is he crazy, I mean really crazy this time? Or, you have to try to
get him to see a doctor. He's your son.- Strange how he was always someone
else's son if there was trouble, and "my son" when either of them wanted to
brag a little.

"Julian, you know how worried we are about you. You don't say anything. You
sit here for hours brooding. You have letters you haven't even bothered to
open. You're in trouble of some kind, aren't you? That girl who keeps
writing? Rachel? Money? A bad drug experience? You see, I can't even narrow
it down to a possible cause. Julian, please let us help you. If you need
professional advice of any kind..."

That was it, professional advice. From the start he had thought that he alone
had caught a glimpse of one of them, but maybe that was wrong. Others might
have seen them, might have reported them. Maybe there was a growing dossier
on them, with every tidbit welcomed.

That afternoon he told Sergeant Manuel Vargas what he had seen ten years
earlier. The sergeant nodded and wrote it all down.
"Not much to go on, now is there?" he asked. "We'll put the license number
through a routine check, but ten years is a long time, kid."

Julian knew the sergeant would do nothing. Another nut report, that was how
he thought of it. He had not asked to see the motel registration book, or