"Connie Willis - The Last of the Winnebagos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

eisenstadt yet?"
"I told you, I just got here. I haven't even turned the damned thing on."
"You don't turn it on. It self-activates when you set it bottom down on a
level surface."
Great. It had probably already shot its 100-frame cartridge on the way
here.
"Well, if you don't use it on the Winnebago, make sure you use it at the
governor's conference," she said. "By the way, have you thought any more
about moving to investigative?"
That was why Sun-co was really so interested in the eisenstadt. It had
been easier to send a photographer who could write stories than it had to
send a photographer and a reporter, especially in the little one-seater
Hitoris they were ordering now, which was how I got to be a
photojournalism And since that had worked out so well, why send either?
Send an eisenstadt and a DAT deck and you won't need an Hitori and
way-mile credits to get them there. You can send them through the mail.
They can sit unnoticed on the old governor's desk, and after a while
somebody in a one-seater who wouldn't have to be either a photographer
or a reporter can sneak in to retrieve them and a dozen others.
"No," I said, glancing back up the hill. The old man gave one last swipe
to the front bumper and then walked over to one of the zoo's old
stone-edged planters and dumped the bucket in on a tangle of prickly
pear, which would probably think it was a spring shower and bloom
before I made it up the hill. "Look, if I'm going to get any pictures before
the turistas arrive, I'd better go."
"I wish you'd think about it. And use the eisenstadt this time. You'll like
it once you try it. Even you'll forget it's a camera."
"I'll bet," I said. I looked back down the multiway. Nobody at all was
coming now. Maybe that was what all the Amblers' anxiety was aboutтАФI
should have asked Ramirez what their average daily attendance was and
what sort of people used up credits to come this far out and see an old
beat-up RV. The curve into Tempe alone was three point two miles. Maybe
nobody came at all. If that was the case, I might have a chance of getting
some decent pictures. I got in the Hitori and drove up the steep drive.
"Howdy," the old man said, all smiles, holding out his reddish-brown
freckled hand to shake mine. "Name's Jake Ambler. And this here's
Winnie," he said, patting the metal side of the RV, "Last of the
Winnebagos. Is there just the one of you?"
"David McCombe," I said, holding out my press pass. "I'm a
photographer. Sun-co. Phoenix Sun, Tempe-Mesa Tribune, Glendale Star,
and affiliated stations. I was wondering if I could take some pictures of
your vehicle?" I touched my pocket and turned the taper on.
"You bet. We've always cooperated with the media, Mrs. Ambler and
me. I was just cleaning old Winnie up," he said. "She got pretty dusty on
the way down from Globe." He didn't make any attempt to tell his wife I
was there, even though she could hardly avoid hearing us, and she didn't
open the metal door again. "We been on the road now with Winnie for
almost twenty years. Bought her in 1989 in Forest City, Iowa, where they
were made. The wife didn't want to buy her, didn't know if she'd like
traveling, but now she's the one wouldn't part with it."