"Robert Charles Wilson - Divided by Infinity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robert Charles)

I went in impulsively, but also because the owner, an old man
by the name of Oscar Ziegler, had sent an elaborate bouquet to
LorraineтАЩs funeral the previous year, and I felt I owed him some
acknowledgment. According to Lorraine he lived upstairs and
never left the building.
The bookstore hadnтАЩt changed on the inside, either, since the
last time I had seen it. I didnтАЩt know it well (the store was
LorraineтАЩs turf and as a rule I had left her to it), but there was no
obvious evidence that more than a year had passed since my last
visit. It was the kind of shop with so much musty stock and so few
customers that it could have survived only under the most
generous circumstancesтАФno doubt Ziegler owned the building and
had found a way to finesse his property taxes. The store was not a
labor of love, I suspected, so much as an excuse for Ziegler to
indulge his pack-rat tendencies.
It was a full nest of books. The walls were pineboard shelves,
floor to ceiling. Free-standing shelves divided the small interior
into box canyons and dimly lit hedgerows. The stock was old and,
not that IтАЩm any judge, largely trivial, forgotten jazz-age novels and
belles-lettres, literary flotsam.
I stepped past cardboard boxes from which more books
overflowed, to the rear of the store, where a cash desk had been
wedged against the wall. This was where, for much of the last five
years of her life, Lorraine had spent her weekday afternoons. I
wondered whether book dust was carcinogenic. Maybe she had
been poisoned by the turgid air, by the floating fragments of
ivoried Frank Yerby novels, vagrant molecules of Peyton Place and
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.
 Someone else sat behind the desk now, a different woman,
younger than Lorraine, though not what anyone would call young.
A baby-boomer in denim overalls and a pair of eyeglasses that
might have better suited the Hubble space telescope.
Shoulder-length hair, gone gray, and an ingratiating smile, though
there was something faintly haunted about the woman.
тАЬHi,тАЭ she said amiably. тАЬAnything I can help you find?тАЭ
тАЬIs Oscar Ziegler around?тАЭ
Her eyes widened. тАЬUh, Mr. Ziegler? HeтАЩs upstairs, but he
doesnтАЩt usually like to be disturbed. Is he expecting you?тАЭ
She seemed astonished at the possibility that Ziegler would be
expecting anyone, or that anyone would want to see Ziegler. Maybe
it was a bad idea. тАЬNo,тАЭ I said, тАЬI just dropped by on the chanceтАж
you know, my wife used to work here.тАЭ
тАЬI see.тАЭ
тАЬPlease donтАЩt bother him. IтАЩll just browse for a while.тАЭ
тАЬAre you a book collector, orтАФ?тАЭ
тАЬHardly. These days I read the newspaper. The only books
IтАЩve kept are old paperbacks. Not the sort of thing Mr. Ziegler
would stock.тАЭ
тАЬYouтАЩd be surprised. Mysteries? Chandler, Hammett, John
Dickson Carr? Because we have some firsts over by the stairsтАжтАЭ