"Gene Wolfe - The Ziggurat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

the rest of the gifts you've given me, including my car."
Emery nodded.
"No alimony at all. Naturally no child support. Brook stays with you, Aileen and
Alayna with me. My attorney says we can force Al to pay child support."
Emery nodded again.
"And I get the house. Everything else we divide equally. That's the stock and any
other investments, the money in my personal accounts, your account, and our joint
account." She had another paper. "I know you'll want to read it over, but that's what it
is. You can follow me into Voylestown in your Jeep. There's a notary there who can
witness your signature."
"I had the company when we were married."
"But you don't have it anymore. We're not talking about your company. It's not
involved at all."
He picked up the telephone, a diversion embraced at random that might serve until
the pain ebbed. "Will you excuse me? This is liable to go on awhile, and I should
report the break-in." He entered the sheriff's number from the sticker on the
telephone.
The distant clamor -- it was not the actual ringing of the sheriffs telephone at all,
he knew -- sounded empty as well as artificial, as if it were not merely far away but
high over the earth, a computer-generated instrument that jangled and buzzed for his
ears alone upon some airless asteroid beyond the moon.
Brook laid Phil Gluckman's letter on the table where he could see it.
"Are you getting through?" Jan asked. "There's a lot of ice on the wires. Brook was
talking about it on the way up."
"I think so. It's ringing."
Brook said, "They've probably got a lot of emergencies, because of the storm."
The twins stirred uncomfortably, and Alayna went to a window to look at the falling
snow.
"I should warn you," Jan said, "that if you won't sign, it's war. We spent hours and
hours--"
A voice squeaked, "Sheriff Ron Wilber's Office."
"My name is Emery Bainbridge. I've got a cabin on Route Eighty-five, about five
miles from the lake."
The tinny voice spoke unintelligibly.
"Would you repeat that, please?"
"It might be better from the cellular phone in my car," Jan suggested.
"What's the problem, Mister Bainbridge?"
"My cabin was robbed in my absence." There was no way in which he could tell
the sheriff's office that he had been shot at without telling Jan and the twins as well;
he decided it was not essential. "They took a rifle and my ax. Those are the only
things that seem to be missing."
"Could you have mislaid them?"
This was the time to tell the sheriff about the boy on the hill; he found that he
could not.
 "Can you hear me, Mister Bainbridge?" There was chirping in the background, as
if there were crickets on the party line.
He said, "Barely. No, I didn't mislay them. Somebody was in here while I was
away -- they left the door open, for one thing." He described the rifle and admitted he
did not have a record of its serial number, then described the ax and spelled his name.
"We can't send anyone out there now, Mister Bainbridge. I'm sorry."