"William F. Wu - Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wu William F)

Wong's Lost and Found Emporium
William F. Wu
The sharp clicking of high heels echoed in the dark shop. The brisk footsteps on the unpolished
wooden floor slowed and became irregular and uncertain as my new visitor saw some of the stuff on the
shelves. They always did that.
I was on a different aisle. The shop was very big, though crammed with all kinds of objects to the
point where every shelf was crowded and overflowing. Most of the stuff was inanimate, or at least dead.
However, many of the beasties still stirred when adequately provoked. The inanimate objects included
everything from uncut diamonds to nailclippers to bunny bladders. Still more of the sealed crates and
boxes and bottles contained critters, or other things, that might or might not be counted among the living.
I had no idea and didn't care, either. For instance, whoever had hung big wooden crates from the
ceilingтАФand there were plenty, up where they couldn't endanger anybodyтАФmust have had a good
reason.
The edges of the shop were a little mysterious. I tried not to go too far down any of the aisles
except the two big perpendicular corridors that ended in doors to the outside. They formed a cross in the
center of the shop. The farther from the middle I went in any direction, the darker the place became, and
colder. On a few occasions, I had had to go out to shelf space on the fringe that was mostly empty, and
in almost complete darkness. All the edges were like that, except for the four doors at each end of those
main corridors.
I didn't dare venture into the real darkness, where nothing was visible. Cold stale air seemed to be
all it contained, but I wasn't going to investigate. I also had a suspicion that the shop kept growing of its
own accord, outward into that nothingness. I had seen for myself that new stuff spontaneously appeared
on all the shelves; but if the shop had been finite in size, it would have been absolutely crammed to the
ceiling. Instead, I guessed, it simply extended its aisles and plain wooden shelves outward somehow,
always providing just enough new empty space to avoid total chaos. The place was weird enough where
I was; I didn't see any need to wander off the edge of the world or something.
I was seeking my destiny in this world, or at least I had been hoping to when I first came in here.
My visitor was probably doing the same right now.
I came around the corner into one of the two main corridors, where the light was a little better. For
a second, I thought I heard someone in one of the aisles, but that sort of thing happened all the time.
Some of the live beings thumped and slithered in their containers occasionally.
My customer was a woman with snow-white hair, slender and well-dressed with a good tan. She
wore a peach-colored suit and four gold chains around her neck. One hand with long, peach-colored
fingernails clutched a small handbag. She looked like a shrivelled peach in a light snowfall.
"OhтАФuh, I'm looking for Mr. Wong, I guess." She smiled cautiously.
"That's me," I said, walking forward briskly. After I had been here a while, I had put my signs on
the four doors, saying Wong's Lost and Found Emporium.
She looked me over in some surprise; they always seemed to expect a doddering old geezer with a
wispy white beard and an opium pipe, muttering senilities to the spirit world. I wore a blue T-shirt, fading
Levi's, and Adidas indoor track shoes. After all, I'd only been here a few months, though time was
different in here than on the outside. This was that kind of place.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She smiled apologetically, fidgeting now with all ten peach fingernails scratching at
her purse.
"The name is Wong," I said casually, "but you can call me Mr. Double-you for short."
She didn't get the jokeтАФthey never do.
"Thank you. I, uh, was told thatтАж this is an unusual shop? Where one can find somethingтАж she
lost?"
"If you lost it, I got it." Like most of the others, she needed more encouragement. I waited for her to
ask.
"I meanтАж well, I suppose this will sound silly, butтАж I'm not looking for a thing, exactly, not a solid