"Timothy Zahn - The Green and the Gray" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

Amsterdam turned one-way-north at 110th, which would force the cabby to head farther east to
Columbus, which was currently handling much of the Broadway traffic in addition to its own. It
probably wouldn't get them home any sooner than just walking the twenty blocks, not to mention the
expense involved. There was always the subway, of course, but Caroline had an absolute phobia
about riding it after dark.
But to walk would mean giving in.
"I suppose we could walk," Caroline offered timidly from beside him, her voice sounding like
someone easing her way onto thin ice.
"I suppose we could," Roger echoed, hearing the hardness in his own voice. That had been their pre-
theater argument: a brief staking out of turf on Caroline's current favorite subject of exercise, and
how both of them needed more of it.
And once she got an idea or crusade into her head, there was no getting it out of her. Three cheers for
the underdog, four cheers for the noble cause, damn the torpedoes, and full speed ahead.
He frowned sideways at her in sudden suspicion. Could she have lost her ring back there on purpose,
staging the whole thing to force them to walk home like she wanted?
For a long second he considered calling her bluff, either walking them over to Amsterdam or using
his cell phone to summon a cab right here and insisting they wait until it arrived. But the wind was
starting to pick up, and standing around freezing would definitely qualify as a Pyrrhic victory. Better
to get home as quickly as possible, even if it meant giving in.
Besides, she was probably right. They probably could both use more exercise.
"Sure, why not?" he said, turning south along Broadway. "Unless you think you'll be too cold."
"No, I'm fine," she assured him. His sudden capitulation must have caught her by surprise, because
she had to take a couple of quick steps to catch up. "It's a nice night for a walk."
"I suppose," he said.
Caroline fell silent, without even a passing mention of exercise. At least she was being a gracious
winner.
Broadway's vehicular traffic, as he'd already noted, was running sparse tonight. What he hadn't
anticipated was that pedestrian traffic would be similarly low-key. Once they'd made it out of the
immediate Columbia area, they found themselves with the sidewalk virtually to themselves.
Construction blockages wouldn't explain that; there must be a football game or something on. Or
maybe it was still baseball season. He was a little vague on such things.

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The Green and the Gray



Though it could also be the weather that was keeping everyone inside. The wind had picked up since
their arrival at the theater, and had become a steady blast of Canadian air pressing against their backs
and carrying the promise of an extra-cold winter ahead.
Caroline was evidently thinking along the same lines. "We're going to need to bring the trees in
soon, before it gets too cold," she commented as they hurried across 104th Street in anticipation of an
imminent red light. "We let it go too long last year, and they did poorly when spring came."
"What constitutes too cold?" Roger asked, glad to have something to talk about that didn't involve
either exercise or the play.
"Certainly before we get a hard freeze," she said.
"Okay," Roger said, though he had only a vague memory of tree problems last spring. The two
semidwarf orange trees, like the rest of their indoor jungle, were Caroline's responsibility. "You want
to put them in the bedroom again?"
"I'd like to," Caroline said. "I know you don't like them blocking the balcony door there; but the