"Roger Zelazny - Amber 06 - Trumps Of Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

He tossed me a black book and stepped back. I caught it. It was a copy of
the Bible. I opened it to the publishing credits page.
"Something special about this edition?" I asked.
He sighed.
"No. I'm sorry."
He took it back and replaced it on the shelf.
"Just a minute," he said.
He returned to the counter and took a cardboard sign from a shelf beneath
it. It read JUST STEPPED OUT: WE'LL REOPEN AT and there was a clock face
beneath it with movable hands. He set them to indicate a time a half hour
hence and went and hung the sign in the door's window. Then he shot the bolt
and gestured for me to follow him to a room in the rear.
The back office contained a desk, a couple of chairs, cartons of books. He
seated himself behind the desk and nodded toward the nearest chair. I took it.
He switched on a telephone answering machine then, removed a stack of forms
and correspondence from the blotter, opened a drawer and took out a bottle of
Chianti.
"Care for a glass?" he asked.
"Sure, thanks."
He rose and stepped through the opened door of a small lavatory. He took a
pair of glasses from a shelf and rinsed them. He brought them back, set them
down, filled both, and pushed one in my direction. They were from the
Sheraton.
"Sorry I tossed the Bible at you," he said, raising his glass and taking a
sip.
"You looked as if you expected one to go up in a puff of smoke."
He nodded.
"I am really convinced that the reason she wants power has something to do
with you. Are you into some form of occultism?"
"No."
"She talked sometimes as if you might even be a supernatural creature
yourself."
I laughed.
He did, too, after a moment.
"I don't know," he said then: "'There're lots of strange things in the
world. They can't all be right, but..."
I shrugged.
"Who knows? So you think she was looking for some system that would give
her power to defend herself against me?"
"That was the impression I got."
I took a drink of the wine.
"That doesn't make sense," I told him.
But even as I said it I knew that it was probably true. And if I had
driven her into the path of whatever had destroyed her, then I was partly
responsible for her death. I suddenly felt the burden along with the pain.
"Finish the story," I said.
"That's pretty much it," he answered. "I got tired of people who wanted to
discuss cosmic crap all the time and I split."
"And that's all? Did she find the right system, the right guru? What
happened?"