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

way over to the side street where I was parked.
Minutes later I was miles away, trying to scrub the bloody pawprints from
my memory.



Trumps Of Doom
Chapter 2

I drove away from the bay until I came to a quiet, well-treed area. I
stopped the car and got out and walked.
After a long while I located a small, deserted park. I seated myself on
one of the benches, took out the Trumps and studied them. A few seemed half
familiar and the rest were totally puzzling. I stared too long at one and
seemed to hear a siren song. I put them down. I did not recognize the style.
This was extremely awkward.
I was reminded of the story of a world-famous toxicologist who
inadvertently ingested a poison for which there was no antidote. The question
foremost in his mind was, Had he taken a lethal dose? He looked it up in a
classic textbook that he himself had written years before. According to his
own book he had had it. He checked another, written by an equally eminent
professional. According to that one he had taken only about half the amount
necessary to do in someone of his body mass. So he sat down and waited, hoping
he'd been wrong.
I felt that way because I am an expert on these things. I thought that I
knew the work of everyone who might be capable of producing such items. I
picked up one of the cards, which held a peculiar, almost familiar fascination
for me - depicting a small grassy point jutting out into a quiet lake, a
sliver of something bright, glistening, unidentifiable, off to the right. I
exhaled heavily upon it, fogging it for an instant, and struck it with my
fingernail. It rang like a glass bell and flickered to life. Shadows swam and
pulsed as the scene inched into evening. I passed my hand over it and it grew
still once again - back to lake, grasses, daytime.
Very distant. Time's stream flowed faster there in relationship to my
present situation. Interesting.
I groped for an old pipe with which I sometimes indulge myself, filled it,
lit it, puffed it, and mused. The cards were functional all right, not some
clever imitations, and though I did not understand their purpose, that was not
my main concern at the moment.
Today was April 30, and I had faced death once again. I had yet to
confront the person who had been playing with my life. S had again employed a
proxy menace. And that was no ordinary dog I had destroyed. And the cards...
where had Julia gotten them and why had she wanted me to have them? The cards
and the dog indicated a power beyond that of an ordinary person. All along I
had thought I'd been the subject of the unwelcome attention of some psycho,
whom I could deal with at my leisure. But this morning's events put an
entirely different complexion on the case. It meant that I had one hell of an
enemy somewhere.
I shuddered. I wanted to talk to Luke again, get him to reconstruct their
conversation of the previous evening, see whether Julia had said anything that