"Tennessee Smash" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pendleton Don)

PROLOGUE

The big man in black stood in silent contemplation of the muted sounds of the city by night and the sluggish rhythms of Ol’ Man River-the mighty Mississippi -as it flowed behind him with its ghostly murmurings from eternity.

Eternal, yeah… that was the word. A flowing stream was like the life of a moving man-eternal, yet ever changing, the waters flowing from some unseen beginning and hurrying toward an unimaginable infinity-nothing ever fixed, nothing ever certain-yet eternal… eternal.

Banks and beds do not a river make; Bolan knew that. Nor did waters. H20-big deal-molecules in great numbers, clinging to one another through chemical bonds while slowly drifting from nowhere to nowhere.

Like a man's life, yeah.

So where did either get such grand ideas about eternity? What is a river if it isn't banks and beds, hydrogen and oxygen mixed together and flowing from nowhere to nowhere? What is a man if not blood and bones, electricity and tissue mixed together and growing from nothing to nothing?

The question was purely academic. Bolan already had his answer. Both a man and a river are events in space and time. Infinite events, overflowing space and confounding time… thus, sure, eternal.

Ol' Man Eternal River… murmurs from outside space and beyond time.

Bolan shivered and shook himself to break the mood. It was no time to be thinking beyond eternity. There was work to be done, events to be set into motion.

It was time to put the spur to a certain aspect of the flow of life within this historic old city. Bolan knew how to do that.

He angled icy eyes for a quick and final glimpse of the stony ramparts marking Confederate Park while tossing a mental salute toward that symbol of human heroism and sacrifice. Then he spun about on softshod feet and became a living part of the eternal night.

Yes, proud Memphis -"Place of Good Abode" -Mack Bolan knew how and where to put the spurs.