[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
carriage, dozens of rusting fifty-gallon drums, and stacks of balding tires. It wasn't the kind of place a mother would take her kid to for a rest stop. Escott pulled in and we waited for someone to emerge and sell us some gas. I got out to do what I hoped was a passable imitation of a man stretching his legs. Barbara remained quietly where she was, her big eyes wide open and watchful. A cadaverous old man with half a cigarette growing from the corner of his mouth squinted at us from his sanctum by the cash box, deciding if it were worth his while to leave it. He finally concluded we were staying and levered to his feet. As he drifted past, I could almost hear the pop and creak of his joints. He leaned into the driver's window and muttered something in a rusty-saw voice that might have been a question. Escott apparently had a gift for translating obscure dialects and asked for a few gallons of gas. The old man hawked and spat without losing his dead cigarette and did things with one of the pumps. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html He kept a cold eye on me as I wandered around. A suspicious person might think I had designs on the cash box, so I avoided the front office, if not the suspicion. The garage part was closed off, but something about it had my attention on a gut level and I moved closer to listen. The wide door had two filthy windows. They were dark, but only because of the black paint smeared on the interior side of the glass. Maybe the station owner had a legitimate reason for such aggressive privacy. Maybe. I moved along the front of the garage with my ears flapping, but between the wind stirring things around and the gas pumping away I couldn't pick up anything on the inside. Escott was trying a little friendly conversation with the old man and kept him busy checking the oil and cleaning windows. While they investigated something or other under the hood, I went around the corner and pressed an ear against the building. What I got for my trouble was a dirty ear. If there were any people inside, they were so quiet about it that I'd have to go in to find out. Brick walls are no real trouble for me I'd found that out the first time I discovered how to vanish but filtering through one like coffee in a percolator was not my idea of fun. High up, just below the roof overhang, was a long row of fly-specked windows. It would be easier to slip through any existing gaps in their casements; they'd be small, but better than the wall. Once I'd gone transparent and floated up, I could see from all the rust that they hadn't been opened in years, and the corner of one of the panes was beautifully broken away. Grateful at this piece of luck, I disappeared completely and slipped through the three-inch opening like sand in an hourglass. My hearing wasn't much better inside than out, though I thought I heard some kind of scraping sound. In my immediate area I was lodged between the wall and a series of thick surfaces curving away from me that I couldn't identify. The ceiling was only inches above, and down where my feet would be I couldn't feel anything but air. I hate heights. Then I definitely heard voices and forgot about mental discomforts. "Lay that off, you dummy." "But it's gettin' thick." "So put in more water." The scraping stopped. "Why don't he get rid of 'em?" "Shuddup." It was like trying to listen through a load of blankets. One cautious degree at a time I sieved back into the real world, just enough to hear and see and hopefully not be seen. The curved things turned out to be a rack of old tires and I was hovering between them and the wall. The more solid I became, the heavier I got, and it took no small effort to maintain my half-transparent state. Being fifteen feet over a cement floor without any other support than air and willpower did not help my concentration. The garage had two doors; the big one in the front for the curs and a regular one that served the office. The remaining three walls were lined with rows of tires, and below these were greasy workbenches and a Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html confused scattering of tools and supplies. A man had the office door open a crack and was keeping an eye on the outside. His back was to me, but I was sure I didn't know him. He wore a dark purple suit with orange pinstripes, and nobody I knew outside of a circus would have been caught dead in such a getup. Standing just behind him, trying unsuccessfully to look over his shoulder, was Francis Roller. Since the other man was bigger, Francis gave up and went back to stirring a shovel around a large, flat container shaped like a shallow horse trough. He was trying to be quiet about it, but the shovel would sometimes go its own way and scrape along the bottom. The viscous, cold-looking gray stuff in the trough was cement. "I said to lay off," the other man hissed, not turning around. Francis laid off. "Where the hell is the other bozo?" he griped. Francis deduced it to be a rhetorical question and didn't bother to answer. The other bozo had to be a reference to myself. Until I returned to Escott's car, whatever they were up to would have to wait, but Escott would be running out of stalls by this point. There were only so many he could try before they became too obvious. I shifted a little, taking care not to bump the tires. My view of the garage widened. The center of the floor was broken up by the grease pit, its wide rectangular opening covered by a metal grid. Standing against the opposite wall were a half dozen rusting fifty-gallon drums with various faded [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |