Читаем Fall and Rise полностью

“The evening one, Sandy?”

“He said Shafik. Little guy, dark, glasses—”

“Everyone calls him Sandy. He’s an Arab. What’s up, he hurt?”

“He almost was. I don’t mean this to boast, but he could’ve been hurt a lot worse if I hadn’t stopped two men from mugging him an hour ago. He’s gone home. But someone took my coat when I jumped in to help Sandy, and all my money—”

“Can’t let you in without a token. Borrow from Sandy if you helped him so much.”

“I already said. He closed up early, was afraid something worse would happen to him and went home. He gave me enough change for the subway, but I used it all on phone calls from the booths upstairs — to get a locksmith, to call friends — since in that stolen coat of mine were my house keys. Remember I—”

“All that’s not—”

“But remember I came down before and asked if I could use the phone here because the ones upstairs were so cold and you said I’d have to pay a token to use it because it’s on the platform and I said—” He’s shaking his head. “What are you shaking your head for? I said I couldn’t pay for a token and use the phone booth because I only had enough change for a token and wanted to make some more calls to find a place to sleep tonight.”

“I only came on a half an hour ago. Want to be exact?” Looks at his watch. “Twenty-seven minutes ago. It had to be Morton, if it was this station and entrance — the clerk before me. Bald? Scar across the nose?”

“I don’t recall any clerk with glasses.”

“I didn’t say glasses. Scar across the nose. Bald. Elephant ears.”

“I’m sorry. It was this station entrance and I thought it was you.”

“We don’t look anything alike. He’s tall, I’m not, but you can’t tell that because we’re both sitting — okay. But I’m much broader in the chest and no scar on the nose and a different face and ten years on him and no big ears or bald.”

“But you know Sandy. And my coat stolen’s no lie, because you don’t think I’m wearing this smelly summer sweater because it’s my choice and garishness is my style and I think it’s summer out, do you? The police gave it to me to keep me warmer than I’d be without it. And I finally found a place to stay tonight — Hundred-tenth and Broadway — the subway stop is — and the person’s given me thirty minutes to get there at the most. I called her from upstairs with a borrowed dime. ‘Mister, can you spare a dime?’—I did that. So what? — but my chat with Morton before is true.”

“I can’t let you on either. I do, which I’d love to, but am seen doing it — fired on the spot.”

“Then I’ll have to sneak on. Not ‘sneak,’ just climb over the turnstile in front of you. Because I tried getting a cab — person I’m going to said she’d leave the money for one in her lobby — but none would pick me up because of these torn clothes, I suppose, and messed-up physical condition, all of which I got protecting Freddy.”

“Freddy?”

“Sandy. I don’t know why I called him Freddy. Who the hell’s Freddy anyway? I’m very tired and a bit slaphappy. Was hit on the head by Sandy’s muggers several times. The Lebanese. Dark, small, but big in the shoulders and arms. I only noticed that later. Looked like he lifted weights. Truth is he could’ve helped me more than just by going for the police. Maybe he has a lead plate in his head or, young as he is, a heart or some other condition. Or afraid. And why shouldn’t he be? Or in that job, in that outpost and late at night and probably with a wife and kids at home, the ironclad rule ‘Never fight back.’ But glasses, Sandy, thin mustache, sweet voice and face, heavy lips, he called the police and they came promptly and muggers ran. But you weren’t around when it happened.”

“If it happened after I came on I still wouldn’t have heard it. This box is soundproof except when you speak into it or I want it to be, which, if you don’t mind — pardon me, okay? — will be now,” and he unhitches a disk to cover the hole and looks at the newspaper on the change counter. Morning News, BRIDGE SPLIT IN STORM, photo of freighter’s front rammed into a suspension bridge, car dangling off the side, caught in the cables, “2 die, 7 hurt as supertanker Ignatius’s prow,” he thinks the caption begins, clerk’s eyes on him every now and then, “—Tampa Bay.”