Не геном единым. Трой Дэй

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      Minnow wiped his forehead again. His mother back home. Father in bed. Waiting on him. He couldn't even get a soda. How could he get a soda if he couldn't bring back the medicine?

      "What about the one on the Island? What about the one who works out there?"

      "He works out there, boy, but he gets all his medicine from me. No one around here has got it."

      Minnow swallowed.

      "You need anything else?" the man asked.

      Minnow looked into the back of the store, then up toward the glowing window at the front. The teenagers got up and left. The bell jingled as the door clapped shut. The bright sound faded fast, along with all of his plans to return triumphant. They were alone in the store.

      "No sir."

      He put the dollar in the billfold, folded the prescription, put it back too, and then folded the whole thing into his pocket.

      "You need anything else?"

      "No sir."

      "Go see your mama and tell her she can't get that outside of Savannah. Don't know what fool wrote it."

      He nodded and walked down the length of the bar past the dirty soda glasses. He squinted at the light outside and could see people passing like ghosts, warbled and dizzy in the wide field of glass. The heat on his forehead passed, now, and he stopped at the door.

      He set his hands on the door and pushed it open, looking up at the bells as they rang.

      "Boy."

      He stopped with the door still open. The musty air of the shop blew past him into the hot street. Minnow didn't turn around when he answered. His father would have whipped him for that, probably.

      "Yessir?"

      "Boy, come here."

      He closed the door and walked over. He approached the edge of the counter, and the man sighed and put his elbow down. He leaned in.

      "I know one man who might have it."

      Minnow jerked his head up and stared the man in the eyes.

      "Who is it?"

      "He's a type of doctor."

      "Where?"

      "Near here."

      "Please tell me who it is. My father's very sick."

      "He can sell you that paste for half that dollar."

      "Where is he?"

      "Give me the other half."

      "Sir?"

      "You don't need it all. Give me half and I'll tell you where to go to make your daddy all better."

      Minnow looked down at his shoes. He had a dollar. For medicine and a soda. But if the medicine was less, he could skip the soda and his mother wouldn't be mad, and it would be the same, really.

      He dug the billfold out and flung it open, spilling the dollar onto the bar. The man laughed and clapped one hand over the bill and dragged it across the wood until it dropped off the edge into his other hand. He took two quarters from a pocket on his apron and put them on the wood. They rang dully, and one spun in a circle before it lay flat.

      "You can get it at a place in Port Royal."

      Minnow took a step back and raised his eyebrows.

      "Port Royal?"

      "Yes."

      "No doctors are there."

      Sailors, fighters, travelers, and thieves—but no doctors.

      "I'm thinking of one you don't know about. Or maybe you do."

      Minnow stood there, arms limp. He shook his head.

      "Doctor Crow works out of Port Royal. Last of his kind. At least this far in."

      "Doctor Crow?"

      "Crow."

      "He comes to town sometimes," Minnow said.

      "You know him then."

      "He has purple glasses. So he can see inside your soul."

      The pharmacist laughed.

      "You believe in hoodoo, boy?"

      "No sir. I mean, I've never seen much of it, so I don't believe so."

      The man leaned in farther, this time close enough that Minnow could smell tobacco on his tongue.

      "Don't let him put the root on you, boy. You give him that money and get what you need and get out of there, or you'll wake up a stud boar out past the Island with negroes spear-hunting you."

      Minnow shook his head.

      "You're sure he has it?"

      "He's got lots. You go find out."

      "Where do I find him?"

      "Down by the oyster rake. He's got a place there."

      "What do I tell him?"

      "You don't tell him nothing. You give him that paper, and that money, and he'll give you what you need. And you most certainly don't tell him who sent you there. You got it?"

      "Yessir."

      "Now you need anything else from me?"

      "No sir."

      "If you come back here, it better be for a good reason."

      "Yessir."

      Minnow left the pharmacy for Bay Street. His billfold was lighter, but he'd found a way. He practically skipped away from the store, down the line of shops, weaving in and out of people on the street. Martin hollered from the opposite side, waving a dirty hand in the air. Minnow turned and waved but didn't stop. A rolling wagon blocked their sight of each other, and then Martin was lost in the crowd again.

      Minnow stopped at the end of the shops, where Bay Street widened and the stores ended, and only a few smaller buildings dotted the downtown boundary. The land dropped away farther up the road, falling into a steep grass bluff that overlooked the marsh and the river. Enormous live oaks towered from the bluff, holding their long arms out over the water as if to cool their leaves. White mansions stood opposite the trees on the other side of the lane: true mansions with wide porches and tall columns.

      He looked down Bay Street, busy and hot, and then up the shady bluff road. Port Royal was a half-hour walk, probably, way down the bend. He'd never been there, not even with his СКАЧАТЬ