Perception Fault. James Axler

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СКАЧАТЬ or not, the man was probably younger than she was; what right had he to make her feel like a truant?

      But instead of turning her back and walking away, for some reason she hesitated still, her eyes going once more to the narrow redbrick building across the street. A man was just emerging from the arched front entrance, pausing the way people do when they come from air-conditioning into the heat, as if he’d just missed bumping into something solid. A young man, he appeared to be, with a tall, healthy, well-built body dressed in blue jeans and a short-sleeved shirt with a collar, open at the neck. Sort of preppy looking, in spite of a neatly trimmed beard. Definitely not from this neighborhood. Even from this distance—just something about the way he moved, maybe, the way he carried himself—she could tell he was good-looking, even handsome in a wholesome, blond, shredded wheat sort of way. Nice.

      Memories crowded in, filling her chest with a treacherous sadness. Nice voices…kind faces, smudged with soot. Your momma’s gone, honey, you come with me now…it’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay…

      “It’s a free clinic now,” the priest was saying, and his eyes were friendly and young once again. “Staffed by volunteers, mostly. My sister works there part-time—she’s a nurse over at Community Med. Hey, if you happen to drop in over there, tell Ruthie Mendoza her brother Frankie said hello.”

      But the rock icon known as Phoenix barely heard him. She was already moving away down the cracked and dirty sidewalk, walking quickly, one hand going to her mirrored sunglasses as if to reassure herself the disguise was still in place.

      Ethan could hear a stereo thumping before he’d even reached the door of the EMS station. Classic light rock—so he’d guessed right about Kenny Baumgartner being his ride-along partner. Kenny was thirty-one, considered ancient for a paramedic, so his tastes in music tended to run pretty close to Ethan’s, which made him a welcome relief from some of the younger EMT’s and their mind-numbing, not to mention ear-deadening preferences. Ethan wondered if it was a sign of advancing middle-age, now that he was approaching thirty himself, to be finding fault with the younger generation’s music.

      “Ah…good song,” he said as he walked into the EMT’s lounge to a driving beat, the familiar and haunting chorus of “Pretty Mary.”

      “Classic,” Kenny agreed without looking up. The paramedic was sprawled in a chrome and plastic kitchen chair poring over his latest sailing magazine, bobbing his head and whistling tunelessly in time to the beat. “One of the all-time top ten—right up there with the Boss, man. Might even beat out “Born To Run.”

      That brought a snort from the lanky and obscenely young EMT who was lounging with one elbow propped against the countertop, waiting for something in the microwave. Any comment the paramedic had intended as a follow-up was preempted by the oven’s prolonged beep, and he uttered instead a satisfied, “Ah!” as he popped open the door. The smells of pepperoni and processed cheese filled the off-duty room.

      “Heard she’s got a new CD coming out.” Kenny tossed aside the magazine and tilted his chair back at an alarming angle. “Supposed to be starting a big worldwide tour, is what I heard.”

      Concentrating on separating mozzarella from cardboard, the young paramedic glanced up long enough to say, “Who?” just as Ethan was exclaiming, “No kidding?” So then both Ethan and Kenny had to pause to give the kid a look of incredulity.

      “Phoenix—who the hell are we talking about?” Kenny said, shaking his head as if in profound disgust at such ignorance, as Ethan set his medical bag on the floor and sank into a chair, wiping sweat with his shirt sleeve.

      “Oh, yeah, Phoenix…right.” The EMT—Leon, according to the tag on his uniform pocket—shrugged, licked his fingers, then added, “Isn’t she supposed to be in town?”

      Again, both Kenny and Ethan stared at him. And again it was Kenny who asked, “Who? Phoenix? Here?”

      Leon placed his pizza on the table and shrugged.

      “Where’d you hear that?” Kenny demanded, clearly in disbelief.

      “Hey,” said Leon, looking offended, “I read Rolling Stone.” He glanced from Kenny to Ethan and back again. “It’s true. Supposed to be getting ready for some big new gig.”

      It was Kenny’s turn to snort in derision. “Nobody kicks off a tour from this town, man. This town is where tours come to die.”

      Leon could only shrug, being totally committed to the lava-hot mozzarella he’d just bitten into. Presently he managed to mumble through the mouthful, “Just tellin’ you what they said, man. It was like, she used to be from here or something.”

      Once again both Ethan and Kenny were struck momentarily dumb by that news, but the stunned silence lasted only a second or two before it was filled by the raucous blast of the alarm. It was a sound that never failed to send a bolt of electricity through Ethan, kick his heart rate into high and lift up the hairs on his forearms, and in that instant he lost all interest in the likely whereabouts of the rock-and-roll legend called Phoenix.

      Kenny righted his chair with a thump. “We’ll take it,” he said to the younger paramedic, who was hunched over his pizza, desperately trying to sever the umbilical cord of cheese that bound him to it. Ethan was already on his feet and reaching for his medical bag. Kenny signaled to him with a jerk of his head. “Time to rock ’n’ roll.” He grinned at his own cleverness, then let the grin slide toward wryness as he added, “Starting in early tonight. Must be the heat.”

      Kenny’s words proved prophetic. During the course of Ethan’s four-to-midnight ride-along, he and Kenny had already handled two multi-injury MVAs, a jogger with chest pains, the combatants in a bar brawl, and a portly fellow who’d fallen off a ladder while attempting to install an air conditioner in a second-floor bedroom window. So, when the Klaxon sounded at eleven-forty-five, Leon and his partner, Scott, generously offered to take it.

      “’Bout time for ol’ Doc, there, to be headin’ for the barn, anyways,” was the way Leon put it, a blatant reference to Ethan’s age. Which had been the source of a running, and in Ethan’s opinion not very funny, joke among the younger EMTs for quite a while now.

      Kenny, who had been listening to the dispatcher, shook his head. His face was grim as he gave Ethan the head-jerk signal to roll. “Balcony collapse over in The Gardens,” he said, referring to one of the worst of the many slum neighborhoods in that part of the city, one well-known to police, fire and rescue squads who’d nicknamed it The Gardens because it was anything but. “Sounds like one for you, Doc. Do you mind?”

      Ethan was already a step ahead of him going out the door, adrenaline pumping. “That’s only a few blocks from here,” he pointed out as he signaled to the driver of an anonymous dark sedan parked in the No Parking zone in front of the station. He climbed into the EMS wagon and pulled his safety belt across his shoulder as the wagon rolled down the drive. Watching in the side view mirror, he saw the sedan take up its customary position a couple of car-lengths behind as they sped down the dark street, lights whirling and siren wailing.

      High in her converted loft, Phoenix heard sirens and woke from a restless sleep. It was not the first time; the sirens had been busy tonight. As all the times before, she woke with her heart racing and her body slick with sweat, and it was a minute or two before the chill of terror faded and her breathing grew quiet again.

      But you’re safe here…safe.

      From somewhere a melody came to her and she sang it softly to herself in her mind. СКАЧАТЬ