Читать книгу Dreaming of Babylon - Richard Brautigan - Страница 10

Cactus Fog

There was no place that I was going to get any money to buy bullets, so I decided to go where there are always bullets: a police station.

I walked down to the Hall of Justice on Kearny Street to see a detective that I knew down there and once had been very good friends with to see if I could borrow some bullets from him.

Maybe he would loan me six until I met my client and got an advance. I was supposed to meet them in front of a radio station down on Powell Street. It was now 2 p.m. I had four hours to get some bullets. I hadn’t the slightest idea who my client was or what they wanted done except that I was to meet them in front of the radio station at six and then they would tell me what they wanted done and I’d try to get an advance from them.

Then I’d give my landlady a few bucks and tell her that an armored car bringing me the million dollars had gotten lost in a cactus fog near Phoenix, Arizona, but she shouldn’t worry because the fog was guaranteed to lift any day now and then the money would be on its way.

If she asked me what a cactus fog was, I’d tell her it was the worst kind of fog because it had sharp spines on it. It made moving around in it a very dangerous proposition. It was best to stay where you were at and just wait until it went away.

The million dollars is waiting for the fog to pass.