However, whoever it was did not respond. There still were no sounds on the phone. But Tony nevertheless felt that someone was listening.
“Sorry,” he said, “I mistook the number,” and hung up.
All the same, most likely, it was a malfunction of the cellphone. Tony folded it and began to put into his pocket.
The phone rang.
In the deserted night street its melody seemed a siren roar to Logan, and he, having shuddered in fright, hastily pressed the green button with a receiver picture only to stop this noise.
“Hello?” he said in much lower voice.
Silence.
“Are you the one I just called? Excuse me, I’ve already said it was an mistake. I think my phone is malfunctioning.”
Tony waited a little more, but, still receiving no response, said, “Good night,” and disconnected. And then he looked at options to lower the phone’s loudness.
But before he could change anything, the phone rang again.
“Hello!” Logan bellowed with irritation.
He got no answer again.
“Well, fine,” Tony thought, “I can be silent, too!” He demonstrated this ability during the next minute, and then, still having achieved nothing, again moved his finger to the red button. But before he had time to hang up, he heard… sounds. As if something rotten and slimy moved, sticking together and coming unstuck again. The same sounds as in the train intercom.
Logan reflexively pressed the button, breaking the communication.
Hastily having left options mode, he entered “Received Calls”. He was almost assured that he would see the same number he has typed before, but wanted to be sure.
He was mistaken. No, it was not another number. There was no number at all. Only a name: “Edward Luciano.”
Tony did not know any Edward Luciano and, naturally, did not have him in his contact list. Among his acquaintances there was nobody with an Italian name at all. Besides, the number should be highlighted anyway… What the hell is it? A virus? Tony had heard about viruses for cell phones… Just in case he chose “Options—Block.”
The phone rang again, vibrating in his fingers.
Logan shook so violently that he nearly dropped the device. Then he pressed the switch-off button and waited until the screen went out. Having thought a little more, he pulled out the battery and SIM card and stuffed them in different pockets.
The phone was silent and showed no signs of life. Tony looked at it mistrustfully, thinking that if it made a sound again, he would throw it in the nearest trash can, and the hell with how much he had paid for this miracle of technology. First, though, a trash can needed to be found…
But the phone, placed back into a pocket, behaved how a disconnected electronic device should. After spending a few more minutes in suspense, Tony calmed down and walked in the direction which would be south if this dirtied foul place were Broadway and if the gardener nightmare behind him were City Hall Park.
However these surroundings, as far as it was possible to make out in the dark, were not becoming any more attractive—in fact, just the contrary. The street, narrow and dirty as a suppurating wound from a slashing blade, passed between two rows of crowded and ragged houses which appeared absolutely uninhabited. There were even more broken windows and the intact ones—at least on the lower floors, which Tony could see most clearly—were nearly opaque with dust. Logan, who never before had looked in someone else’s windows, tried to wipe some of them, but it did not help—they were as dirty inside as outside. The walls had no graffiti, though, in an area like this, they should be everywhere. Fire escape stairs here and there lacked wells, allowing rusty steps to break right in emptiness. House numbers mostly were absent, and where they were still present, they seemed a senseless series of digits. House number 183 followed 1547, then two houses with no numbers, and then 804—without observance not only to an order, but also to a principle of even and odd sides. And all this was within the single, infinitely long block. Tony went on in hope of finding a crossroads and reading the street name on it, but the walls of this stone gorge had not a single gap. Occasionally, at odd intervals, were street lamps and they had different designs—some light poles were concrete, others wooden, and the lamps were either modern ovals, or glass spheres or obviously archaic polyhedrons. But the main thing—none of them were lit, the covers often were broken, and the poles—lop-sided, with torn off wires. But the darkness still was not absolute—which is, however, natural enough for a city, especially on cloudy nights when low clouds reflect city lights. But Tony saw neither lights, nor clouds, nor stars. Only darkness hung over the city—darkness in its pure state, homogeneous and impenetrable.
He came upon a dead pigeon again. Then one more. And here a decaying seagull lay with spread shabby wings, like a dead eagle of a fallen empire. Strange—usually seagulls keep to coasts and do not fly deep into the city… Perhaps, the coast is very close?
Tony raised his eyes from the carrion—and shivered. Towards him along the street a person walked.
Logan knew perfectly well that at night in bad areas, especially when you were alone, it was possible to have most unpleasant meetings. However the figure going right on a trafficway didn’t resemble a street thug at all. But looking at the figure still made Tony feel a little odd. First of all, this person wasn’t dressed according to the season: he had on a baggy winter jacket and a fur cap with long ears tied under his chin. He also wore a scarf wrapped around his face up to his eyes. And, seemingly, despite all it, he still could not get warm, as he hid his hands under his arms. His gait was also strange—the figure hobbled on half-bent legs, spreading knees wide sideways and turning out his feet almost 180 degrees. The head was also turned to the right at such an angle that Tony wondered this creature did not break his neck. At first Logan thought that the stranger purposely had turned away from him, but, seemingly, he had been walking this way for a long time without noticing Logan at all.
Nevertheless, though the looks of the stranger brought unaccountable fear, Tony decided to talk with him. It was the first live being he had met on the surface and he needed to find out what this rotten place was and how, damn it all, to get from here to a normal part of Manhattan.
“Sir!” Logan called, surprised at the hoarse sound of his own voice. “Excuse me, sir, could you tell me…”
The figure continued to hobble forward, looking to the right (and even to the right rear) and without showing in any way that he heard. He? A thought came to Logan’s mind that, actually, nothing proved that it was a man. These shapeless clothes could hide a woman as well…
Tony resolutely crossed the road and stopped in front of the walking figure, wishing to look in his—or her—face.
It did not help much. The face was completely concealed by the scarf from below and by the cap from above, and the narrow gap between them was covered by sunglasses (at night!). Even on the nose, something white, apparently, had been stuck. But Tony noticed a smell which made him frown with disgust. Probably, a tramp who had not had a bath for a couple of months… or who had not even taken off these wrappings since last winter… However, in this smell there was something worse than the usual stench of a body dirty for a long time. The smell brought to mind associations inconceivable in Logan’s ordinary life, something almost medievaclass="underline" plague and cholera pits overflowing with bodies… field hospitals full of abandoned patients under a scorching sun…
But still, overcoming disgust—since there was nobody else to ask—he repeated the question:
“Do you hear me? What is this place? Seems I got lost.”
The figure hollowly murmured something under the scarf, but Tony could not distinguish the words. Was it English at all? In New York more than two hundred nationalities live…