"Coldheart Canyon (preview edition)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive - Coldheart Canyon)

There was a spot close to Coldwater Canyon, where the undulating drive offers a
picture-perfect view of the San Fernando Valley, as far as the mountains. By day it
can be a smog-befouled spectacle, brown and gray. But by night, especially in the
summer, it is a place of particular enchantment: the cities of Burbank, North
Hollywood and Pasadena laid out in a matrix of amber lights, receding to the dark
wall of the mountains. And moving against the darkness, the lights of planes
circling as they await their instruction to land at Burbank Airport, or the police
helicopters passing over the city, spitting a beam of white light.
Often there were sightseers parked at the spot, enjoying the scene. But
tonight, thank God, there were none. Marco parked the car and Todd got out,
wandering to the cliff-edge to look at the scene before him.
Marco got out too, and occupied his time with wiping the windshield of the
limo. He was a big man with the bearded face of a bear recently woken from
hibernation, and he possessed a curious mixture of talents: a sometime wrestler and
ju-jitsu black belt, he was also a trained Cordon Bleu cook (not that Todd's taste
called for any great culinary sophistication) and a twice-divorced father of three
with an encyclopedic knowledge of the works of Wagner. More importantly, he was
Todd's right-hand man; loyal to a fault. There was no part of Todd's existence Marco
Caputo did not have some part of. He took care of the hiring and firing of domestic
staff and gardeners, the buying and the driving of cars, and of course all the
security duties.
"The movie's shit, huh?" he said matter-of-factly.
"Worse than."
"Sorry 'bout that."
"Not your fault. I should never have done it. Shit script. Shit movie."
"You want to give the party a miss?"
"Nah. I gotta go. I promised Wilhemina. And George."
"You got something going with her?"
Page 26
Barker, Clive - Coldheart Canyon
"Wilhemina? Yeah. I got something. I just don't know whether I want to. Plus
she's got an English boyfriend."
"The English are all fags."
"Yeah."
"You want me to swing by the party and bring her back up to the house for
you?"
"Suppose she says no?"
"Oh come on. When did any girl say no to you?"
Todd said nothing. He just stared out over the vista of lights. The wind
came up out of the valley, smelling of gas fumes and Chinese food. The Santa Anas,
hot off the Mojave, gusted against his face. He closed his eyes to enjoy the moment,
but what came into his head was an image of himself: a still from the movie he'd
fled from tonight. He studied the face in his mind's eye for a moment.
Then he said: "I look tired."
TWO
Todd Picket had made two of his three most successful pictures under the
aegis of a producer by the name of Keever Smotherman. The first of them was called
Gunner; the kind of high concept, testosterone-marinated picture Smotherman had been
renowned for making. It had made Toddуwho was then an unknown from Ohioуa bona-fide
movie-star, if not overnight then certainly within a matter of weeks. He hadn't been