"Eddings, David - High Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

Then I sat watching the streets and houses go by. I still couldn't really accept any of it as actuality. It all had an almost dreamlike quality  like coming in in the middle of a movie. Everybody else is all wrapped up in the story, but you can't even tell the good guys from the bad guys. Maybe that's the best way to put it.

The bus dropped me off at Seventy-eighth, and I saw the sickly green neon GREEN LODGE TRAILER COURT sign flickering down the block. I popped the seal on the pint and took a good belt. Then I walked on down to the entrance.

It was one of those "just-twenty-minutes-from-Fort Lewis" kind of places, with graveled streets sprinkled with chuckholes. Each trailer had its tired little patch of lawn surrounded by a chicken-wire fence to keep the kids out of the streets. Assorted broken-down old cars moldered on flat tires here and there. What few trees there were looked pretty discouraged.

It took me a while to find number seventeen. I stood outside for a few minutes, watching. I could see my brother putzing around inside  thin, dark, moving jerkily. Jack had always been like that  nervous, fast with his hands. He'd always had quick grin that he'd turn on when he wanted something. His success with women was phenomenal. He moved from job to job, always landing on his feet, always trying to work a deal, never quite making it. If he hadn't been my brother, I'd have called him a small-tune hustler.

I stood outside long enough to get used to his face again. I wanted to get past that strangeness stage when you say all kinds of silly-ass things because most of your attention is concentrated on the other person's physical appearance. I think that's why reunions of any sort go sour  people are so busy looking at each other that they can't think of anything to say.

Finally I went up and knocked.

"Dan," he called, "is that you? Come on in."

I opened the screen door and stepped inside.

"Hey there, little brother, you're lookin' pretty good," he said, grinning broadly at me. He was wearing a T-shirt, and I could see the tattoos on his arms. They had always bothered me, and I always tried not to look at them.

"Hello, Jack," I said, shaking his hand. I tried to come on real cool.

"God damn," he said, still grinning and hanging onto my hand. "I haven't seen you in three or four years now. Last time was when I came back from California that time, wasn't it? I think you were still in college, weren't you?"

"Yeah, I think so," I said.

"You've put on some beef since then, huh?" He playfully punched me in the shoulder. "What are you now? About a hundred and ninety?"

"One-eighty," I said. "A lot of it's German beer." I slapped my belly.

"You're lookin' better. You were pretty scrawny last time I seen you. Sit down, sit down, for Chrissake. Here gimme your jacket. It's too fuckin' hot for that thing anyway. Don't you guys get summer uniforms?"

"Mine are all rolled up in the bottom of my duffle bag," I told him, pulling off the jacket. I saw him briefly glance at the pint I had tucked in my belt. I wasn't trying to hide it.

He hung my blouse over a kitchen chair. "How about a beer?"

"Sure." I put the brown-sacked pint on the coffee table and sat down on the slightly battered couch. He was fumbling around in the refrigerator. I think he was a little nervous. I got a kick out of that for some reason.

I looked around. The trailer was like any other  factory-made, filled with the usual cheap furniture that was guaranteed to look real plush for about six weeks. It had the peculiar smell trailers always have and that odd sense of transience. Somehow it suited Jack. I think he'd been gravitating toward a trailer all his life. At least he fit in someplace. I wondered what I was gravitating toward.

"Here we go," he said, coming back in with a couple caps of beer. "I just put the kids to bed, so we've got the place to ourselves." He gave me one of the cans and sat in the armchair.

"How many kids have you got?" I asked him.

 Two  Marlene and Patsy. Marlene's two and a half, and Patsy's one."

"Good deal," I said. What the hell else can you say? I pushed the pint over to him. "Here, have a belt of bourbon."

"Drinkin' whiskey," he said approvingly.

We both had a belt and sat looking at each other.