"Kathleen Ann Goonan - The Bridge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

“Come in, the door’s open,” I called, as she turned to leave.

She looked startled, but turned the knob.

She reminded me of a giraffe—awkward in her tallness, her head
bent forward slightly in a way that was calculated to be charming, diffident.
Her brief smile did not reach her eyes.

“Hello. I’m looking for—a Mr. Mike Jones?” She looked around,
clearly hoping to find a competent-looking detective—or at least a
competent-looking receptionist—somewhere in the room.

“That’s me. Come in.” The shoes were black, open-toed slingbacks,
strikingly inappropriate in this weather. She either had no sense, or couldn’t
afford to buy new shoes—and therefore, couldn’t afford me.

I hoped that she had no sense.

“Come into my office.” I was torn, for a moment, between
professionalism and need as I walked past the half-filled glass of Scotch
still on the end table.

Need won. I picked it up. “I was almost ready to close. Can I pour you
a drink?”

“No,” she said, with distaste and a bit of doubt.

I went to my desk and turned on my single desk lamp. She settled
into one of the hard wooden chairs in front of my desk, and I sat behind it.
She set her small black bag on my desk, which I took as a good sign. She
did not remove her tight, gray leather gloves before folding her hands in her
lap.

“How can I help you?”

“I saw your name on a card downstairs...”

“Ah. You frequent Harry’s?” I tried to keep several cards shoved
under the glass top of the bar.

“No,” she said, decisively, wrinkling her nose. “I just needed ... some
hot coffee, this afternoon, and I saw your card there.”

No one with any money to speak of would go into Harry’s bar on a
snowy afternoon for hot coffee. There is a boutique coffeehouse next door.
The coffee is three dollars a pop, but it hasn’t sat on the burner all day.

There was a street march just a few weeks ago about the little war we
have going on here, the war between the future and the past, so it was