"Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake 02 - Laughing Corpse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

Venus. All Brunos had to be bodyguards. It was a rule. Maybe a cop? Naw, it
was a bad guy’s name. I smiled.
Bruno sat up in his chair, one smooth, muscular motion. He wasn’t wearing a
gun that I could see, but there was a presence to him. Dangerous, it said,
watch out.
Guess I shouldn’t have smiled.
Bert interrupted, “Anita, please. I do apologize, Mr. Gaynor...Mr. Bruno.
Ms. Blake has a rather peculiar sense of humor.”
“Don’t apologize for me, Bert. I don’t like it.” I don’t know what he was
so sore about anyway. I hadn’t said the really insulting stuff out loud.
“Now, now,” Mr. Gaynor said. “No hard feelings. Right, Bruno?”
Bruno shook his head and frowned at me, not angry, sort of perplexed.
Bert flashed me an angry look, then turned smiling to the man in the
wheelchair. “Now, Mr. Gaynor, I know you must be a busy man. So, exactly how
old is the zombie you want raised?”
“A man who gets right down to business. I like that.” Gaynor hesitated,
staring at the door. A woman entered.
She was tall, leggy, blond, with cornflower-blue eyes. The dress, if it was
a dress, was rose-colored and silky. It clung to her body the way it was
supposed to, hiding what decency demanded, but leaving very little to the
imagination. Long pale legs were stuffed into pink spike heels, no hose. She
stalked across the carpet, and every man in the room watched her. And she knew
it.
She threw back her head and laughed, but no sound came out. Her face
brightened, her lips moved, eyes sparkled, but in absolute silence, like
someone had turned the sound off. She leaned one hip against Harold Gaynor,
one hand on his shoulder. He encircled her waist, and the movement raised the
already short dress another inch.
Could she sit down in the dress without flashing the room? Naw.
“This is Cicely,” he said. She smiled brilliantly at Bert, that little
soundless laugh making her eyes sparkle. She looked at me and her eyes
faltered, the smile slipped. For a second uncertainty filled her eyes. Gaynor
patted her hip. The smile flamed back into place. She nodded graciously to
both of us.
“I want you to raise a two-hundred-and-eighty-three-year old corpse.”
I just stared at him and wondered if he understood what he was asking.
“Well,” Bert said, “that is nearly three hundred years old. Very old to
raise as a zombie. Most animators couldn’t do it at all.”
“I am aware of that,” Gaynor said. “That is why I asked for Ms. Blake. She
can do it.”
Bert glanced at me. I had never raised anything that old. “Anita?”
“I could do it,” I said.
He smiled back at Gaynor, pleased.
“But I won’t do it.”
Bert turned slowly back to me, smile gone.
Gaynor was still smiling. The bodyguards were immobile. Cicely looked
pleasantly at me, eyes blank of any meaning.
“A million dollars, Ms. Blake,” Gaynor said in his soft pleasant voice.
I saw Bert swallow. His hands convulsed on the chair arms. Bert’s idea of
sex was money. He probably had the biggest hard-on of his life.