"Harvey Jacobs - The Retriever" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jacobs Harvey)

"Absolutely not," Luna said. "I'll call you. Unless there's something going
on under the table. I'm saying, I know how to keep a confidence."
"Sorry. Nothing delicate. Nothing for the National Enquirer. On the
other hand, call after six but before seven. My husband never gets home
before seven. He already thinks I'm an idiot to care about a piece of cheap
costume jewelry so he might as well not know that I'm paying a small
fortune to hire a bloodhound."
"A bloodhound? That's good. I like it," Luna said. "I get the message.
This is between you and yours truly. As for the small fortune, it's a big city
out there, a big world, a humongous galaxy. You think this is an easy job?
You're asking for a grand slam, a hole in one, the Heisman Trophy,
Olympic gold. Lady, you gets what you pays for."
"Well, I hope you find the silly pendant," Aurora said. "I'd planned to
wear it next month for a special occasion."
"If it ain't been pulverized, atomized, or sodomized, consider it found,"
Luna said.
"What a disgusting man," Aurora said to herself after she wrote out a
check and left The Retriever's office. "What an arrogant cockroach." She
felt a strong urge to take a hot shower, to send any flecks of Joe Luna that
might have stuck to her body swirling down the drain and into the sewer
system. Aurora took a taxi home.
In the shower, she thought about the pendant's provenance. Chuck
West had slipped it into her hand on the night of their high school prom
while he groped at her in the back seat of his father's Chevrolet. Chuck was
pleading for relief, begging for a chance to cross home plate. That's what
they called it back then. No way, Chuckle.
Aurora dropped her bar of scented soap. Home plate. Maybe that's why
Joe Luna's chair made her feel sweaty. She laughed with her face turned
up toward the gush of water. Aurora remembered how she'd stopped
Chuck cold between second and third but she did let him tongue her left
breast.
Next week, at their twentieth class reunion, Aurora planned to wear
that pathetic looking cat-on-a-chain and see if Chuck even remembered. It
would be interesting to see what Shelly Greer looked like after all those
years. Shelly was the girl he married a month after graduation. Aurora got
that news while she was away at college in a letter from her mother. The
night she got that letter she let Henry Platz spread her legs and enter her
for the first time. "Lord," Aurora said out loud, "the things we do, the way
things happen."
Two days later, in the early evening, Joe Luna rang the doorbell at
Aurora Platz's apartment. She saw his face framed in the door's peephole,
suspended like a Christmas ornament. "The doorman didn't announce
you," she said, opening the door.
Luna shrugged. "So much for security," he said. "I tried to call but your
phone was busy. So I took a chance you'd be home. Besides, I wanted to
see your face when I handed you this." He opened a fist and there was her
cat pendant.
"This is fantastic," Aurora said, reaching for the chain. "Unbelievable.
Where in creation...?"
 "Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies," Luna said. "Well, that's that.