"John Kessel - It's All True" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kessel John)

It's All True
by John Kessel


On the desk in the marina office a black oscillating fan rattled gusts of hot air across the sports page. It
was a perfect artifact of the place and time. The fan raised a few strands of the harbor master's hair every
time its gaze passed over him. He studied my papers, folded the damp sheets, and handed them back to
me.

"Okay. Mr. Vidor's yacht is at the end of the second row." He pointed out the open window down the
crowded pier. "The big black one."

"Is the rest of the crew aboard?"

"Beats me," he said, sipping from a glass of iced tea. He set the perspiring glass down on a ring of
moisture that ran through the headline: "Cards Shade Dodgers in 12; Cut Lead to 5-1/2." On the floor
beside the desk lay the front page: "New Sea-Air Battle Rages in Solomons. Japanese Counterattack on
Guadalcanal."

I stepped out onto the dock, shouldered my bag, and headed toward the yacht. The sun beat down on
the crown of my head, and my shirt collar was damp with sweat. I pulled the bandana from my pocket
and wiped my brow. For midweek the place was pretty busy, a number of Hollywood types down for
the day or a start on a long weekend. Across the waterway tankers were drawn up beside a refinery.

The Cynara was a 96-foot-long two-masted schooner with a crew of four and compartments for ten.
The big yacht was an act of vanity, but King Vidor was one of the most successful directors in
Hollywood and, though notorious for his parsimony, still capable of indulging himself. A blond kid who
ought to have been drafted by now was polishing the brasswork; he looked up as I stepped aboard. I
ducked through the open hatchway into a varnished oak companionway, then up to the pilothouse. The
captain was there, bent over the chart table.

"Mr. Onslow?"

The man looked up. Mid-fifties, salt-and-pepper hair. "Who are you?" he asked.

"David Furrow," I said. I handed him the papers. "Mr. Welles sent me down to help out on this cruise."

"How come I never heard of you?"

"He was supposed to call you. Maybe he asked Mr. Vidor to contact you?"

"Nobody has said a word about it."

"You should call Mr. Welles, then."

Onslow looked at me, looked at the papers again. There was a forged letter from Welles, identifying me
as an able-bodied seaman with three years' experience. Onslow clearly didn't want to call Welles and
risk a tirade. "Did he say what he expected you to do?"

"Help with the meals, mostly."