"John Kessel - The Pure Product" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kessel John)

“Probably not. I don’t care about famous people any-more.” The last
time I had anything to do, even peripher-ally, with anyone famous was when
I changed the direction of the tape over the lock in the Watergate so Frank
Wills would see it. Ruth did not look like the kind who would know about
that. “I was there for the Kennedy assassination,” I said, “but I had nothing
to do with it.”

“Who was Kennedy?”

That made me smile. “How long have you been here?” I pointed at
her tiny purse. “That’s all you’ve got with you?”

She slid across the seat and leaned her head against my shoulder. “I
don’t need anything else.”

“No clothes?”

“I left them in Kansas City. We can get more.”

“Sure,” I said.

She opened the purse and took out a plastic Bayer aspirin case.
From it she selected two blue-and-yellow caps. She shoved her sweaty
palm up under my nose. “Serometh?”

“No thanks.”

She put one of the caps back into the box and popped the other
under her nose. She sighed and snuggled tighter against me. We had
reached Columbia and I was hungry. When I pulled in at a McDonald’s she
ran across the lot into the shopping mall before I could stop her. I was a
little nervous about the car and sat watching it as I ate (Big Mac, small Dr
Pepper). She did not come back. I crossed the lot to the mall, found a
drugstore and bought some cigars. When I strolled back to the car she was
waiting for me, hopping from one foot to another and tugging at the door
handle. Serometh makes you impatient. She was wearing a pair of shiny
black pants, pink and white checked sneakers and a hot pink blouse. “‘s
go!” she hissed at me.

I moved even slower. She looked like she was about to wet herself,
biting her soft lower lip with a line of perfect white teeth. I dawdled over my
keys. A security guard and a young man in a shirt and tie hurried out of the
small entrance and scanned the lot. “Nice outfit,” I said. “Must have cost
you something.”

She looked over her shoulder, saw the security guard, who saw her.
“Hey!” he called, running toward us. I slid into the car, opened the
passenger door. Ruth had snapped open her purse and pulled out a small
gun. I grabbed her arm and yanked her into the car; she squawked and her
shot went wide. The guard fell down anyway, scared shitless. For the