"Lessig, Hugh - Tough Love" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lessig Hugh)

She waved me away with her hand. "I don't truck with them people. I'm just afraid of the cops, you know?"

"Why would you be afraid of the cops?"

She acted like she didn't understand the question. Then she looked past me. "Hey. I wanna know what's going on out there."

I stepped back and let her come out of the house. She hugged herself and craned her neck toward the crime scene. She smelled of coffee and whiskey. I held the door open, and I kept it open while peering inside the house. I saw a television, a coffee table, and beyond that, a dining room table. On the table was a black videocassette.

The label had a strip of adhesive tape with some writing on it. I couldn't see the writing unless I looked hard, and I didn't want to do that.

The woman continued to stare at the cops. She wanted me to say something, but I let her stare. Sometimes in this business it pays to shut up. People hate dead silence, and they'll say almost anything to fill it. Besides, I wanted to ask about the videocassette, and now was not the time.

"Are they going to find him or what?"

I stared with her and said nothing.

A tired teen-ager's voice came from inside the house. A girl's voice. "What's going on?"

The woman turned and her cheeks flushed red. Her voice came out in a harsh whisper -- a voice that could have come from someone else, an older, more desperate version of herself. Desperate people don't have gnomes in their yard.

"You get back in there! Up in your room and lock the door! Lock the damn door!"

The girl stood at the foot of the stairs. She had kinky black hair, a chubby face and what I would call school clothes. She dragged one foot behind her. She looked at me with sad, tired eyes.

"You get up the stairs!" The woman acted like she didn't want the cops to hear.

I regarded the woman matter-of-factly. "Ma'am, do you see that man over there? The one with the notebook? He is a detective. They'll be very methodical. They'll make sure they talk to everyone."

The woman's hand went to her throat. "Will they stop here?"

"Sure. And they might want to know about the video camera in the vacant lot next to your house. He filmed himself every day, didn't he? I know because he gave me one of this tapes. Maybe you talked to him at some point. Was he filming himself today?"

Her face relaxed and she seemed to lose most of her fear. "You're with the police, aren't you?"

"No ma'am." Her sudden calmness scared me. It was like she flipped a switch.

"You're some kind of advance scout."

"The police don't have advance scouts, ma'am. You're thinking of the Green Berets or something."

She got up in my face, and I realized she wanted to push past me. I stood aside and let her go down the steps, past the gnomes, onto the sidewalk. A uniformed officer who stood half a block away began to eyeball her.

She walked down the street, away from the murder scene. She kept talking to herself and shaking her head. I stood on the porch and listened to my heart beat through a rush of adrenaline. The rush was too late. She could have shot me right there on the porch. That 7.am. whiskey breath would have been my last sensual experience.

Inside the house, the teen-ager moved out of the shadows and into the living room.

"You need to come in."

The woman turned right, around the corner. The cop talked into his shoulder mike. He watched her. He watched me.. The girl smiled and brought one hand out from behind her back. She held a video camera.