"Laird Long - Broken Hearts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Long Laird)

There was a pause on the line that could have given birth.

"Ha, ha. Funny," he finally replied. "What can I help you with?"

"Doc, I need a list of every mental hospital and psychiatric clinic in California, public and private."

"Planning a vacation?" He laughed.

"Can you get it?"

"Sure, but what for?"

"I need it to justify the steak dinner that I'm going to buy you at the track."

"Be here in two hours. One, if you finally bought a new car."

After half a day of phoning and half a day of driving, I found the place I was looking for. The good people of Riverside called it 'The Institution'. The grounds were fresh-cut and green, and all the orderlies carried permits for their butterfly nets. It was the kind of place where a man could really get some thinking done. Assuming he was insane.

I was shown into the office of the Executive Director and told to wait. I began reading her degrees. They looked real enough.

She walked into the office.

"Please, don't get up." She brushed my gallantry aside with a wave of her hand. "She's in her room."

"Can I see her?"

"I suppose you can."

Dr. Wallace was a petite, athletic-looking woman of about forty. She talked with a faint English accent, and carried a professional attitude around with her like an accountant carries a briefcase. We walked down long, white, shiny corridors enveloped in total silence. Past locked rooms and unmanned nursing stations. It smelled like a hospital, only worse. There was something in the air that no one could identify.

We came to Room 304. Wallace unlocked the door and we went in. The room was sparsely furnished with a bed and two chairs. Los Angeles newspapers littered the bed. A young woman was sitting in one of the wooden chairs by the window, with her back towards us. She was watching something outside.

"You have a visitor, Alice," Dr. Wallace announced in a hushed voice.

She didn't respond.

I looked at Wallace and she looked at me. I could see the pain in her eyes. I didn't know if it was personal or professional, but I thanked my lucky stars I lived in a world of mostly black and white. I walked around in front of Alice. She looked right through me and out the window. I could spot the family resemblance instantly, but I pulled out the old photo Bull had mailed to me just to make sure. Sure.

"Alice Bull, I'm Charles Sidney."

Her face was deathly pale. It held no expression. It reminded me of the walls in the corridor.

"Your father sent me to find you," I said softly. "He's dead."

Deep within her troubled green eyes, I saw a light flicker on. And off.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Sidney, but, as I told you, Alice hasn't spoken to anyone for eight years. Almost the entire length of time that she has been here. The police first brought her here. She was in a very sorry state, indeed. She had rather viciously assaulted one of her, uh, customers."

We were back in Wallace's office. She was polishing her glasses, her eyebrows knitted together in concern. "We didn't even know her last name. Until today." She put her glasses back on and stared at me. Her clear, blue eyes could have pierced the armour of an M1-Abrams tank. But they couldn't penetrate the fog-shrouded mind of Alice Bull. "How did you find her?" she asked.