"Night Warriors - 01 - Night Warriors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

Gil scuffed his trainers on the concrete path. 'You're going to want to talk about it sooner or later. You're going to have to.'

She stood with her hand on the wrought-iron balcony rail, looking at him with one of those distinctively teenage expressions, bored, curious, go-on-show-me; her eyes in shadow. From inside the house, they could hear a vacuum-cleaner ruminating from room to room, and a television turned up loud so that whoever was using the vacuum-cleaner could listen to Josie and the Pussycats.

'Could I call by later? 'asked Gil.

'Well, I don't know,' said Susan. She turned toward the house. 'I mean, no offence or anything, but I really want to forget it.'

'Well, I'll tell you what,' Gil suggested, 'I'll leave you my number, and then if you want to talk about it you can call me. Or even if you don't want to talk about it, I don't mind.'

Susan thought for a moment, and then said, 'Okay. But I have to go in now.'

'Do you have a piece of paper?'

She picked up a piece of chalk from the flowerbed. 'I'll write it with this.'

'Okay, then. It's 755-9858.'

' Where's that?'

'Solana Beach, on the Boardwalk. My father owns the Mini-Market.'

'Oh, really? Okay, then.'

At that moment, Susan's grandmother came out of the house, a small porky woman with strawberry-ice hair done up in curlers, and a strawberry-coloured tracksuit.

'Susan?' she said, querulously. 'You came back quick.'

'Oh, Gil here gave me a lift.'

'Gil?' demanded her grandmother, and lifted up the gold-framed spectacles which she wore around hen neck on a long gilded chain.

'Gil Miller, ma'am,' said Gil, giving her a wave. 'Nice to meet you.'

'Have I seen you before?' Susan's grandmother wanted to know.

'Could be, ma'am. My father owns the Mini-Market down at Solana Beach. Sometimes I serve behind the deli counter.'

Susan's grandmother lowered her spectacles and allowed her face to subside into a soft blancmange of disapproval. 'Susan's dating a medical student from Scripps,' she told Gil. 'A fine boy, with a fine career in front of him. Irish.'

Gil said, 'Well, ma'am, that's excellent,' even though he could see that Susan was desperately embarrassed. He waved his hand again, an odd Howdy-Doody wave that he hadn't really meant to do at all, and then he swung himself back into his car and started up the engine.

'Grandma,' Susan protested, under her breath. Then she called out, 'Thanks for the ride, Gil.'

'Yeah. You're welcome,' said Gil, and backed himself out of the driveway.

Susan watched him turn around in the roadway, all screaming torque and squealing tyres, and roar off back towards the beach. Then she followed her grandmother into the house, making sure that the screen door banged noisily behind her. In the kitchen, her grandfather looked up from his San Diego Tribune and said, 'Your friend Daffy's here.'

'Yes, and I was ashamed to let her into your room,' her grandmother admonished her. 'The mess! I never saw anything like it. You have drawers for your clothes, don't you, and shelves for your books?'