"Nixon, Joan Lowery - Mary Elizabeth 01 - The Dark and Deadly Pool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nixon Joan Lowery)

I liked to go over the cards. It helped me to remember names, and everyone likes to be addressed by name.
It was also fun to study the types of faces and wonder who each person was and what he or she was like. There were glum faces and eager faces and faces with expressions from peevish to placid. Opening the card file and thumbing through it, guessing about the people behind the faces, made me think of opening a box of smooth-looking chocolates and trying to figure out which hid the chocolate creams and which held the cherries. Some of the faces stayed a few days and became familiar. Some came and disappeared and came back again. Some popped in on an afternoon, but were on their way the next day and never returned.
I glanced at Sylvia Bandini's card. She was a club member, here every day. Tina said that Mrs. Bandini had celebrated her seventieth birthday last May. Mrs. Bandini's white hair curled around her face like the frame around a portrait. She read all the latest exercise books and tried to look like the models on the book jackets. Once she even wore striped red-and-green leg warmers with her blue bathing suit. On a scale of one to ten she would have got a ten for trying, but her figure was kind of a minus five. She was really nice. Her smile was always a bright-red gleam across the room, and I liked to talk to her.
Her friend, Mrs. Opal Larabee, was five years younger than Mrs. Bandini. Mrs. Larabee pointedly mentioned this soon after I met the two women. Mrs. Bandini just smiled and added that Mrs. Larabee was one up on her there, and was also one up on her where weight was concerned, being fifteen pounds heavier. Mrs. Larabee smiled and said something about being an inch and three quarters taller, and I left in a hurry, not wanting to hear the rest.
Mr. Asmir Kamara was at the club, as usual. I twisted to glance through the wide glass window wall that divided the office from the pool area and saw his shining bald head leading the way back and forth in a straight path from one end of the pool to the other. His daily routine. As usual, his terry-cloth robe was folded neatly over the back of a chair, and his thongs were placed side by side under the chair. Mr. Kamara, a wealthy retiree who lived at the Ridley Hotel, seemed to speak only enough English to imperiously insult all the male employees of the hotel and extravagantly flatter all the female employees.
"Watch out for that old buzzard," Tina had told me. "In his country they have some funny ideas about women. If he pesters you, give me a call and I'll come running."
Art Mart was more blunt. "He'll probably ask you to go away with him for a weekend. So far he's tried it with all the women who work in the hotel. When you turn him down, remember he's a guest of the Ridley and go easy."
Mr. Kamara introduced himself to me on my first day at work. The next afternoon, when he arrived at the club, wearing a terry-cloth robe over his bathing trunks, he brought me a bunch of blue-dyed carnations and a bag of apples. "You will drive to New Orleans with me this weekend?" he asked.
I tried to remember the clever retort I had planned to answer, but all that came out was "No."
He just shrugged. "Maybe later."
"No," I said.
He seemed to hesitate, then shoved the flowers and bag of apples at me. "Keep anyway," he said, and flashed an expensive porcelain smile.
"No, thanks," I said.
"Yes, thanks," he said firmly, put them on my desk, and disappeared into the men's dressing room to lock his room key and wallet in his locker. He returned in a few minutes, going straight through the office to his favorite, somewhat secluded, table and chair, where he was joined by a club member named C. L. Jones.
Mr. Jones, who was pale and long and skinny, had what my PE teacher called sloppy posture. His shoulders were so rounded he looked like the top of a question mark. He was as unusual as Mr. Kamara. Tina told me that Mr. Jones came every day to the club, but he rarely went swimming and never stayed very long. Sometimes he rode the exercise bike, but mostly he chatted awhile with Mr. Kamara and left. His membership seemed like a waste of money.
Mrs. Bandini's arms rippled up and down in some kind of a signal to me, so I put the box of photo-ID cards back in the desk, left the office, and walked over to where she and Mrs. Larabee were ensconced in their deck chairs with cups of coffee.
"Such a nice girl," Mrs. Bandini said, and gleamed at me. "I would like to have a granddaughter like you, Mary Elizabeth."
"You would like to have a granddaughter, period," Mrs. Larabee said, "although there's small chance of that."
Mrs. Bandini looked pained. "I have two grandsons, who are a constant joy, as you well know, and if my daughter, Rosa, wanted to go to law school instead of becoming mother to a beautiful little daughter, who was I to tell her what a mistake she was making?"
My legs were suddenly splattered with cold water, and I jumped back. Climbing out of the pool was the boy who'd been cannonballing. "Listen, you—" I began.
But Mrs. Bandini interrupted me. "Mary Elizabeth, I'd like you to meet my youngest grandson, Paul Canelli. He's ten years old and getting straight A's in school, and you should hear him play the piano. Pauly's teacher says he has exceptional talent. Shake hands with Mary Elizabeth, Pauly."
She was so proud of him I ignored Pauly's smirk. I held out my hand, hoping he wouldn't bite it.
He shook my hand as quickly as possible, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around himself. He flopped into a chair and said, "Could I have a hamburger, Grandma?"
"You'll spoil your dinner," Mrs. Bandini said.
"But I'm hungry. Please, Grandma?"
"Well . . ." Mrs. Bandini hesitated only a second. "If you promise to eat all your dinner tonight, you may phone for room service."
Room service. I thought about Fran. He was a funny little guy, but I hoped I'd see him again today. Maybe I should look him up. I'd like to thank him for escorting me home last night. I'd like him to see that I wasn't always as weird as I must have seemed last night.
Pauly ran over to the phone. Mr. Kamara was just putting the receiver on its hook. Pauly ducked in to grab it, and Mr. Kamara nearly fell over him. He caught his balance and snapped something at Pauly in a language I didn't understand. It was probably just as well.
Mrs. Bandini was speaking to me, so I made myself pay attention.
". . . my other grandson, Eric," she said. "All the girls like Eric. He's very handsome. Very tall too. I told him about you, Mary Elizabeth."
She stopped and seemed to be waiting for an answer. I stammered the first thing that came to mind. "He must be wonderful."
"Oh, he is," she said. "I'm going to make sure that the two of you meet each other."
"Great," I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. The last thing I wanted to do was meet Mrs. Bandini's other grandson. One was more than enough.
I went toward the office as Floyd Parmlee came into the room with a covered tray. I had met Floyd on Monday. He was as bland on the inside as he was on the outside. He reminded me of yellow wax beans. I hate yellow wax beans.
Mr. Kamara had picked a table off to the side, behind a large potted plant, where he couldn't be seen by the people at the pool. But as I neared the office door I saw Floyd put the tray on the table next to Mr. Kamara, who signed for whatever it was he ordered. Then I saw something strange. It took only a second, but through the fronds of the potted plant I know I saw Mr. Kamara shove some money into Floyd's hand. It looked like a lot of money. Wow! Talk about big tippers!
I was seated at the desk, getting ready to start writing my daily report, when Floyd poked his head in the door. He shoved a gold-foil-covered box at me.
"What's that?" I asked.
"From Mr. Kamara." Floyd said. "It's chocolates from the gift shop."
"I don't want them."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't accept them. I can't have Mr. Kamara giving me presents. Will you tell him that, Floyd?"

"Tell him yourself," Floyd said. "It's no skin off my nose." He disappeared.
I picked up the box of chocolates as though it were a bomb and carried it out to where Mr. Kamara was sitting, eating a dish of strawberry ice cream.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kamara," I said, knowing that Mrs. Bandini and Mrs. Larabee were as intent on what I was saying as Mr. Kamara was, "but I can't accept your presents."
"Yes," Mr. Kamara said. His broad smile was decorated with a strand of crushed strawberry. "I want you to take."
"I can't take. I mean, it's not proper for an employee to accept gifts from a hotel guest."
"I not understand," Mr. Kamara said. "Is chocolates. Girls like chocolates. You eat."
"No, thank you," I said firmly, placing the box in front of him.
"Yes, thank you," he said, just as firmly.