"Karen Robards - Maggie's Child" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robards Karen)

slithered off the bar stool and followed them.

Once outside, Maggy drew in great gulps of cold night air. It was
early April, and they'd been having an unseasonably warm spell, but it
was almost midnight and the temperature had dropped almost thirty
degrees since sundown. Behind her, the sounds of ribald revelry
swelled and then were abruptly cut off as Sarah and Buffy stepped out
onto the cracked sidewalk and the bar's double doors swung shut behind
them.

Tipton was waiting in the Rolls under a lone streetlamp. Seconds after
Maggy spotted it, the sleek navy car purred toward her.

"Don't bother to get out, Tipton," Maggy said as the car stopped and
the driver's door started to open. The door continued to open as if
she had not spoken. Tipton got out and reached back to open the rear
door without a word, his pale face wooden. He was a small, neat man in
his late forties, as bald as an egg beneath his uniform cap. A shaggy,
grizzled mustache adorned his upper lip. He was Lyle's man all the
way, and as such Maggy counted him as her enemy. Tipton was Lyle's
spy, and the reason he drove her when she went out was simple, so he
could report back to his boss where she had been. Maggy pretended not
to be aware of this--to admit that she knew and yet was unable to do
anything about it would be to destroy what little dignity she had
left-just as she pretended to believe that Tipton had not heard her
request that he not get out. She knew that in any confrontation
between herself and Tipton, or any of Lyle's hangers-on, she would come
out the loser. Lyle would see to that.

Sarah and Buffy, though, were blessedly oblivious of the undercurrents
swirling around them as they piled into the soft-leather interior.



Maggy, without so much as another glance at Tipton, slid in behind
them, fastening her seat belt as Tipton gently shut the door.

"So tell us about your friend," Buffy said when they were settled. The
car had swung about in a wide circle and was just nosing onto the
sixlane bridge that spanned the dark waters of the Ohio River.

Glancing forward at Tipton--though there was a partition between the
front and back sections of the car, and he appeared deaf, dumb, and
blind to everything but the road, she had learned that it was
impossible to be too cautious--Maggy silently cursed Buffy as she
fought to keep her face and voice serene.

"There really isn't much to tell."

"Oh, that's obvious. Especially since you're just now starting to get