"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Beautiful Damned" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

avoided
them: they had nothing to do with me. I was drawn to none of them, except,
perhaps, Fitz himself.

He was as invisible as Ari. I wandered through the manse three times, pushing
past bodies flushed from dancing, bright with too much drink, letting the
conversation flow over me like water over a stone. Most of my colleagues spoke
of Fitz himself, how he had favored them in one way or another, with a
commission or, in the case of the women, with time alone. They spoke with a
sigh, their eyes a bit glazed, as if the memory were more of a dream, and as
they spoke, they touched their throats, or played with pearl chokers around
their necks. A shudder ran through me and I wondered what I had brought
Arielle
into.

I found her at 3 A.M., waltzing in the empty grand ballroom with Fitz. He wore
an ice cream suit, perfectly tailored, his hair combed back, and she wore a
white gown that rippled around her like her hair. She gazed at him like a
lover,
her lips parted and moist, her body pressed against his, and as they whirled
to
the imaginary music, I caught glimpses of his face, his brows brought together
in concentration, his eyes sparkling and moist. He looked like a man caught in
a
dream from which he could not wake, a dream which had gone bad, a dream which,
when he remembered it, he would term a nightmare.

Then she saw me, and her expression changed. "Nick," she said. "Nick
Carraway."
And she laughed. The voice was not hers. It had more music than before, but
beneath it, a rasp older women gained from too many cigarettes, too much
drink.
"He will never leave us alone, Scott."

Fitz looked at me. If anything, he appeared paler than he had before. The
sparkle in his eyes was not tears, but the hard glare of a man who could not
cry. "Thanks for all your help, old man," he said, and with that I knew I had
been dismissed.

CHAPTER V

About A week before, an ambitious young reporter appeared on Fitz's doorstep
as
one of the parties began. He managed to find Fitz at the edge of the pool and
asked him if he had anything to say.

"About what?" Fitz asked.

"About anything."