"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Except the Music" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

Except The Music by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Kristine Kathryn Rusch's mystery novel, War at Home (written as Kris Nelscott), was recently
nominated for the Oregon Book Award--one of the Northwest's most prestigious literary
awards. This is the second year in a row that Kris has been nominated for it. Her newest
Nelscott novel, Days of Rage, came out in February, and her latest SF book, Paloma: A
Retrieval Artist Novel, will appear in October. As I write this blurb, Kris is probably in
Barcelona collecting the prestigious UPC award for her novella "Diving into the Wreck"
(Asimov's, December 2005). In her latest tale, she explores the mystique of creativity and
shows one man that perhaps nothing can save him...
****
"Where do musicians go to die?" She rested on one elbow, her honey brown hair spilling down her arm
and onto the pillow. The rest of her body was hidden by the linen duvet, which warded off the room's
chill.

Max paused, his left black tuxedo shoe--shined to perfection before the concert--in his right hand. The
question unnerved him. She had overheard his remark earlier, made at the festival to one of the other
performers: Places like this are where classical musicians go to die.

His cheeks warmed. He was glad he had his back to her. He slipped the shoe over his sock-clad foot,
then picked up the other shoe. "It was a joke."

His voice was soft, gentle, as if he wasn't the kind of man who had any malice within him. He knew that
wasn't true, and he had a hunch she did as well. But he couldn't be certain of that; he knew so very little
about her.

"I know you meant it that way," she said, scrunching up the pillows and pulling the duvet over her
large--and not fake--breasts. "Still, it got me to wondering."

He buttoned his shirt halfway, stuffed the bow tie in the pocket of his pants, and looked for his jacket.
The room seemed smaller than it had two hours ago. Then it had seemed charming--slanted ceilings,
large windows with a spectacular view of the ocean, a bed in the very center--made, which surprised
him--and two antique upholstered chairs next to a curved reading lamp. A small table sat near the even
smaller half kitchen. The walls were lined with bookshelves, filled floor-to-ceiling with well-read
paperbacks. Until he saw those, he would have guessed that she was a weekender, like so many others
in this godforsaken coastal town.

"Wondering?" he asked. "About death?"

She shrugged a pretty shoulder, then turned on a lamp on the end table beside the bed. He hadn't noticed
the lamp or the end table before. Of course, he had been preoccupied.

"Death is a hobby of mine," she said so calmly that it made him nervous.

He finally turned toward her. She was forty, give or take, but still beautiful in a mature way that he rarely
saw outside of the major cities.

She didn't look like the typical classical music groupie. Granted, most of them were middle-aged women
with too much time on their hands, but their beauty--if they once had any at all--had faded. They now
had a soft prettiness or a competent intelligent look about their tired faces. Dressing up made them look
like librarians, and he always sensed desperation in them.