"Smith, Wilbur - Wild Justice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

through into the final Departure Lounge.

It was already crowded with transit passengers who had boarded at
Mauritius, and beyond the lounge windows the huge Boeing 747 jumbo
squatted on the tarmac, lit harshly by floodlights as the refuelling
tenders fussed about her.

There were no free seats in the lounge and the group of four formed a
standing circle under one of the big revolving punk ah fans, for the
night was close and humid and the mass of humanity in the closed room
sullied the air with tobacco smoke and the smell of hot bodies.

The blonde girl led the gay chatter and sudden bursts of laughter,
standing inches above her two male companions and a full head above the
other girl, so that they were a focus of attention for the hundreds of
other passengers.

Their manner had changed subtly since they entered the lounge; there
was a sense of relief as though a serious obstacle had been negotiated,
and an almost feverish excitement in the timbre of their laughter. They
were never still, shifting restlessly from foot to foot, hands fiddling
with hair or clothing.

Although they were clearly a closed group, quarantined by an almost
conspiratorial air of camaraderie, one of the transit passengers left
his wife sitting and stood up from his seat across the lounge.

"Say, do you speak English?" he asked, as he approached the group.

He was a heavy man in his middle fifties with a thick thatch of
steel-grey hair, dark horn-rimmed spectacles, and the easy confident
manner of success and wealth.

Reluctantly the group opened for him, and it was the tall blonde girl
who answered, as if by right.

"Sure, I'm American also."

"No kidding?" The man chuckled. "Well, what do you know." And he was
studying her with open admiration. "I just wanted to know what those
things are." He pointed to the net bag of nuts that lay at her feet.

"They are coco-de-mer," the blonde answered.

"Oh yeah, I've heard of them."

"They call them "love nuts"," the girl went on, stooping to open the
heavy bag at her feet. "And you can see why." She displayed one of
the fruit for him.