"Wen Spencer - Ukiah 2 - Taintet Trail" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spencer Wen)

won't be very much, kid. A sandwich, a cookie or two, and a soda."
The flight attendants seemed not to notice that the plane jerked and bucked on invisible airwaves.
They served the food with practiced smiles.
Ukiah glanced at the empty center seat. "You think Kraynak will eat his?"
"Probably not. He'll be lucky to get out of the restroom this flight. He'd hoped to grab something for
motion sickness in Houston, thinking we'd have time in the layover."
For some reason unfathomable to Ukiah, one couldn't fly directly from Pittsburgh to Portland.
Stranger yet, they had flown south to go north. A storm front over Houston delayed their landing and their
layover consisted of a dash through the sprawling, crowded airport.
Max looked at him warily now. "How do you feel?"
 "I'm cold and hungry," Ukiah admitted, then realized Max was asking if he was going to be airsick.
"I think after the first handful of jiggles, my body decided to ignore my inner ear as an alarmist. Remember
that time on Lake Erie when Kraynak took us fishing with his brother-in-law?"
"God, don't say anything else, or I'll start puking." Max undid his seat belt, stood cautiously, opened
the overhead compartment, and tossed a folded blanket to Ukiah. He pulled out his briefcase, closed the
overhead, and sat back down. "I've got a Snickers bar or two in here." He thumbed open the locks. He
fished out the candy and handed it to Ukiah. "Remind me to stock up at the Portland airport."
"Thanks." Ukiah glanced into the briefcase. Taking up the most space in the briefcase was a fat
folder marked OREGON, UKIAH—BENNETT DETECTIVE AGENCY FILE #117. "Is that my case
file?"
They had first met when Ukiah's adopted mothers hired Max to find out Ukiah's real identity. Max
had failed. In hindsight, there was no way Max could have succeeded. Ukiah's background had been too
strange for anyone to guess, and sometimes, even believe. The case had, however, introduced Max to
Ukiah's tracking abilities and inspired a partnership that specialized in finding missing persons.
Max nodded, flipping open the file. "I grabbed it as we were running out the door. I kept all the
geographic maps of the Umatilla National Park, road maps, campground guides, and so forth. I figured that
it would prove to be useful."
"Can I see?" Ukiah took out one of the maps and opened it. It showed the mountains of the national
park in a series of squiggly lines. Spreading it out on his lap, he studied it for several minutes as he ate the
candy, shaking his head.
Max noticed the motion. "What's wrong?"
"I lived here for so long, Max. Maybe over two hundred years. I knew every inch of it. This map,
though, is so abstract, I can't relate to a single feature. I wonder how much it's changed in the last eight
years. Am I going to be able to find my way around?"
"All you need to worry about, kid, is Alicia's trail. Wherever she went, you follow. I'll handle the
maps."
Ukiah glanced to the back of the plane. The right restroom door stayed firmly shut as a short line
rotated through the left. "You think Kraynak is right, and she's in serious trouble?"
Max shrugged. "He thinks so, he's footing the bill, and we owe him a favor. I'm hoping we'll get out
there and find out that she just let the batteries of her phone die or some such nonsense."
"What are we charging him?" Their normal tracking fee was a thousand dollars a day, a bit steep
for a police detective to pay.
Max looked sheepish. "Hell, I didn't talk to him about it. It's Alicia! If need be, we'll do a this as a
freebie."
Ukiah nodded without a quibble. Technically, he was a full partner of their detective agency, but
only because Max had given him half the company after Ukiah saved his life. Outwardly seventeen years
Ukiah's senior, Max still made most of the business decisions, especially the financial ones. Ukiah supposed
it was just as well—being raised by wolves gave him a very loose grasp on the concept of money.
Kraynak came back from the restroom, seeming even larger than normal in the close quarters of
the jet. He reeked faintly of vomit and old cigarette smoke resurrected by water. "Can I sit on the end?"