"Van Lustbader, Eric - Dark Homecoming(eng)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

"Like AIDS," he said.
She stared out at the ocean; tears glittered in her eyes. "A friend of mine is very ill."
That's all she needed to say. Suddenly, it seemed very important to be at her side. "I was eighteen when my father died," he said. "He was a cop; I became one because of him. It seemed right to follow his example because he was so moral. All the evil in the world, it seemed, tried to get to him, and he resisted it all. He knew what it meant to be a defender of the law." Croaker, holding her hand, imagined his father sitting beside him, laughing with his eyes crinkling and his hat pushed back to the crown of his head.
He looked into Sonia's beautiful eyes and said, "He died violently, shot in the back in an alley not three blocks from where we lived. He was killed by someone he knew and trusted. In the end, that was the only way his enemies could get to him, by corrupting someone close to him."
He took the point of Sonia's chin gently in the crook of his finger. "He was a good man; he didn't deserve to die before his time. He didn't deserve to die like that." He searched her eyes. "I think maybe it's the same with your friend, isn't it?"
She nodded, tears spilling from her eyes. When he wiped them away, she laughed, and the soft, musical sound sluiced away the dark rustle of anxiety that had built up around them. She stood very close to him, her eyes and lips glittering in explosions of refracted light from the interior of the club. "I don't know what I expected tonight, but... maybe I wasn't really expecting to find someone."
She put her drink on the wooden railing, cupped his left hand in hers, turning the blue metal over in the light. "Tell me about this."
"It's actually a biomechanical contraption," he said. He'd long since gotten over being self-conscious about it. "My hand got sliced off in a fight when I was in Japan and a team of microengineers put together this prototype. It runs on a pair of lithium batteries, but believe it or not there's a lot of me inside it. There are boron bones, titanium joints, and stainless-steel nails, but my own artificially regenerated nerves, tendons, and sinews are in there as well. But they're so well protected, I could literally put the hand in fire without feeling any more than a pleasant warmth."
Her fingers glided over the matte-gray polycarbonate palm, the titanium fingers with uncommon delicacy. "Does it need repairs, like a car?"
"Periodically, I'm supposed to go back to Tokyo to let the surgical team make adjustments, but I haven't the inclination. I just change the batteries once every six months." He looked at her rapt face, and hoped she wasn't one of those women who got hung up on the thing. It'd happened before. "It's been seven years and I suspect they want to replace it with a newer model." He shrugged. "One of these days I'll get around to it."
"Or maybe you'll just keep what you have," Sonia said. "Maybe you're content just the way you are."
With a start Croaker realized there was more than a grain of truth to that, and he nodded, grateful at this moment to be with her.
He was aware of the intensity in her eyes as she touched the tip of each finger of his flesh-and-blood right hand. "I like hands," she said. "Hands tell you a lot. They can't lie." She traced the lines on his palm, felt the thick calluses. "You have worker's hands. Strong and capable."
"That comes from being brought up in Hell's Kitchen," he said. "That's a real rough part of Manhattan's West Side. You had to be hard as nails or the hoods would take you apart."
"I know what that's like." Her thumb pressed against his. "I was raised in the roughest part of Asuncion." Her eyes got dark. "I learned two things there: to be thick-skinned and to be patient. Being patient is hardest of all, don't you think? It doesn't seem to be an innate human trait, that's why it's so hard to learn."
Suddenly, he seemed as tongue-tied as a kid on his first date. He remembered being with Stone Tree. They were standing in still backcountry water, the sun perched on the edge of the horizon like a demure girl. Without seeming to have moved at all Stone Tree reached into the water and pulled up a perch. He gutted it, spit it on a green branch. The morning was filled with pearly light and the perfect smell of roasting fish. A roseate spoonbill flew by, its unearthly pink haloed by the sun. Stone Tree said, Life, at Us best, is pure and sweet. Moments like this, caught in your hand, stored in your heart, is all a man needs. And before Croaker knew what he was doing, he was kissing Sonia. An instant after he felt her lips opening under his, he pulled guiltily away. "I didn't mean to do that."
Her eyes were huge, the irises very pale. "But I mean to do this." Putting one hand at the nape of his neck she drew him gently but forcefully until their lips touched. Then she melted against him, her lips opening and her tongue wrapped around his. As if she were a night-blooming flower, he was filled with her scent. It was a heady sensation and he breathed deeply. A quick surge of music made his heart pump all the harder. "Lew?" A light, female voice.
Not now, he thought. Can I be unlucky enough to run into an old girlfriend just at this moment? With extreme reluctance, he broke away from Sonia. Keeping a firm hold on her hand, he turned to face the woman who had come through the glass doors from the interior of the Shark Bar. "Hello, Lew."
Croaker stared at the woman, his mind refusing to work. "Matty." It was as if it were encased in a block of ice. He felt his stomach give a quick flip-flop.
Matty, beautiful, regal as a princess, was looking from him to Sonia and back again. She wore a very expensive dress in matte black jersey and a string of diamonds at her throat. She was so impeccably made-up she looked as if she'd just emerged from a beauty salon. In her formal designer splendor she looked totally out of place. "I know this must come as something of a shock-"
"Christ, you can say that again."
Matty's gaze flicked quickly to Sonia and, as if she were embarrassed, whipped back to his stunned face. "I'm sorry to intrude but I've got to talk to you. I didn't want to leave a message at the marina and they said you'd probably be here some time tonight." Clearly nervous, her words came out in a tangled rush.
"You said you never wanted to speak to me again." Croaker was aware he was gripping Sonia's hand as if it were a life preserver in high seas. He could hardly hear the conversation over the pounding of his heart. "That was, what? Twelve years ago?"
"Fourteen," Matty said. "Fourteen years, one month, seventeen days." She tried to smile but failed miserably. She took a deep breath. "It was at Rachel's christening."
"How could I forget," he said bleakly.
"She's fifteen now."
"And not a word from either of you in all this time."
"I'm not aware that you ever tried to contact us."
"After what you told me I had no reason to think you'd want to see me."
"Okay. I deserved that."
He stared at her stonily.
"Lew-"
"What is it? You made your bed. You married Donald Duke. That life's everything you wanted, or so you took the trouble to tell me over and over."
Matty's eyes were full of tears. "That was a long time ago."
"Lew," Sonia broke in. "What's going on?"
"Everything's changed," Matty went on, as if she hadn't heard Sonia. "Donald walked out on me."
Watching her expression, he said, "What do you want from me, Matty? Am I supposed to be surprised or even sympathetic?" He was painfully aware that he was roiled with emotion as the past came rushing back. He had to turn it aside. "Oh, yes, how thoughtless. The introductions. Sonia Villa-Lobos, this is Matty Duke. My sister."
In the stunned silence, he let go of Sonia's hand. "Eighteen years ago she met a man named Donald Duke."
"Lew, don't-" Matty pleaded.
"He was a corporate raider, a shark who fed off other people's misfortunes. He plundered one company after another, selling off the divisions, firing people."
"Christ," Matty said, "you talk about him like he was some kind of criminal."
Croaker concentrated on Sonia's face as his anger once again bound up his heart. "He maneuvered people he didn't like out of boardrooms, hounded them out of New York, maybe even taking pleasure in doing so."
"What proof?" Matty said. "There wasn't any."
His eyes blazed. "Nevertheless, my sister married him. She was dazzled by the lifestyle, isn't that right, Matty?" Matty bit her lip and looked away. "Of course it is. She wouldn't listen to my warnings; in fact, they incensed her. I told her what kind of man she was marrying. But she turned everything around. She accused me of being jealous of Donald's wealth and position. She made fun of me because I was a cop and I saw the world through a cop's pea-brained eyes." He cocked his head. "Wasn't that the word you used, Matty? And then you said, what was it? You're pathetic, Lew. You'll end up like Pop, lying dead facedown in an alley." He shook his head. "The lifestyle, the money and power were all more important than her own family. She met Duke and she was suddenly embarrassed by her family, by where she had been brought up."
"That isn't true!" Matty protested.
"Which part isn't true, Matty? Tell me." He watched her face. "At the wedding you gushed over Donald's wealthy friends while we sat alone and isolated. You never brought him home. Mama only wanted to cook for him, but you never gave her the chance."
"Stop it!" Matty cried in anguish. "You don't understand anything."
Croaker was not to be deterred. "Worse, you kept Rachel from us as punishment and Ma died without ever having a chance to get to know her granddaughter. You cut us out and it broke Mama's heart. Not to mention mine!"
He turned to Sonia. "At Rachel's christening, I'd finally had it, and I told her what I thought of her husband and her new life."
"Damnit, Lew, you threatened Donald. In church!" Matty was trembling. "In front of everyone."