"Wheeler-LandOfFlowers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wheeler Deborah)

"Not me," said Pointy-Toes. "I got connections."

The crewman shrugged and pointed below deck. "All of you, down there."

They waited for two hours in the airless cabin, sweating out of sight while the
crew loaded the new guests and their luggage. They could hear music above, light
tapping footsteps and women's laughter. The two staff who'd gone ashore came
down and sat in a comer by themselves. Pointy-Toes started a crap game.

Javier watched the others lose the pay they hadn't got yet. From time to time,
he touched his shirt pocket, just to hear the reassuring crinkle of his job
offer papers. Last night, before the gunfire woke him, he dreamed about a man
behind a featureless gray desk, an Anglo with a mouth like a shark's, starched
green uniform over his paunch and a pistol at his hip. In his dream, the man
pointed to Javier's job papers and said, "These are no good."

But his papers were good. Salvador, his father's cousin, had gotten him the job
interview even before the position opened up. The guy who'd had the job, some
friend of another cousin, had saved enough from his rich Angla patrona to buy a
little farm down by Rio Sonora.

"You hear stories like that," Salvador had said, "and you think you got it made.
You think you're in a goddamned candy store, you can have anything you want, and
next thing you're thinking is how hot you are. But listen to me -- boys like you
come cheap out there. There's a hundred just as hungry who'll give them whatever
they want. You can make it good with this job or you can piss it all away."

Javier had clenched his jaw to keep from talking back. Sal didn't mean to run
him down like he had no sense. It was Sal who'd taught him that whatever else a
man might do, he took care of his family.

Then Sal grabbed him by the back of the neck and hugged him like a son. "You're
a good kid, I know that."

Gotta watch it, Javier thought, remembering. That Pointy-Toes, he's got a death
wish or something. He sure ain't worth getting into trouble for. Not when Igor
Mama counting on me.

Javier took turns with the other men at the porthole as they pulled up at the
guest pier. Tierra Flores, the Island was called, acres of lawns and tennis
courts, pools of every shape and temperature, villas shielded by groves of
gardenia and dwarfed palm on the slopes from the central lodge to the sifted
white sand. The buildings were white, as well as the filmy uv-canopies that
covered the walkways and beaches. All of it was brought from the mainland, Santa
Barbarita or Ventura, even the sand.

The pier had been hung with streamers and balloons. Green-uniformed staff
greeted the guests with smiles and strings of flowers. The women swayed and
tilted their heads, but the wind carried away the sound of their voices.