"Wilhelm,_Kate_-_The_Day_of_the_Sharks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

He dances her to the end of the terrace, more discreetly lighted than the other areas, and kisses her. "Later?"
"Don't be an idiot. With your wife and my husband on the scene?"
"Veronica will be knocked out with tranquilizers, and Bill's on his way to passing out."
"What's wrong with Veronica?"
"Nerves, I guess. She flipped out at work. Tried to burn down the office or something."
"Good God! Did she really?"
"She says she was only burning the files, but the whole place would have gone up if it hadn't been caught when it was."
"What did they do to her?"
He is tired of talking about Veronica, tired of thinking about her. "Hospital. Two weeks. Now a vacation, and then into analysis, I guess. She's under a shrink's care."
"Poor Gary," Shar says, her voice amused.
He can't see her features, but can feel the warmth of her skin, smell the elusive scent that she wears, that she always wore. When he starts to kiss her again, she moves away and walks back toward the house. "Later," he says, this time not asking.
She smiles over her shoulder and stops to chat with a group of men standing at the sliding door to the Florida room.
Finally, Gary spots Veronica at a table by a man, clutching her glass tightly, her eyes glazed in the way they do when she drinks more than a glass of wine. He curses silently and turns to see Bill approaching with another man in tow. Bill is red faced, perspiring heavily, and the grace that he displays when sober is gone. He lumbers, stumbles into things, loses coordination in a way that seems to suggest that his limbs have different reaction times. He wards off a table before he is within reach, then hits it with his thigh, and belatedly clutches a chair to steady himself. Gary moves closer to Veronica and the unknown man; he doesn't want to talk to a drunken Bill.
"...density ratio so fouled up that no one knows what the hell they're going to do. Six hundred units per acre. Now I ask you, does that sound too terrible to you, a city girl? You know Chicago can handle that many people, what's the difference?"
Veronica shakes her head helplessly. "Units?"
"Yep. They're saying no more than two fifty per acre. Two hundred fifty! What kind of condo can you put up with only two fifty?"
Veronica looks almost desperate; relief relaxes her face when Gary draws near. "Have you eaten yet?" he asks.
She stands up, nods to the man, and takes Gary's arm. Her fingers dig in convulsively. "How long will this go on?" she whispers, as they walk toward the buffet.
She looks and sounds terrible; she should go to bed. Her tension is almost a palpable thing, electric. He feels that he could touch it, be burned by it.
Bill blocks their way, still with the tall man. "Gary, want you to meet Dwight Scanlon, president of the development company I was telling you about. My good friend, Gary Ingalls, and Veronica."
"Hear you're on your way to Grand Bahama," Dwight Scanlon says, taking Gary's hand. "Lovely place. We've got a hotel over there, in fact. You have your rooms reserved? Look, cancel them, why don't you? I've got this suite, nobody in it, nobody scheduled for it until June. Yours for the taking."
Before Gary can refuse, Scanlon has turned to Veronica. "Have you seen the moon coming up over that bay yet? What a sight!" He offers his arm; she puts her hand on it tentatively, and they walk out together.
Bill downs his drink and runs his hand over his face. "Gotta turn on that air conditioner pretty soon."
The air conditioner is on, but the house is jammed with guests, and waiters and caterers. The sliding doors to the terrace have been open all evening. Gary wanders back outside where he sits down at a wrought-iron table. His head is buzzing, not unpleasantly, and there is a lightness in his legs and arms, also not unpleasant. He watches a sinuous woman work her way through a cluster of people to approach his table with evident purpose.
"I'm Audrey Scanlon," she says, and sits down after pulling a tiny chair very close to his. "You're Gary, aren't you?"
He nods.
"Perhaps you'd like to help us launch our boat Sunday," she says. She does not touch him, but he has the feeling that she is all over him.
"No way," Shar says coolly, suddenly at Gary's side. "He's ours until Monday morning; aren't you, Gary, darling?"
Audrey stands up. "Maybe we'll see you in Grand Bahama," she whispers and now she does touch him. Her hand lingers a moment on his arm, and when she moves away, she doesn't lift it, but lets her fingers trail over his skin very lightly.
"Bitch," Shar says, when she is gone.
"No doubt, they just happen to have this little company that they would love to have recommended to prospective buyers." He sounds bitter even to his ears. Shar pats his arm. Someone calls her and she leaves him.
Soon Veronica returns from the dock; her eyes are shining. "I've been propositioned, I think."
"Scanlon?"
She nods. She looks very happy.
"His wife just did the same with me. They must be fresh in from the swamps."
"Don't make it sound like that," Veronica cries. "Maybe he just found me attractive! Wouldn't it occur to you that someone else might still find me attractive?"
"He wants me to list his company," Gary says. "And he has as much finesse about it as a hippo humping a hippo."
"I wouldn't have done it." Her face twitches and settles into the newly familiar rigid lines. "I wouldn't have done anything," she says woodenly. "Why couldn't you let me have my little fantasy?"
"You should go to bed. You're so tired, you're ready to keel over."
She walks away unsteadily.
Someone falls into the pool; within minutes there are a number of rescuers in the water. After that it seems almost spontaneous, although it never really is, he knows, for others to begin shedding their clothes to jump in. Gary swims naked, as do Shar and Audrey, and a dozen others. All laughing and playing and then huddling in towels and drinking again.
Guests are leaving now, and presently there are only three or four remaining, drinking with Bill, nostalgic about old times, before the islands were bought. Veronica has vanished, possibly to go to bed. Gary takes Shar's hand and leads her to the terrace, beyond it to the velvet lawn where he spreads his towel and hers to make a bed. He lowers her to the ground; she doesn't resist.
Immediately afterward she draws away. "I have to go in," she murmurs. "I can't stay out here." She stands over him; he sits up and puts his arms around her hips, pulls her to him, presses his face into her pubic hair and bites softly. She moans and sways, but then pushes him away. "No more. Not now."
She runs, naked, gleaming in the patio lights briefly, then vanishes into one of the rooms that open to the terrace.
Gary swims again, but he knows he is too drunk to be in the water alone; he climbs out shivering, with exhaustion as much as from the cold. The guest room has an outside door, he remembers; he finds it and goes in to shower and dry himself and dress again. Veronica is not in the room. When he returns to the living room, all the guests are gone. Bill has brought out champagne that he, Veronica, and Shar are drinking.
They drink until dawn flames the sky and then they go to bed. It is eleven when Gary awakens with a pounding headache; Veronica is already up and out.
"Take this," Bill says when he enters the dining room. "Don't ask questions, just drink it." It is a juice drink, heavily spiked with bourbon. For a moment Gary feels his stomach churn, then it settles down again. The drink is very good.
Veronica looks awful; her eyes are red rimmed and bloodshot, sunken in her face. "Why don't you try to sleep some more?" he says, too miserable to care one way or the other.
From the kitchen come sounds of things being banged about. Bill winces. "Caterers' clean-up crew," he says. "Let's go out to the dock until they finish."
"I'll bring the cart," Shar says. "God knows we all need something to eat, and coffee, lots of coffee."