"Pashazade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grimwood Jon Courtenay)

Chapter Eight 29th June

'I don't usually ...'

The boy with the cats-eye contacts nodded like he understood and Zara took a good look and realized that he did. Which was just as well, because someone had to understand that she had her reasons for not wanting to be back.

'Where are we going ... ?'

She knew the answer to that because he'd already told her, but asking again was easier than trying to remember, particularly as remembering might bring back something best forgotten.

'My place,' said the boy.

Her answering smile was wry, almost ironic. There were a dozen reasons why this was an extremely bad idea,

'Okay,' said Zara and climbed onto the waiting tram.

Where?

The elderly woman who stumbled into ZeeZee from behind when he suddenly stopped dead took one look at the foreigner's scowling face and decided to keep walking, in another direction. Not that ZeeZee even noticed: he was too busy stripping down his memory, deleting taste, smell and extraneous movement to find a simple primary colour.

There.

It took ZeeZee a split second to reassure himself that the people on tram weren't staring at him because he was dripping blood (he'd already sealed the knife cut with surgical glue from his complimentary Pan American medical kit before taping his ribs with skin from the all-night pharmacist). And it wasn't his suit that worried the people on the green tram, even though most of the other men wore flowing jellabas. It was his beard and dreadlocks. Or maybe it was the shades.

Too bad.

And yes, once they'd been a trademark of his but that had been by accident — and besides, it had been in another country. He wore shades from necessity because without them his eyes swallowed too much light. Just one of the little childhood modifications for which he had his mother's friends to thank.

Lately he'd taken to wearing polarized contacts but his supply was back at Huntsville along with his stash of crystalMeth and the rest of his life. Except it wasn't just life he'd been doing at Hunstville, it had been all day and all night, life with no option of parole. Which was still a pretty good result, given the district attorney had been going for throwing the big red switch.

'Excuse me.' ZeeZee stepped carefully across some market trader's outstretched boots and slid between two thick-set construction workers in concrete-splashed jellabas.

His brain was headed for what the fox would call a five-car crash and he needed that seat. Besides, that was where the girl sat, the girl he'd seen hesitate, then get on a green tram. The one whose sadness was flash-frozen to the inside of his eyes like lightning.

Though maybe that was just the meth.

ZeeZee knew immediately why his seat had been left free when the tram braked suddenly and the girl shot forward, straight into him. No amount of cologne could hide the reek of alcohol.

'I'm sorry,' said the boy beside her. He half stood, then sank back into his seat and turned away with the embarrassment of the still-young. Fourteen, thought ZeeZee, fifteen at the most. Silver hair, gold tear, lazer tattoo. Not as hard as he wanted to be.

Politely, ZeeZee put one hand on each of the girl's shoulders and pushed her back into her seat. The slightest of nods was all he got by way of acknowledgement. And it was obvious that she didn't trust herself to speak. As if sitting very still could hide the fact that she was too drunk to stand. A birthday or leaving do, ZeeZee decided, noting the card clutched loosely in her fingers and the bunch of orchids wilting on her lap.

Birthday parties gave good access. He'd used them back in Seattle. People's guards came down, making it easy to get close. Much closer than they mostly wanted: but then that was ZeeZee's speciality, getting close to targets who spent time and money keeping people like him at arm's length.

Style was a key factor and ZeeZee could do style. Looking right got you through doors that remained closed to others. Neatness, youth and an ability to blend. There'd been few places he couldn't enter if needs must ... There was even a name for it. Negative capability ...

ZeeZee smiled.

He was still smiling when the girl hunched forward and dribbled vomit from her mouth onto the tram floor between his shoes. She didn't do anything as vulgar as actually throw up, she just let the alcohol make its own return trip.

'Sorry.' That was the boy again.

ZeeZee shrugged. 'It happens.'

At Rue Sherif, ZeeZee pushed himself up off his seat and paused. He needed to know who she was, but he also needed to get off at this stop. Most of all, he wanted to tell the boy not to worry. But anything he said would have drawn attention to the girl's plight, so ZeeZee just nodded and kept going. He'd been those people, both of them. Just not for a long time.