"Ball, Margaret - Shadow Gate, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ball Margaret)

And there was no need to go back into the Spiritual Fantasy Bookstore for another look at that picture. In fact, considering how upsetting it had been last time, Lisa told herself, she was better off not ever looking at it again. Maybe Mahluli was right; it was like a drug to her, and the effects were getting worse even as it grew more addictive. Certainly the dry-mouthed craving she felt whenever she thought of going into the bookstore was like withdrawal symptoms, or what Lisa imagined withdrawal symptoms must feel like.
She took one more deep, calming breath and put her hand on the telephone again, then hurriedly snatched it back at the sound of a heavy step on the front porch. Even before he opened the door, Lisa knew who it was: Clifford J. Worthington Simmons. The Third.
He was alone, though. What about the lawyer? Lisa wondered, and thanked her good luck that she hadn't been on the phone when Clifford walked in. Before he was through the door, she had closed her notebook and slid it into the top desk drawer in one easy, unobtrusive motion.
"Ah, Lizzie." He was beaming; he leaned across die desk and shook her hand, pumping up and down and holding on fractionally too long.
Very friendly. His lawyer must have advised him not to antagonize us until the deal goes through.
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Fine. Let's statt until Judith's brother gets here to tell us what our options are,
"Good morning, Mr. Simmons," Lisa said in her best neutral-pleasant-receptionist manner. "What can I do for you today?"
"Oh, nothing in particular." Clifford hitched himself up on the corner of the desk; it gave a warning creak and he hastily abandoned his casual pose. "I just thought it might be a good idea to drop in, gab a bit, touch base with everybody here. I'd like to get to know all the folks on my team a little better, make sure we're all going to pull together to make this outfit a winner. Since you're not doing anything, we might as well start now." He leaned over the desk again, this time taking both her hands and directing an intense stare. "I want to know all about you, LizzieЧwho you are, where you're coming from, what you do here. I could tell, yesterday, that you're the grease on the wheels that makes this outfit keep spinning around smoothly. Now I want to know the real Lizzie, the girl behind that competent mask."
Lisa could not withdraw her hands from his damp grasp without fighting him. "To begin with," she said, "my name is Lisa, not Lizzie."
"AhЧright Well, can't blame me for a little mistake, can you? Especially since I haven't seen your resume yet. In feet, I haven't seen anybody's paperwork Why don't you get it out for me now and I'll just have a little glance over the papers, get filled in on your background and all that?'
"I'm sorry, Mr. Simmons. All the papers you want are in that desk drawer. Remember? The one that's stuck."
"Oh. Well. You'll just have to fill me in as we go along, then, won't you? And how about getting a locksmith out to work on that drawer?" Clifford's warm, friendly smile was getting a little crinkled around the edges. "You know, LizzieЧLisaЧnot to
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criticize, I know I'm very much the new boy on the block around here, but it does seem to me you might have gotten on that little detail yesterday. A good team player does what's needed without waiting to be asked." Another of the deep, intense, penetrating looks. "You are a team player, aren't you, Lisa?"
Lisa dropped her eyes and hated herself for doing so. Clifford's unblinking stare made her feel undressed Чno, worse; as though he were trying to read her innermost secrets. Come on, honey, why would the man care about your innermost secrets? Lisa could almost hear how Ginevra would laugh at her and dispense a little spiritual advice in her Texas twang. He's got his own karma to work through, just like all of us. You stay centered and don't let the bastard get you down,
"You know, Lisa, I can sense things about people," Clifford announced.
"You can?" Lisa stared at the man's clasped hands. Big strong fingers dusted with dark hairs, one knuckle broken at some time, ostentatious gold ring set with an opalЧthat was strange, she would have expected a diamond. A large one.
"And right now I can sense that you are a deeply troubled young woman, with no understanding of your own place in the universe. You are far from home, aren't you, Lisa? Very, very far from home. And you've been lonely for such a long time. I can help you."
If she didn't look at the man, his warm, slow voice was actually rather soothing. "Just rest for a minute, Lisa, rest and look at the pretty ring. That's right..." Cliffs voice faded, then came back stronger than before. "Look here, this is pretty too. This is what you wanted, isn't it?"
Lisa nodded slowly. She felt as if she were slipping into the lazy, sun-warmed waves of the Guff coast, rocking back and forth. The twisting, flashing blue
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and green lights of Clifford's opal ring were like water, like the oceanЧno, cool, like a forest stream with green trees shading it and an arch of ancient gray stones framing it. If she put out her hand she would feel the sunlight on her skin; if she walked through that arch, she could wade in the little stream and drink the water. Cool and fresh and tingling against her throatЧLisa could almost taste it now. Cliflbrd's voice was a droning buzz far away at the back of her head; nothing was real now except the thirst she felt for the water of that little stream.
"Why, Mister Simmons, I declare, what a pleasure to see you here again I"
The picture disappeared in a thunderclap and Lisa cried out in pain. The light of another world danced briefly around inside her head, shattered in a shower of bright rainbow shards and disappeared, leaving her in a tiny room too full of people. Clifford Simmons had forgotten her and was reaching out for the book that Judith had snapped shut and taken away from him in one brisk movement.
"Give that back!"
"Why?" Judith looked too innocent to be real. "I recognize this book; it's from Mahluli's stock. And it's quite valuable. I'm sure you and Lisa enjoyed looking at the pretty pictures, but I really don't think you ought to take rare books out of the shop without Mahluli's permission, do you?" She whisked through the bead curtains before the bookshop room and was back in a minute, patting her heavy briefcase and looking meaningfully at Lisa. "And I'm going to have to borrow Lisa for a little while; she promised to help me enter this data into the computer, and I can't do any more work until she's finished the data entry phase."
Lisa rather thought Clifford Simmons began to protest, but Judith just kept talking over his burbles while she took Lisa by the arm and urged her out of
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the room. "You know how it is with software,'J she called back over her shoulder, "you have to have some test inputs to validate the algorithms before you can formalize the alphanumerical verification routines for the security setsЧand I'm sure you, as a businessman, know how important that is!"
The hall door closed behind them with a satisfying thud and Judith gave a little sigh of relief. "Horrible man. I hope we can foil him tonightЧgoodness, what an old-fashioned word, but he is rather an old-fashioned villain, isn't he? I want to see him twirl his mustache and groan, 'Curses, foiled again!' when we block his purchase of the Center. Ginevra?" she called at the door to the Crystal Reading Room. "That Simmons man is snooping around in the reception area, and I need Lisa. Could you possibly go out there and keep an eye on him? Maybe you could give him a free crystal reading to keep him busy?"
"My pleasure," said Ginevra with a grim smile.
As they continued back to the little room that Judith had commandeered for her computer work, she kept up her cheerful babble. "I realize you still have to call a bunch of people for the meeting tonight, but you can't very well do that while dear Clifford is hovering over your desk, can you? We'll just have to wait until he gets bored and goes away. Oh, and did you call anybody on the Texas Historical Landmarks committee? I should think this house is easily old enough and elegant enough to get landmark status, and if Clifford wants it so he can tear it down for condominiums, that'll put a spoke in his wheel. Of course it takes months, but maybe we can get a restraining order or somethingЧNick will know how to do that, lawyers are real good at slowing things down, have you noticed? Here, take the chair, you look kind of shaky."
Lisa thankfully sank down on the gray swivel stool before the computer and stared at the blank screen
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before her while Judith took a seat on a box of printouts. "What exactly did you want me to do?" she asked. "I'm afraid I couldn't understand what you were telling Mr. Simmons."
"Nobody on this earth could have," said Judith with the impish grin that made her look thirteen instead of nearly thirty, "it was cybercrud. GIGO. Nonsense," she translated finally as Lisa only looked more confused. "Don't you know anything about the real world? I thought everybody had to learn about computers in school these days. Don't worry, Lisa, I don't want you to do anything. I just don't approve of sexual harassment, so I thought I'd break up the scene before Clifford did something you'd have to sue him over. What was he doing, trying to get you to go out with him? Or did he just want to sneak a kiss behind the water cooler?"
"Oh." Lisa's memories of the scene were rather confused. "Was that what he was trying to do?"
"Sure looked like it when I came in,*' Judith said cheerfully. "And he tried to back me into a dark corner yesterday, with some line about being able to sense that I was confused and didn't know where my home was, or some such gobbledegook. Hahl / know perfectly well where I live, and I'm not about to tell him; he'll have to think of some better line than that. And he's got to keep his paws off Mahluli's stock, too, or Nick will sue him for everything he's got when we're through with this other little problem."
Lisa spun around to face Judith and nearly fell off the stool. "The Kay Nielsen book! I don't know how he got itЧI thought I was watching him the whole time, honestlyЧ"
"Don't feel bad," Judith said. "Dear Cliff was probably a pickpocket before he became a real estate developer. Natural affinity, don't you think?"
"But we left him alone in there, hell go backЧ maybe he wants to steal itЧ"
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"Ginevra's watching, remember? And the book's in here." Judith carefully lifted the old book out of her briefcase, dislodging a sheaf of green-striped computer printout as she did so.
Lisa felt weak-kneed with relief. The thought of losing the Nielsen book had frightened her beyond all reason. It wasn't just the probable cost of a rare first edition; Mahluli could be repaid in time. But never to see it againЧthat would be a wrenching loss. Someday, she supposed, it would be sold, but she had managed not to think about that.
"It is a nice book, isn't it?" Judith mused, idly flipping through the pages. "Ordinarily I don't care much about rare books and all thatЧI'd rather have a paperback that I can stick in my hip pocket and read without worrying about cracking the spineЧbut this, oh, I don't know, it feels different. Maybe it's that old binding. Just makes you want to hold it. And the pictures are ..."
Her voice trailed off as she stared down at the blue and green forest scene, Lisa's favorite of the many illustrations.