"Barker, Clive - Books of Blood 06" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

The brownstone on East 61st Street was in pristine
condition. He stood on the scrubbed step, sweaty and
sour-breathed, and felt like a slob. The expression on
the face that met him when the door opened did nothing
to dissuade him of that opinion.
'Yes?' it wanted to know.
'I'm Harry D'Amour,' he said. 'I got a call.'
The man nodded. 'You'd better come in,' he said
without enthusiasm.
It was cooler in than out; and sweeter. The place
reeked of perfume. Harry followed the disapproving
face down the hallway and into a large room, on the
other side of which - across an oriental carpet that had
everything woven into its pattern but the price - sat a
widow. She didn't suit black; nor tears. She stood up
and offered her hand.
'Mr D'Amour?'
'Yes.'
'Valentin will get you something to drink if you'd
like.'
'Please. Milk, if you have it.' His belly had been
jittering for the last hour; since her talk of Wyckoff
Street, in fact.
Valentin retired from the room, not taking his beady
eyes off Harry until the last possible moment.
'Somebody died,' said Harry, once the man had
gone.
'That's right,' the widow said, sitting down again.
At her invitation he sat opposite her, amongst enough
cushions to furnish a harem. 'My husband.'
Tm sorry.'
'There's no time to be sorry,' she said, her every look
and gesture betraying her words. He was glad of her

8
grief; the tearstains and the fatigue blemished a beauty
which, had he seen it unimpaired, might have rendered
him dumb with admiration.
'They say that my husband's death was an accident,'
she was saying. 'I know it wasn't.'
'May I ask . . . your name?'
'I'm sorry. My name is Swann, Mr D'Amour.
Dorothea Swann. You may have heard of my husband?'
The magician?'
'Illusionist,' she said.
'I read about it. Tragic.'
'Did you ever see his performance?'
Harry shook his head. 'I can't afford Broadway, Mrs
Swann.'