"Coldheart Canyon (preview edition)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive - Coldheart Canyon)

perfection, she threw the sort of parties for the other idols of Hollywoodєthe vamps
and the clowns and the adventurersєwhich would have horrified her fans had they
known what was going on. Which Katya Lupi was the real one? The weeping child who
was the idol of millions, or the Scarlet Woman who was the Mistress of Coldheart
Canyon? The orphan of the storm or the dope-fiend in her lair? Neither? Both?
Zeffer turned these thoughts over as Sandru took him from room to room,
showing him tables and chairs, carpets and paintings; even mantelpieces.
"Does anything catch your eye?" Sandru asked him eventually. "Not really,
Father," Zeffer replied, quite honestly. "I can get carpets as fine as these in
America. I don't need to come out into the wilds of Romania to find work like this."
Sandru nodded. "Yes, of course," he said. He looked a little defeated.
Zeffer took the opportunity to glance at his watch. "Perhaps I should be getting
back to Katya," he said. In fact, the prospect of returning to the village and
sitting in the little house where Katya had been born, there to be plied with thick
coffee and sickeningly sweet cake, while Katya's relatives came by to stare at (and
touch, as if in disbelief) their American visitors, did not enthrall him at all. But
this visit with Father Sandru was becoming increasingly futile, and now that the
Father had made his mercenary ambitions so plain, not a little embarrassing. There
wasn't anything here that Zeffer could imagine transporting back to Los Angeles.
He reached into his coat to take out his wallet, intending to give the
Father a hundred dollars for his troubles. But before he could produce the note, the
Father's expression changed to one of profound seriousness.
"Wait," he said. "Before you dismiss me let me say this: I believe we
understand one another. You are looking to buy something you could find in no other
place. Something that's one of a kind, yes? And I am looking to make a sale."
"So is there something here you haven't shown me?" Zeffer said. "Something
special?"
Sandru nodded. "There are some parts of the Fortress I have not shared with
you," he said. "And with good reason, let me say. You see there are people who
should not see what I have to show. But I think I understand you now, Mister Zeffer.
You are a man of the world."
"You make it all sound very mysterious," Zeffer said.
"I don't know if it's mysterious," the priest said. "It is sad, I think, and
human. You see, Duke Goga the man who built this Fortressєwas not a good soul. The
stories your Katya said she had been told as a childє"
"Were true?"
"In a manner of speaking. Goga was a great hunter. But he did not always
limit his quarry to animals."
"Good God. So she was right to be afraid."
"The truth is, we are all a little afraid of what happened here," Sandru
replied, "Because we are none of us certain of the truth. All we can do, young and
old, is say our prayers, and put our souls into God's care when we're in this
place."
Zeffer was intrigued now.
"Tell me then," he said to Sandru. "I want to know what went on in this
place."
"Believe me please when I tell you I would not know where to begin," the
good man replied. "I do not have the words."
"Truly?"
"Truly."