"Barker, Clive - The Great and Secret Show v1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive)

"When?"
"This morning."
"Where?"
"Palomo Grove. You know it?"
"It's a name on a freeway sign."
"They're trying to dig him out. It's noon now. How long before you can get there?"
"An hour. Maybe ninety minutes. What's the big interest?"
"You're too young to remember The Buddy Vance Show."
"I caught the reruns."
"Let me tell you something, Nathan my boyЧ" Of all Abernethy's modes Grillo hated the avuncular most. "Чthere was a time The Buddy Vance Show emptied the bars. He was a great man and a great American."
"So you want a sob piece?"
"Shit, no. I want the news on his wives, the alcohol, and how come he ended up in Ventura County when he used to swan around Burbank in a limo three fucking blocks long."
"The dirt, in other words."
"There were drugs involved, Nathan," Abernethy said. Grillo could picture the look of mock-sincerity on the man's face. "And our readers need to know."
"They want the dirt, and so do you," Grillo said.
"So sue me," Abernethy said. "Just get your ass out there."
"So we don't even know where he is? Suppose he just took off somewhere?"
"Oh they know where he is," Abernethy said. "They're trying to bring the body up in the next few hours."
"Bring it up? You mean he drowned?"
"I mean he fell down a hole."
Comedians, Grillo thought. Anything for a laugh.
Except that it wasn't funny. When he'd first joined Abernethy's happy band, after the debacle in Boston, it had been a vacation from the heavy-duty investigative journalism in which he'd made his name, and at which, finally, he'd been
Out-maneuvered. The notion of working for a small-circulation scandal sheet like the County Reporter had seemed light relief. Abernethy was a hypocritical buffoon, a born-again Christian to whom forgiveness was a four-letter word. The stories he told Grillo to cover were easy in the gathering and easier still in the telling, given that the Reporter's readers liked their news to perform one function only: the ameliorating of envy. They wanted tales of pain among the high rollers; the flipside of fame. Abernethy knew his congregation well. He'd even brought his biography into the act, making much in his editorials of his conversion from alcoholic to Fundamentalist. Dry and High on the Lord, was how he liked to describe himself. This holy sanction allowed him to peddle the muck he edited with a beatific smile, and allowed his readers to wallow in it without guilt. They were reading stories of the wages of sin. What could be more Christian? For Grillo the joke had long since soured. If he'd thought of telling Abernethy to fuck off once he'd thought of it a hundred times, but where was he going to get a job, hotshot reporter turned dupe that he was, except with a small operation like the Reporter? He'd contemplated other professions, but he had neither the desire nor aptitude to pursue any other. He had wanted to report the world to itself for as long as he could remember. There was something essential about that function. He could imagine himself performing no other. The world knew itself indifferently well. It needed people to tell it the story of its life, daily, or else how could it learn by its mistakes? He had been making headlines of one such mistakeЧan act of corruption in the SenateЧwhen he discovered (his gut still turned, recalling that moment) that he had been set up by his target's opponents, his position as press prosecutor used to besmirch innocent parties. He had apologized, grovelled and resigned. The matter had been forgotten quickly, as a fresh slew of headlines replaced those that he'd created. Politicians, like scorpions and cockroaches, would be there when the warheads had levelled civilization. But journalists were frail. One miscalculation and their credibility was dust. He had fled West until he met the Pacific. He'd considered throwing himself in, but had instead chosen to work for Abernethy. More and more that seemed like an error.
Look on the bright side, he told himself every day, there's no direction from here but up.
The Grove surprised him. It had all the distinguishing marks of a town created on paperЧthe central Mall, the cardinal point villages, the sheer order of the streetsЧbut there was a welcome diversity in the styles of the houses, andЧperhaps because it was in part built on a hillЧa sense that it might have secret reaches.
If the woods had any secrets of their own, they'd been trampled down by the sightseers who'd come to see the exhumation. Grillo flashed his credentials and asked a few questions of one of the cops at the barrier. No, there was no likelihood that the corpse would be raised soon; it had yet to be located. Nor could Grillo speak with any of those in charge of the operation. Come back later, was the suggestion. It looked like good advice. There was very little activity around the fissure. Despite there being tackle of various kinds on the ground nobody seemed to be putting it to use. He decided to risk leaving the scene to make a few calls. He found his way to the Mall and to a public telephone. His first call was to Abernethy, to report that he'd arrived and to enquire whether a photographer had been sent down. Abernethy was away from his desk. Grillo left a message. He had more luck with his second call. The answering machine began playing its familiar messageЧ
"Hi. This is Tesla and Butch. If you want to speak to the dog, I'm out. If it's Butch you needЧ" only to be interrupted by Tesla.
"Hello?"
"It's Grillo."
"Grillo? Shut the fuck up, Butch! Sorry, Grillo, he's trying toЧ" the phone was dropped, and there was a good deal of commotion, followed by Tesla's breathless return to the receiver. "That animal. Why did I take him, Grillo?"
"He was the only male who'd live with you."
"Fuck you."
"Your words."
"I said that?"
"You said that."
"Out of my mind! I got good news, Grillo. I got a development deal for one of the screenplays. That castaway picture I wrote last year? They want it rewritten. In space."
"You're going to do it?"
"Why not? I need something produced. Nobody's going to do any of the heavy-duty stuff till I have a hit. So fuck Art, I'm going to be so crass they'll be coming in their pants. And before you say it, don't give me any of that artistic integrity shit. A girl's got to feed herself."
"I know, I know."
"So," she said, "what's new?"
There were a lot of answers to that: a litany. He could tell her about how his hairdresser, with a palmful of straw-blond clippings, had smilingly informed Grillo that he had a bald patch at his crown. Or how this morning, meeting himself in the mirror, he'd decided his long, anemic features, which he'd always hoped would mature into an heroic melancholia, were simply looking doleful. Or that he kept having those damn elevator dreams, trapped between floors with Abernethy and a goat Abernethy kept wanting Grillo to kiss. But he kept the biography to himself; and just said:
"I need help."
"It figures."
"What do you know about Buddy Vance?"
"He's down a hole. It's been on the TV."
"What's his life-story?"
"This is for Abernethy, right?"
"Right."
"So it's just the dirt."
"Got it in one."