"Bowes-ShadowAndGunman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bowes Richard)

careless about putting the revolver back.

Tay noticed. Had I been a few years younger, she might have whipped up some dark
and special tea to snap me out of it. Instead, feeling in need of help, she
leaked word discreetly to her nephew Bob, the lawyer. Bob's wife, Aunt Alice,
had a friend who recommended a shrink. Money was found to send me to him twice a
week.

Tuesdays after school and early on Saturdays, I went over to Kenmore Square and
talked to Dr. Charles Petrie, a fat middle-aged guy with nubby sweaters.
Tuesdays, in blazer and loafers, I told him about my school problems.

"The Drama Society, remember, sir, I told you they're doing Shakespeare's Henry
the Fourth, Part One. I told Mr. Royce, the faculty advisor, I wanted to be
Hotspur, a great part, this rebel who stutters when he gets excited." Petrie
nodded like he knew the play. "Yesterday, I found out I'm Poins, who's this
minor accomplice. And he's not even in the last part."

A pause followed until it occurred to Petrie that I had stopped talking. "What,"
another pause, "was your reaction to this?"

"I got real pissed."

"Yes?" He wrote that down. "Go on."

His office was part of a suite with a dozen other analysts. Tuesdays, there was
a receptionist and the place was full of patients: unhappy fat ladies, tense
guys clutching briefcases. The entire building was busy.

Saturdays, the building was quiet and the office empty when I'd come in wearing
black chinos and a warm-up jacket. Petrie and I never talked about my mother or
the gun or what it was I did after leaving the office.

One Saturday I told him, "I'm in this long hallway, a sort of gallery with this
soft kind of light and these middle-aged guys standing there. One of them looks
at me, and says, 'You're twins.'"

The phrase "middle-aged guys" seemed to interest the doctor. He nodded and wrote
that down. "Do you remember any more of your dreams ?" he asked.

I almost never remembered dreams. The week before, a guy called Joe had actually
said that. Looking where he did, I glimpsed a horribly familiar kid giving the
special hard smile I sometimes practiced in mirrors. Then the kid was gone and
Joe shook his head, saying, "Just seeing double."

While I wondered how to explain that, Petrie said, "Time's up, Kevin. See you
Tuesday at three."

Emerging from his office I found the waiting room no longer empty. A patient
with long strawberry blonde hair sat on a couch leafing through a New Yorker.