"Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Claire Moffatt 02 - The Inheritor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

"Nothing wrong with breathing," Leslie said, "Everybody does it twenty-four hours a day."
"Only this wasn't just breathing. Whoever it was, was doing it on purposeЧoh, damn it, that's not what I mean either. I didn't get the idea this was the kind of call you'd call a heavy breather. Not a sex call. I wasn't even sure it was a man. It feltЧ" again Emily hesitated, choosing her words, "It sounded sinister. Kind of, well, menacing. I got really bad vibrations."
"It sounds as if it might have been the same person," said Leslie, thinking over the texture of the call. It was someone more seriously disturbed than any of her clients. She was a therapist, not a medical doctor or a psychiatrist; her clients suffered from commonplace neurotic problems, from the pressures and stresses of society or jobs, marriage troubles, inability to adjust to school or parental expectations.
And even a psychiatrist could do little, Leslie thought; against the more grievous wounds to the human mind and spirit. One of her clients, Susan Hamilton, was the single parent of a brain-damaged child; at seven, Christina could not or would not speak, and was just beginning toilet training. There were a handful of labels for her; brain damaged, autistic, learning disabled, emotionally neglected, retarded. Labels, but no help. Speech therapists and special education programs could do little more for Chrissy than to train her as they would train a dog, make her somewhat less offensive to social sensibilities. Leslie could do nothing for Christina, and little for her mother except to allow her to vent her enormous rage at a blind and uncaring universe which dropped this enormous burden on her, which had destroyed her marriage and now would probably destroy her.
"No, none of my clients is seriously disturbed," she agreed, then thinking of Eileen Grantson, was not so sure. "Did they ask for me by name?"
"No, no name, no words at all. It was awful, Les, it didn't even sound human. Like a lost soul crying from purgatory."
Yes. That was exactly what it sounded like. But tonight Leslie didn't want to think about lost souls. Not with Juanita Garcia's face still before her eyes, haunting her, not after the sight of that ashtray flying across the room, Eileen's forehead bleeding, she wanted to be nice and rational. Man, she remembered one of her professors saying, is not a rational animal, but a rationalizing animal.
Emily frowned, bending her head close to the keyboard.
"I ought to have been a violinist, so I could tune my own instrument. Listen, Les, maybe I ought to study piano tuning. I do have perfect pitch, and it's awfully well paid. The conservatory is so damned expensive. If I could earn some money it would be easier on you, tooЧ"
"We'll manage, honey. Just be patient. Believe me, I know what it's like, when I was in college I had five dollars a week and my bus fare, and I couldn't tell you how many times I walked home four miles to save the bus fare! It just about kept me in toothpaste and tampax. And speaking of toothpaste and tampax, I wish sometimes you'd get your own instead of cadging mine all the time!" Behind her words, she realized what she was doing; ordinary sisterly squabbles to lighten the memory of that ashtray flying across the room. She heard steps on the porch.
"There's Joel now. Have a good supper, Em; I'll be home before midnight, I supposeЧ"
"Unless Prince Charming carries you off for the night," Emily suggested, and Leslie shook her head.
"Early appointment tomorrow."
"Take your keys," Emily said, "I'm going to be out late; I'm babysitting the Simmons brat, and I do mean brat. That's why I think piano tuning would be easier. Even on the ears."
Leslie checked her purse for keys. "Be sure to lock the deadbolt, then," she admonished, and went to let Joel in.
CHAPTER TWO
The food was good, crisp salad rich with feta cheese, minced chicken spiced with cinnamon and cardamom, stuffed with raisins and wrapped in delicate layers of pastry. Joel, handsome and exuberant, ordered a bottle of good wine, and prepared to tell her all about the Hanrahan case. Leslie, who was always on the alert and eager for clues about a patient's mental state in her own work, loved hearing Joel talk about his work.
"Hanrahan:Чthat was indecent exposure, wasn't it?" she asked. "Was it a frameup?" Men who exposed themselves rarely went on to serious crimesЧthey were at the opposite end of the spectrum from a Joachim MendozaЧ but they were, invariably, deeply disturbed.
"Hell, no, this one was really stupid," Joel said, stuffing a morsel of fragrant chicken into his mouth, trying to speak; then laughed and finished chewing. At last he said "Remember the rock concert last year? No, you were still in Sacramento, weren't you? Okay, well, you know what goes on at those things; kids necking, making out, petting, all the way up to screwing under those blankets they carry. You've seen it."
Leslie had. She thought it tasteless, but then she had always lived where she had abundant privacy.
"SoЧ?"
"So Hanrahan's gay. And he and the man he's lived with for nine yearsЧthey're partners in a little bookstore up on CastroЧwere watching all the kids, and it made them feel romantic. So they were holding hands. Hands, for Godsake, and some old lady complained and some redneck cop arrested them for L-and-LЧlewd and lascivious behavior." He grabbed his wine, swallowed and half choked in his indignation.
"Joel, they must have been doing something more than just holding hands, to get arrested!"
"That's what I thought. But the old lady who brought the complaint had actually taken a Polaroid snapshot of the 'disgusting' behavior," Joel said, "I saw the picture, Les. Ron was holding Joe's hand, and Joe had his head on Ron's shoulder. Real dirty stuff! For Godsake, Les, I'm not queer and I haven't got a lot of sympathy for the kind of guys who hang out in the bars, not to mention that I can't imagine why a guy would want to make it with a guy when there are all these gorgeous women in the world:Ч" he put down his fork and smiled at her tenderly, "but arrested, for that, with all that was going on around them?"
"I don't understand it either. What could possiblyЧХ?"
"Supposedly, according to the old lady and the redneck cop, they were scandalizing the young people around themЧ who were all so busy screwing that they wouldn't have noticed it if the President had been getting it off with a donkey on the bandshell! Anyhow, we finally got it thrown out of court. But I felt sorry for Ron. It got into the papers, and Joe's parents didn't know he was gay."
"Well, I'm glad he didn't have to go to prison, on top of everything else."
"Would have been the county jail; L-and-L is a misdemeanor, not a felony. But it's a crime it was ever brought up. Talk about ridiculous!"
"Well, it's not the only idiotic case of that kind," Leslie said, "A friend of my mother's almost got run in by a policeman for breast feeding her baby in a supermarket.
The kid was hungry and yelling. Of course, that was a long time ago, but Mom told me about it when I was twelve."
"Well, I can think of better places to breast feed a kid," Joel said, "I hope when you start in on ours you stick to the home grounds, honey." Leslie blushed and smiled at him as he forked salad into his mouth. "Or you could try hiding out in our car, There was a case last yearЧguy drove through the tollgate on the Bay Bridge stark naked. Judge threw the case out, saying a man's car was like his homeЧhe was entitled to dress, or not dress, any way he wanted to, in his own car. That's the law."
"Lex dura; lex est," Leslie quoted with a chuckle, and he said "I like the other old saying better; the law is an ass."
"What a saying for an up-and-coming lawyer, darling!" she teased.
"And who's in a better position to know?" he countered.
"The old ladies who complain," Leslie said, "are really worse off than the people they try and persecute. And we are making progress. At least, your friend Hanrahan didn't go to jail. Suppose he'd had a judge who felt his own sexuality threatened by two men holding hands?"
"I don't like to think about it," said Joel soberly then, by an effort of will, brightened. "Just the same, it all has its funny side. Nick told me a crazy one when we were on the phone. Seems he got called out on a complaint where one of those same old ladies said a man on their block was running around naked inside his apartment. So Nick went to check out this would-be Hottentot totЧ''
Leslie leaned back and listened, remembering Nick Beckenham. He had, after all, introduced them; when the scandal had fully broken, and Leslie had moved to the Bay Area, he had driven her down in a rented truck, called Joel to help unload it, and suggested that Joel take Leslie out to dinner. He had probably expected the same brotherly relation that he himself had with Leslie, not a conflagration.
Maybe she had been ready for a new man to match her new life. Old enough to be settling down, her mother had said; Leslie was twenty-nine, by her mother's standards almost an old maid. Mother would have approved of the rising young lawyer even more than of his policeman brother. Though, no doubt, she would have disapproved of his defense of a "scandalous" cause like Ronald Hanrahan's arrest.
"Е so the man said 'Madam, will you please show me where you observed me naked in this apartment?' and of course the old biddy couldn't have seen anything at all unless she had her nose pressed right up to his window! So he turned around and pressed charges against her for window peeping!"
Leslie laughed heartily, but through the laughter she saw that Joel was looking at her seriously.
"You do look tired, Les. Rough day?"
"Very." And wouldn't he stare in amazement if she told him about the poltergeist. Was it going to cause trouble between them, some day, that he could share these stories of his work, while she could say nothing about her own? Some day they must talk about that. When they were together, they were having too good a time to discuss shared feelings; yet some day, certainly if he was thinking about marriage and children, they must.
"But I'm back to square one on the house hunting, Joel. It was too small for an office on the premises, and Emily's piano. So I have to start all over again."
"You know how I feel about that," he said forthrightly, "I've never made any secret of it. If you were hunting for a house for the two of us, instead of one for yourself, it would be different."
Her heart sank. So it was going to be a confrontation. It was her own fault; she shouldn't have mentioned the house hunting, not tonight. But they couldn't go on avoiding the subject.
"The two of us, as you put it, aren't ready for a house. Am I supposed to stick it out in that little rented place, until you're ready to get married?"
He fussed with the wine, pouring another glass. "You really ought to have some more," he said, "I don't want to drink this all by myself." A smile strayed around the laugh lines at his long jaw. "You really want to be responsible for my being hauled in on drunk-and-disorderly?"
She watched, loving him. "I'll take responsibility for drunk," she retorted lightly, "but disorderlyЧthat'll be on your own head, love." He was not nearly as tall as Nick, who topped six feet. When she hugged Joel, their bodies fit perfectly, cheek to cheek.
Our bodies fit too perfectly. That's why we never get to talk about serious things.
He said, sipping from the glass, "Leslie, listen to me. I'll marry you now, if you're really using this house thing to put the pressure on. I still think we ought to wait, but if it would make you happyЧ"