"Brookmyre, Christopher - Not the End of the World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brookmyre Christopher)

Pedro stepped across on to the Gazes Also, an iron hook in his right hand. Joey took a step forward, called 'Hello?' again, and began slowly descending the stairs to the galley.
He was bracing himself for every grisly discovery he could imagine, every last
B-movie scenario and old salt's late-night tale, but what he found below decks was far more disturbing than any horror he could have anticipated.
He found nothing.
No-one. Dead or alive.
No-one.
They moved tentatively through the boat, fearfully pushing open every door. The cabins looked occupied. There were clothes in the foot-lockers, rumpled sheets on the bunks, Coke cans and candy wrappers in the trash-baskets.
Just no people.
Joey looked at Pedro, who was sighing slowly through pursed lips.
Neither of them said anything. Neither of them had to.
Joey turned back and began heading for the decks again. That was when he noticed. On the way in he had just been looking for people, not paying close attention to his surroundings.
'Jesus,' he said, and stopped dead in the galley.
On the table there were four mugs with cold coffee in them, an empty brandy bottle and some plastic tumblers containing the last shares of its contents. There were dinner plates in the sink, cutlery too, in water that was cloudy with detergent. There was a greasy frying pan and two empty pots on the hob. There was a CD/cassette player on the worktop, the power still on and the LCD readout indicating a disc in the tray. There were butts in the ashtrays, breadcrumbs on the chopping board.
'It's the goddamn Mari Celeste,' Pedro said.
Joey said nothing, just walked unsteadily back up the

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steps and on to the sun-soaked deck. He looked around himself. Apart from his own boat there was nothing but blue as far as the eye could see, and the Mermaid's Kiss itself hadn't encountered another ship in three days. There was no suggestion of anything amiss on the boat, and there was absolutely nowhere anyone could have gone.
The crew of the Gazes Also had eaten Sunday dinner and then simply disappeared.
'You okay there, skip?' Pedro enquired.
Still he said nothing.
Then; for the first time in his life, joey Murphy, whose stomach had survived twenty-eight years of the Pacific and twenty-five of his wife's chilli, leaned over the side of the boat and provided Davy Jones with a generous share of his lunch.

7

one.

'Don't sweat it, Larry, it's a walk in the park.'
Oh, gee, thanks, Larry thought. He was sure it had the potential to be a walk in the park and a precedent for being a walk in the park, but now that Bannon had gone and said that, he figured he'd better be on the lookout for gang wars, serial killers, King Kong and Godzilla.
Not that Larry wasn't on the lookout for all of the above anyway, these days, although not for the same reasons as everybody else in this screwed-up town.
'Just as long as I ain't goin' down there to hear any Chamber of Commerce requests to lay off bustin' the delegates for coke on account of the valuable trade they're bringin' into Santa M.'
Bannon laughed, shaking his head. Larry figured if the captain had known him a bit longer he'd have placed a daddy-knows-best hand on his shoulder, too.
'Larry, for the most part, this is the shitcan end of the movie business. European art-faggots, Taiwanese kung-fu merchants and LA independents workin' out of fortieth-floor broom closets in mid-Wilshire. Unless they clean up at the Pacific Vista these two weeks, they can't afford any coke. Goin' by the budgets of their movies, you're more likely gonna be bustin' them for solvent abuse. There won't be any trouble, I guarantee it.'
Thanks again.
'The movie market moved down here to the coast from the Beverly Center about seven years back, and there's never been a hint of a problem in all that time.'
Yeah, keep it coming, Larry thought. You've just about got it thoroughly hexed for me now.
'These guys, they come here from all over the US and all around the world,' Bannon explained. 'They show each other their shitty movies, they press flesh, they schmooze, and if

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they're lucky, they do some deals. Close of business they hit the seafood restaurants, throw ass-kissing parties to impress each other, try and get laid, then it's back to their hotels and up at eight to start over. I did your job the first three years. No trick to it. It's a figurehead deal. In their minds you're kind of the LAPD's corporate representative, someone who'll show his face every so often, smile a lot, and tell them nothing of any substance if they ask questions.
'All the organisers need to hear is that we're maintaining a high profile, so the visitors ain't too scared of bein' mugged, shot, gang-raped or ritually cannibalised to walk around town. That means more uniformed beat officers in the pedestrian areas, plenty of patrol cars on Ocean Boulevard and along the beach, all that shit. Ironic, really. Our purpose is to reassure them that none of their movies will come true - well, not to them at least.'
Bannon sat back on the edge of his desk. 'Think you can handle that, big guy?' he asked.
'Guess so.'
'You don't look so sure. Would you rather be out with Zabriski today, maybe? Let's see . . .' He thumbed through some notes on his desk. 'Railway worker, laid off last Friday, walks into the AmTrak offices on Third at eight thirty this morning and deposits a black polythene sack in the lobby. It's one of these atrium deals, you know, with like three or four floors looking down on to the concourse. Telephones bomb warning eight thirty-five, detonates at eight forty-two. Sack contained a small but significant amount of explosive, probably basic demolition stuff. Not enough to cause any fatalities, but enough to distribute the contents of the sack approximately sixty feet in every direction, including up. Guy was, how'd they put it? a "samtahon engineer". Some of that stuff must have come all the way from Frisco before he syphoned it out the train. Four floors, Larry.'
'I'll just be getting down to the Pacific Vista, Captain. Got someone to talk to about this American Feature Film Market thing.'
Attaboy.'
It wasn't paranoia, Larry knew. It was plain old insecurity. He'd have been suspicious of being given this AFFM 'liaison'