"Brooks, Terry - Landover 01 - Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brooks Terry)

to an almost cherubic face.

His eyes, perpetually lidded at half-mast, blinked slowly.
"Know what your problem is, Ben?"

"I ought to. You've told me often enough."

Terry Brooks n

' 'Then why don't you listen? Quit spending all of your time
trying to change the things you can't!"

"Miles. . ."

"Annie's death and the way the legal system worksЧyou
can't change those kinds of things, Ben. Not now, not ever.
You're like Don Quixote tilting with windmills! You're ru-
ining your life, do you know that?"

Ben brushed Miles aside with a wave of his hand. "I do
not know that, as a matter of fact. Besides, your equation
doesn't balance. I know that nothing will bring Annie backЧ
I've accepted that. But maybe it's not too late for the legal
systemЧthe system of justice that we used to know, the one
we both went into the practice of law to uphold."

"You ought to listen to yourself sometime," Miles sighed.
"There's nothing wrong with my equation, chief. My equa-
tion is painfully accurate. You have never accepted Annie's
death. You live your life in a goddamned shell, because you
won't accept what's happenedЧas if living like that is some-
how going to change things! I'm your friend, BenЧmaybe
the only one you've got left. That's why I can talk to you
like thisЧbecause you can't afford to lose me!"

The big man leaned forward. "And all of this crap about
the way things used to be in the practice of law sounds like
my father telling me how he used to walk five miles through
the snow to get to school. What am I supposed to doЧsell
my car and walk to work from Barrington? You can't turn
back the clock, no matter how much you might like to. You
have to accept things as you find them."

Ben let Miles finish without interruption. Miles was right
about one thingЧonly he could talk to him like this, and it
was because he was his best friend. But Miles had always
approached life differently than he, always preferring to
blend in with his surroundings rather than to shape them,
always preferring to make do. He just didn't understand that
there were some things in life a man simply should not