"Cook, Glen - Garrett Files 11 - Whispering Nickel Idols" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

WHISPERING NICKEL IDOLS

A GARRETT, P.I. NOVEL

By

GLEN COOK
This one is for my mom, who was a rock in a turbulent stream.

With thanks to Jim K. and Ellen W.

1

There I was, galumphing downstairs, six feet three of the
handsomest, ever-loving blue-eyed ex-Marine youТd ever want to
meet. Whistling. But it takes me a big, big bucket to carry a tune.
And my bucket had a hole in it.

Something was wrong. I needed my head examined. IТd gone to
bed early, all by my own self. And hadnТt had a dram to drink
before I did. Yet this morning I was ready to break into a song and
dance routine.

I felt so good that I forgot to be suspicious.

I canТt forget, ever, that the gods have chosen me, sweet baby
Garrett, to be their special holy fool and point man in their lunatic
entertainments.

I froze on the brink of my traditional morning right turn to the
kitchen.

There was a boy in the hallway that runs from my front door back to
my kitchen. He was raggedy with reddish ginger hair all tangled, a
kid who was his own barber. And his barber was half blind and
used a dull butcher knife. There were smudges on the boyТs
cheeks. He stood just over five feet tall. I made him about twelve,
or maybe a puny thirteen. His tailor was a walleyed ragpicker. I
assumed he had a pungent personal aura, but wasnТt close enough
to experience it.

Was he deaf? HeТd missed the racket IТd made coming down. Of
course, he had his nose stuck in the Dead ManТs room. That view
can be overwhelming, first time. My partner is a quarter ton of dead
gray flesh resembling the illegitimate offspring of a human father
and pachydermous mother, vaguely. In the nightmare of some
opium-bemused, drunken artist.

УMakes you want to jump in his lap and snuggle up, donТt he?Ф