"Lover At Last" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ward, J.R.)

When he got to the Benloise Art Gallery, he parked in the back, in one of two spaces that were parallel to the building behind the facility. As he stepped free of the SUV, the cold wind swept into his camel-hair coat and he had to hold the two halves together as he crossed the pavement, approaching an industrial-size door.

He didnтАЩt have to knock. Ricardo Benloise had plenty of people working for him, and not all of them were of the art-dealer-associate type: A human male the size of an amusement park opened the way and stood to the side.

тАЬHe expecting you?тАЭ

тАЬNo, he is not.тАЭ

Disneyland nodded. тАЬYou wanna wait in the gallery?тАЭ

тАЬThat would be fine.тАЭ

тАЬYou need a drink?тАЭ

тАЬNo, thank you.тАЭ

As they walked through the office area and into the exhibition space, the deference Assail was now accorded was a new thingтАФearned through both the huge product orders heтАЩd been putting in as well as the spilled blood of countless humans: Thanks to him, suicides among disenfranchised males age eighteen to twenty-nine with criminal drug records had struck an all-time high in the city, making even the national news.

Imagine that.

As newscasters and reporters tried to make sense of the tragedies, he merely continued growing his business by any means necessary. Human minds were awfully suggestible; it required hardly any effort at all to get middlemen drug dealers to train their own guns on their temples and pull those triggers. And in the same way nature abhorred a vacuum, so too did the demands of chemical supplementation.

Assail had the drugs. The addicts had the cash.

The economic system more than survived the forced reorganization.

тАЬIтАЩll head up,тАЭ the man said at a hidden door. тАЬAnd let him know youтАЩre here.тАЭ

тАЬDo take your time.тАЭ

Left to his own devices, Assail strolled around the high-ceilinged, open space, linking his hands and putting them at the small of his back. From time to time, he paused to look at the тАЬartтАЭ that was hung on the walls and partitionsтАФand was reminded why humans should be eradicated, preferably by slow and painful means.

Used paper plates tacked to cheap particleboard and covered with handwritten quotes from TV commercials? A self-portrait done in dentifrice? And equally offensive were the aggrandizing plaques mounted next to the messes declaring this nonsense to be the new wave of American Expressionism.

Such a commentary on the culture in so many ways.

тАЬHeтАЩs ready now.тАЭ

Assail smiled to himself and turned around. тАЬHow accommodating.тАЭ

As he entered through that sneaky door and ascended to the third level, Assail did not fault his supplier for being suspicious and wanting more information on his single largest customer. After all, in the shortest of time, the drug trade in the city had been rerouted, redefined, and captured by a complete unknown.

One could respect the manтАЩs position.

But the digging was going to end here.

At the top of the set of industrial stairs, two other big men stood in front of another door, sure and solid as load-bearing walls. As with the guard on the first floor, they opened things up fast, and nodded at him with respect.

On the far side, Benloise was sitting at the end of a long, narrow room that had windows down one side, and only three pieces of furniture: his raised desk, which was nothing but a thick slab of teak with a modernist lamp and an ashtray on it; his chair, of some modern derivation; and a second seat across from him for a single visitor.