"Jack Finney - Invasion of the Body Snatchers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

"Hello, Miles." She smiled, pleased at the surprise and pleasure in my face.
"Becky," I murmured, stepping aside to let her in, "it's good to see you. Come on in!" I grinned
suddenly, and Becky walked in past me, and on through the reception room toward my office. "What is
this," I said, closing the door, "a professional call?" I was so relieved and pleased that I got excited and
exuberant. "We have a special on appendectomies this week," I called gaily; "better stock up," and she
turned to smile. Her figure, I saw, following along after her, was still marvellous. Becky has a fine,
beautifully fleshed skeleton; too wide in the hips, I've heard women say, but I never heard a man say it.
"No," тАУ Becky stopped at my desk, and turned to answer my question тАУ "this isn't a professional call
exactly."
I picked up my glass, raising it to the light. "I drink all day, as everyone knows. On operating days
especially. And every patient has to have one with me тАУ how about it?"
The glass nearly slipped through my fingers, because Becky sobbed, a dry, downinthethroat gasp, her
breath sucking in convulsively. Her eyes brimmed with sudden bright tears, and she turned quickly away,
shoulders hunching, hands rising toward her face." I could use one" тАУ she could hardly speak.
After a second I said," Sit down," speaking very gently, and Becky dropped into the leather chair
before my desk. I went to the washroom, mixed her a drink, taking my time about it, came back, and set
it on the glass-topped desk before her.
Then I walked around the desk and sat down facing her, leaning back in my swivel chair, and when
Becky glanced up, I just nodded at her glass, gently urging her to drink, and I took a swallow from mine,
smiling at her over the rim, giving her a few moments to get hold of herself. For the first time I really saw
her face again. I saw it was the same nice face, the bones prominent and wellshaped under the skin; the
same kind and intelligent eyes, the rims a little red just now; the same full, goodlooking mouth. Her hair
was different; it was shorter, or something; but it was the same rich brown, almost black, thick and wiry,
and looking naturally wavy, though I remembered it wasn't. She'd changed, of course; she wasn't
eighteen now, but well into her twenties, and looked it, no more and no less. But she was also still the
same girl I'd known in high school; I'd dated her a few times in my senior year. "It's good to see you
again, Becky," I said, saluting her with my glass and smiling. Then I took a sip, lowering my eyes. I
wanted to get her talking on something else, before she got down to whatever the trouble was.
"Good to see you, Miles." Becky took a deep breath and sat back in her chair, glass in hand; she
knew what I was doing, and went along with it. "Remember when you called for me once? We were
going to a HiY dance, and you had that writing on your forehead."
I remembered, but raised my brows questioningly.
"You had M. B. loves B. D. printed on your forehead in red ink or lipstick or something. Said you
were going to the dance that way. I had to get tough before you'd wipe it off."
I grinned. "Yeah, I remember." Then I remembered something else. "Becky, I heard about your
divorce, of course; and I'm sorry."
She nodded. "Thanks, Miles. And I've heard about yours; I'm sorry, too."
I shrugged. "Guess we're lodge brothers now."
"Yes." She got down to business. "Miles, I've come about Wilma." Wilma was her cousin.
"What's the trouble?"
"I don't know." Becky stared at her glass for a moment, then looked up at me again. "She has aтАУ" she
hesitated; people hate to give names to these things. "Well, I guess you'd call it a delusion. You know her
uncle тАУ Uncle Ira?"
"Yeah."
"Miles, she's got herself thinking that he isn't her uncle."
"How do you mean?" I took a sip from my glass. "That they aren't really related?"
"No, no." She shook her head impatiently. "I mean she thinks he's" тАУ one shoulder lifted in a puzzled
shrug тАУ "an impostor, or something. Someone who only looks like Ira."
I stared at Becky. I wasn't getting this; Wilma was raised by her aunt and uncle. "Well, can't she tell?"
 "No. She says he looks exactly like Uncle Ira, talks just like him, acts just like himeverything. She just