"Gibson, William - Count Zero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gibson William)

unreal against the soft bright beach. As the man passed,
his face dark and immobile beneath mirrored glasses, Turner
noted the carbine-format Steiner-Optic laser with Fabrique
Nationale sights. The blue fatigues were spotless, creased like
knives.
Turner had been a soldier in his own nght for most of his
adult life, although he'd never worn a uniform. A mercenary,
his employers vast corporations warring covertly for the con-
trol of entire economies. He was a specialist in the extraction
of top executives and research people. The multinationals he
worked for would never admit that men like Turner existed.
You worked your way through most of a bottle of Her-
radura last night," she said.
He nodded. Her hand, in his, was warm and dry. He was
watching the spread of her toes with each step, the nails
painted with chipped pink gloss.
The breakers rolled in, their edges transparent as green
glass.
The spray beaded on her tan.

After their first day together, life fell into a simple pattern
They had breakfast in the mercado. at a stall with a concrete
counter worn smooth as polished marble. They spent the
morning swimming, until the sun drove them back into the
shuttered coolness of the hotel, where they made love under
the slow wooden blades of the ceiling fan, then slept. In the
afternoons they explored the maze of narrow streets behind
the Avenida, or went hiking in the hills. They dined in
beachfront restaurants and drank on the patios of the white
hotels. Moonlight curled in the edge of the surf
And gradually, without words, she taught him a new style
of passion. He was accustomed to being served, serviced
anonymously by skilled professionals. Now, in the white
cave, he knelt on tile. He lowered his head, licking her, salt
Pacific mixed with her own wet, her inner thighs cool against
his cheeks. Palms cradling her hips, he held her, raised her
like a chalice, lips pressing tight, while his tongue sought the
locus, the point, the frequency that would bring her home
Then, grinning, he'd mount, enter, and find his own way
there.
Sometimes, then, he'd talk, long spirals of unfocused nar-
rative that spun out to join the sound of the sea. She said very
little, but he'd learned to value what little she did say, and,
always, she held him. And listened.

A week passed, then another. He woke to their final day
together in that same cool room, finding her beside him. Over
breakfast he imagined he felt a change in her, a tension.
They sunbathed, swam, and in the familiar bed he forgot
the faint edge of anxiety.