"Laura Anne Gilman - Staying Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Laura Anne)

going to be figuring out what it all meant, if anything.

Making nice to the goon-guard so that he would "forget" about what he hadn't really seen anyway took a
few minutes. Then she was riding up in the freight elevator, back up to the main lobby. It was crowded
with suits now, male and female, armed with briefcases and brown paper bags, some of them already
open to let loose the aroma of fresh-brewed Starbucks, or the cheaper stuff from one of the ubiquitous
corner bagel carts. The starting bell had rung, and all's well with the corporate world. Wren shook her
head, moving against traffic. How the hell did people live like this?

It was with decided relief that Wren left her security badge with the guard at the front desk and went
home. Now the real workтАФthe fun stuffтАФcould begin.

Chapter Two



The message light on her answering machine was blinking, a quick red flash that caught her eye the
moment she came in the door. She dropped her keys in the small green ceramic bowl on the counter of
her square little kitchenette, her mail next to that, and reached over to press the play button.

Opening the fridge, Wren pulled out the orange juice, pouring a long draught down her throat without
bothering to get a glass.
"Wren, it's 9:15." Sergei's perfectly enunciated voice filled the sparse confines of her kitchenette, almost
as though he were actually there. "I just accessed your account, and half of your fee has been deposited,
as agreed upon."

She raised the O.J. carton in salute to that fact.

"Need I remind you that the client is paying for a timely resolution to this situation?"

Sergei never referred to them as cases, or jobs. No, the "client" had a "situation." Situations paid better.

"Jesus wept, Sergei. Even Christ took three days to rise from the dead! Gimme a break here!"

"And need I remind you that today is the thirteenth? Please mail your rent check today."

"Yeah yeah, I already have a momma nag, I don't need another," she complained to the empty apartment
as the tape clicked off. Not that it wasn't sort of nice, having someone to remind her of the stuff that
always managed to slip her mind. Like dropping a check in the mail.

That was the way their partnership worked, too. Sergei handled the money side of it, set up the deals,
worked the angles. She did the jobsтАФor, in Sergei's parlance, "rectified the situations." The stuff that
took Talent, as opposed to talent. From each according to their abilities, although she had been known to
bargain sharply, and Sergei wasn't above getting his hands a little dirty, if needed. She knew for a fact
that the man lied with the fluidity and believability of a gypsy prince if it suited him.

A nice skill for your agent to have. It had certainly saved their asses more than once, including one
memorable evening where he had played both her father and her husband to two different people in the
space of an hour. He hadn't been sure which role was more annoying, especially when she insisted on
calling him "dad-dikins" for the rest of the month.