"Gischler, Victor - Conner Samson - Velvet Clinch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gischler Victor)

"For what I'm paying, I should think I'd get the whole story."

I nodded. "Sure. If that's what you want. But once I start looking, I usually find things. Not always nice things. I've been doing this a while, Mrs. Hanson. It can get ugly."

"I'm a big girl."

She took a picture off the end table, showed it to me. "And I have my reasons."

Here it came. People loved to explain themselves. They never thought just the money was enough for a guy like me, and it was always the same old routine. First a list of grievances, then the justification for hiring a gumshoe.

I took the picture, looked at it. I was always willing to play this scene by the numbers if it made the client feel better.

A teenage girl, junior version of the mother, less tan but softer around the eyes. "My daughter Veronica. She's fifteen in this picture, but it's been at least three years. I keep meaning to have us all sit for a family portrait." She replaced the photo. "First, I want to know if Tad's going to be in that portrait. If it's as ugly as you say, then good. More ammunition for the lawyers."

Sure, it was all for the sake of the daughter. You're a fine, upstanding parent, Mrs. Hanson. She'd probably take the picture to the divorce hearing, give the same speech.

"I'll be in touch, Mrs. Hanson."

* * *

I kept to the bushes, skirting around to the other side of the Hanson house. I crouched in the dark, waited, listened. Still nothing.

I checked the camera.

Unlike a lot of movie private eyes, I did a lot more work with the Pentax 35mm than I did with a pistol. Somewhere in the back of my bedroom closet I kept an old Webley which I took out and waved around every now and then when I needed to look tough. But I was far more likely to shoot my own foot than anything else, so I didn't usually carry the thing.

The camera was ready to go. Nothing to do but sit tight.

Three windows down a light came on. I tried to picture the interior of the house and thought maybe it was a bedroom, though I couldn't imagine what Gloria could be doing in there by herself. She had the run of the place--Myrna had gone to her sister's in Mobile for the weekend to make things easy--but I hadn't expected this.

I scooted toward the window slow and quiet, a low crouch, duck-walking my way along. When I got below the window I stopped, listened. A low murmur. Maybe somebody talking, or maybe the television.

The cell phone vibrated in my pocket, and I almost leapt out of my skin. Billy checking in again. He'd have to wait. I wanted a look at what Gloria was doing.

I waited a few seconds to get my breathing back in order, then slowly lifted my head to peer through the gap in the curtains.

Gloria stood nude at the edge of the bed, pink skin flushed in the soft light, her midnight black hair loose and down to her shoulders, nipples hard and eager. The bone-headed male in me rose up hard, that strange hypnosis that overcomes men when they have a chance to look at a naked lady. I looked. Eyes wide and drinking her in.

A flash of movement on the bed and I pinballed my eyes to see. Another woman, just as naked.

I brought the camera up slow and focused, framing the one on the bed first. I zoomed, caught the face, the soft eyes. And my heart stopped.

It was Veronica, Myrna Hanson's little girl.

But not so little now. As Myrna had said, that picture was a few years old, and those years had counted for Veronica. She'd got herself a deep tan, bikini lines so white they almost glowed. Brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Those eyes still soft, but burning with an exciting new knowledge, lips parted with aching expectation.

Gloria moved over her on the bed, and I refocused the 35mm, ready to snap the story of two young lovers in stark black and white. I hesitated. I'd warned Myrna I might find things she wouldn't like, might not even understand. But even as I thought this, my hands were a blur--advance the film, focus, snap. My spine tingled with the greasy caress of guilt and pleasure. The phone vibrated again, and I ignored it.

Gloria turned, straddled Veronica's face, lowered her head at the other end. They fit together like a work of art, soft and warm in their velvet clinch, hands roaming lighter and more delicate than any man's.