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

My camera blazed. I'd shot almost the whole roll.

Something behind me. A voice:

"What the fuck!"

I turned, sucked in enough breath to utter a protest but never got it out.

Tad Hanson's fist came around hard, caught me like a hammer between the eyes. I sprawled backward into the bushes, the camera flying. I shook my head, tried to stagger away.

Hanson grabbed me by the jacket, pulled me up. Another fist in my belly.

I pushed him away and fell backwards. He was on top of me. He had a fistful of my shirt, his other fist raised.

"Wait!"

He didn't. The fist came down across my upper lip. The salt taste of blood.

"Your daughter," I said. "Look, it's your daughter."

He stopped, looked back at the house.

"In the window." Go look, you blockhead. Just get off me.

He jumped up, went to the window. I followed.

They must've heard the fight. Veronica knelt on the bed, one hand clutching a sheet up to her neck. Gloria was hurriedly pulling on her clothes. Tad Hanson had missed the main feature, but what he saw was bad enough. He turned his eyes back on me, hurt, angry, confused.

I was panting hard. I wiped the blood off my lip with the back of my hand. "If you can keep from hitting me for two minutes," I said, "I can explain all this."

"Yes," he said, still staring through the window. "I think you'd better."

* * *

On my way home, I called Billy. "Go home. I'll pay you tomorrow."

"Why didn't you answer the phone?"

"I got busy," I said and hung up.

I stumbled into my apartment and collapsed in the ragged easy chair. I stuck a cigar in my mouth but couldn't find any matches. Tad Hanson's last request sat on my stomach like a stack of bad pancakes.

"Don't mention this to Myrna," he'd said. "She won't be able to handle it." He hesitated, then said. "You know, you try to raise a child, think you're doing a good job. And then--" He broke off, shaking his head.

I'd explained his wife had hired me to do a job.

"She wanted to know if I was cheating," Tad had said. "Tell her I wasn't. It's the truth."

And the check he'd handed me for a thousand dollars sealed the deal.