"Lisa Goldstein - Rites of Spring" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldstein Lisa)

RITES OF SPRING
Lisa Goldstein
"Rites of Spring'' was purchased by Gardner Dozois, and appeared in the March 1994 issue of Asimov's, wi
illustration by Steve Cavallo. Lisa Goldstein is a Bay Area writer who won the Ameri-can Book Award for her f
novel, The Red Magi-cian, and who has subsequently gone on to become one of the most critically acclaimed
novelists of her day with books such as Tourists, The Dream Years, A Mask for the General, Strange Devices of the
and Moon and Summer King, Winter Fool. Her most recent book is the novel Waking the Labyrinth.

She is less prolific at shorter lengths, although her elegant and incisive stories, many of which have ap-pear
Asimov's, and which were recently col-lected in Travellers in Magic, are well worth waiting for-as is true of the w
story that follows, in which a detective hot on the trail of a Missing Person finds that that trail leads into territo
very far indeed from the kind of Urban Mean Streets that Private Eyes are accustomed to travel...

I'm sitting at my desk catching up on paperwork when there's a knock on my office door
"Come in," I say.
The door opens and a woman steps inside. "Have a seat," I say, filing one last piece of
paper.
"Are you Ms. Keller?" she asks.
"Liz Keller. And you are-"
"Dora Green." Wisely, she picks the more comfortable of the two office chairs. "I want
to find my daughter."
I look across the desk at her. She has an oval face, dark gray eyes. Her hair is
medium-length and black, with a little gray at the temples. She doesn't look much like a par
of a missing child. She doesn't play with the handles of her purse, or light a cigarette. I nod
encouraging her to go on.
"My daughter's name is Carolyn-Carolyn Green," Ms. Green says. "At least it was. I
suppose her husband's made her change it."
I try not to frown. In most missing children cases the child is much younger. "Are you su
she wants to be found?" I ask.
"I'm certain. Her husband forced her into the marriage, you see."
"Was she pregnant?"
She doesn't flinch. "No."
I look over this possible client for a moment. She's very well dressed-she wears a soft
green pullover and a skirt with a print of entwining leaves and vines and flowers. I rememb
that it's St. Patrick's Day today, though I would bet that she's not Irish. She smells a little lik
some flower too, a subtle, expensive perfume. Golden earrings dangle from her ears.
"Look," I say. "Before I can take your money I need you to be clear about some things. I
promise to do my best to find your daughter. Whether she wants to be found is up to her. I'll
give her a message from you, whatever-"
"She has to get away from him."
"I can't do that. Your daughter's of legal age-She is of legal a^e, isn't she?"
"Yes."
' 'All right then. If she tells me herself that she wants to end the marriage-"
"She does-"
"Then I'll help her. But not otherwise. If she won't leave him I can give her the name of
women's shelter. I know a counselor there. Do you understand?''
"Yes."
' 'Okay. I need to know some things about your daughter- her husband's name, their last
address if you know it. Do you have a picture of them?''
She does. The photograph she shows me must have been taken shortly after the two elo