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

Despite his words he is not angry-he sounds weary, as if he has been certain something
would wake him up sooner or later. His blond hair is lank and greasy, his face an unhealthy
white. People pay a lot of money to get jeans as scuffed as his are, with just those holes at t
knees. He might-just might-have a night job, but the odds are against it.
"Do you know Jack Hayes?" I ask. "Or Carolyn Hayes?"
"No. Who the hell are they?"
"They live here, in this apartment. Or they did."
"Oh, those guys." He leans against his doorjamb, suddenly disposed to talk. I see now th
he is younger than I first thought, in his early twenties. A child somewhere in the build-ing
cries, and someone shouts for quiet. "Those guys were weird, let me tell you. They belonge
some cult or some-thing. Satanists."
"Satanists?"
"Yeah. They had all these people coming and going at all hours of the day or night, all o
them wearing black. Lots of chanting, lots of strange smells. Incense, maybe."
I sniff the air. There is a whiff of something, though it's harsher than incense. My stomac
roils.
"You said 'had,' " I say. "Past tense. Are they gone?"
"I don't know, man," he says. "Now that you mention it I haven't seen them around for a
couple of days. Weeks, maybe. You a bill collector?"
I give him one of my cards. He squints at it, as though he has grown unused to reading.
"Private investigator, huh?" he says. "Isn't that dangerous, you being a woman and all?" He
smiles, as if he thinks he's said something witty.
"Asking personal questions is always dangerous," I say. He squints again; he knows tha
I've insulted him, but for the moment he doesn't get how. "Call me if they come back, all rig
He mumbles something and retreats back into his apart-ment. I try Carolyn Green's
doorknob, but the door is locked.
I drive back to the office. There is a message on my ma-chine from my contact at the DM
she can find nothing for any of the names I gave her. I frown. It's hard to get around in this to
without a car, though it is just barely possible. So much for the Hell's Angel theory-I had
specifically asked her to check for motorcycle licenses. Maybe they're using aliases, I think
and I frown again.
I had been looking forward to finding Carolyn, to discov-ering why she had run away w
such an unsuitable man. One thing I learned in this business is that people are far stranger th
you would ever think, that they almost never do what you would expect. Now I wonder if I
ever get to meet her.
The next day I wrap myself in my coat and two scarves and head out toward the univers
It's even colder than yester-day, and a heavy rain begins while I'm driving. The rain turns in
snow as I pull up to a parking garage. It hasn't snowed in this town since I moved here ten
years ago.
I show the woman at the registrar's office my Pi's license and ask about Carolyn Green.
"I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head. "It's against university policy to give out infor-matio
on students."
She doesn't look sorry at all; she seems delighted to be able to enforce a rule and cause
trouble at the same time. Her face is unremarkable, with faded blue eyes and sprayed
straw-colored hair, but her glasses are unfortunate-narrow and black, with upswept tips. Sh
must have been in a terrible mood the day she visited the optometrist.
The office is overheated; I shed first one and then the other scarf, and open my coat. I tr
appeal to the woman's emo-tions-missing daughter, frantic mother-but she is un-moved.
It feels good to leave the office, to walk down the hall and push open the door to the co
outside. The snow has stopped. Students are scraping up the thin snow and trying to make