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

He pours me another cup of tea. ' 'What do you plan to do now?" he asks.
It's a good question. I've pretty much run out of leads, but it doesn't do to say so in front
the person paying your salary. I take a sip of tea. "Did you know her husband?" I ask him.
 "A little," he says.
"Did you like him?"
Mickey laughs. "Like him? The boyfriend from hell?"
"Why do you think she married him?"
He shrugs.
"They seem very different," I say, pushing him.
He pours more tea. I look at the small teapot; it can't pos-sibly hold that much. I lift the
It is filled to the brim.
I look up quickly at Mickey. He's grinning, as if daring me to confront him. "How did yo
do that?" I ask.
"Do what?" he says.
He must have switched teapots somehow, maybe while I was looking at Ms. Green. "G
fly," he says. He stands and kisses Ms. Green on the cheek. "It was good seeing you."
I watch him go. My earlier suspicions of him become a certainty; he knows something h
not telling. "I've got to go too," I say. I stand and hurry through the restaurant, trying to keep
in sight.
He hasn't gotten that far ahead of me. He turns left out the door and heads east. A few m
farther on is Carolyn's old apartment. I drop back a little, keeping him in sight. Surely he
doesn't intend to walk the entire distance.
He continues on for about a mile. The neighborhood slowly changes; the shopfronts her
are dingier, and several of them are boarded up. Some of the buildings are painted three or
colors in a vain attempt to cover the graffiti; they look as if they have mange. A man moves
block me, his hand held out. "Spare change?" he asks.
I sidestep him and continue on. Mickey is still in front of me. He is hurrying a little, as i
he's getting closer to his destination.
He comes to a corner. He stops for a moment, as if trying to make up his mind. Then he
turns and looks directly at me, grins, and goes right.
I take the comer after him. I've never had anyone spot me, never, not in any of the dozen
tails I've done. How had he known?
There is no one at all on the street. Grimy warehouses face each other, some protected b
corrugated doors or iron grat-ings, all of them locked. One warehouse has rows of tiny
windows on the second floor; about half of them are broken, as if they'd been the target in s
game. Trees with branches like sticks line the street. No one seems to work here.
 I walk up and down the street for over an hour, looking for Mickey in likely and unlikel
places, but he is gone.
I go back to my office to get Ms. Green's phone number. I need Mickey's address, need
ask him a few questions.
The phone rings as I'm paging through my files. I pick it up. "Liz Keller, Private
Investigations," I say.
"Liz?" the voice at the other end asks.
It's my mother. I don't need this right now. "What?" I say.
' 'Did you get my message?''
"Yeah."
"I want to talk to you. I want-I changed my mind. I had no right to interfere with anything
you do. It's your life."
"I've always thought so."
"Did you see a doctor?"