"Kathleen Ann Goonan - Angels and You Dogs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

"She's my tenant. Lulu, what the hell is going on?"
The blond man, whose name turned out to be Blake Mills, said, "She
shot him in cold blood, that's what's going on, with an illegal handgun."
His pale green silk shirt was open, revealing a well-muscled, tanned chest
and abdomen. It was still taking me much longer than it ought to have to
come to grips with exactly who he was.
"They were stealing the Fiestaware when I came home from my class,"
said Lulu. "I saw two strange men taking pieces out of the cabinet. In my
house. For all I knew, they were crack-crazed and ready to kill me. It
happens around here. It looks like he got that red mixing bowl, the plates,
and the blue salt and pepper shakers before I got here. Plus two cups and
saucers " The bowl lay in pieces on the floor next to Charles,
blood-spattered. At least, I thought distantly, it's insured.
 "They're his," stated Blake, his hands on his hips. "They're ours."
"Legally, they belong to Evan," rejoined Lulu. Her hands trembled, and
she clenched them. I wondered if this was not some kind of monster suit,
though against whom was a rather dizzying conjecture.
"I helped pick them out," Blake said with a stubborn, self-assured cast
to his voice. "They're just as much mine as his."
A deep weight settled in the center of my chest, and I found it hard to
breathe. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The few pieces we
didn't buy together, the Red Disc Pitcher, the Chartreuse Tumbler, and
others, which Charles waltzed in with one day to surprise me with.
"It's this woman's fault," continued Blake, pointing at Lulu. His sheer
nerve was astonishing. Despite his beauty, despite his sheer sexiness or
probably because of it I didn't like him. "We didn't know anyone else was
living here. She might have killed us with that Walthur."
"A Walthur?"
"Confiscated Walthur," said Officer Hawks.
Lulu's hair had gotten loose from a few of its combs and clips, perhaps
from the force of the gunshot, and she shook it back from her face. "Where
is Ambrose? Ambrose! Oh, look at him. He's a nervous wreck! This is not
good for him at all." She scooped him up when he emerged from his
hiding place behind his favorite indoor plant, the monstero delicioso,
which was by now thoroughly imbued with his own comforting scent.
Lulu's voice was edging toward hysterical, which was not at all surprising.
"You didn't have to shoot him, Lulu. For God's sake!" I tried to sound
comforting, but I was mad. A gun, in my own house, used to shoot my own
lover. It was too preposterous, too sudden. And Blake. That was
preposterous and sudden as well, and much more painful.
"It's just his knee," Lulu said matter-of-factly.
"She's right," said one of the paramedics over her shoulder as she knelt
next to Charles.
"Please, Miss Thibideaux, tell us exactly how this happened," said
Officer Hawks.
Lulu held Ambrose too tightly and stroked him. She flung her head back
and stared at us all. "I intended to shoot him in the knee, and he knows it,
and that's what I did. I told him I would, but the other burglar laughed
and said, 'A pussy like you?'"
"She's a bitch," said Blake. "A lying, fucking bitch. I never talk that