"Charles L. Grant - In a Dark Dream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

And if that wasn't enough to nudge him off balance, summer vacation was
only a week away, the Fourth of July three weeks later, and already the
more rambunctious younger natives were getting anxious to party. Late
nights and long days and the unmistakable smell of trouble that kept his
sleep too light. Not to mention the someone who had evidently decided to
supplement his income by engaging in a little breaking-and-entering
while the houses' owners were out. Seven in twenty days. And nothing
stolen but petty cash lying in drawers and on dressers and not so
cleverly hidden in cookie jars and bread boxes, plus a few apparently
worthless items of costume jewelry, hair brushes, and vials of not
terribly expensive perfume. The effort involved seemed hardly worth it,
but the grief it brought him made the burglaries seem like murder.

"If I quit ..." he'd said to Marj only a few days ago.

She'd hushed him with a wooden spoon that cracked across his knee.

"What the hell'd you do that for?"

"Quit and do what? Hang around here all day? Drive the kids nuts?" She
scowled; no mirth in her eyes. "What? Work in the garden? Paint the
house? What are you going to do the second week, huh?"

Wincing, he rubbed his knee. "I don't know. Help you at the office?"

Her hair, blonde and long and bobbing as she bobbed her head, seemed
suddenly sparked with red. "You stay

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the hell away from me, Glenn Erskine. I have enough trouble selling
houses without you tagging along."

"You don't think I could do it?"

Her smile was gentle. The spoon whacked his shoulder. "You probably
could. But that's my territory, pal. You want to stay married, you stay
the hell out."

He'd run from the kitchen then, yelling at his four children to pack
their bags and get out, find a bomb shelter quick, their mother was
planning to take over the world. The spoon hit him between the
shoulders. When he turned, red-faced from laughing, her lips were
grinning, her eyes telling him to knock it off.

Another check of the sky.

A chill on the breeze.

He slid behind the wheel and pulled the keys from his jacket's breast