"Charles L. Grant - Raven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

Ceil took the chair beside Havvick and rested her fore-arms on the table. "I'd watch him if I were you." She picked up a
sandwich wedge and popped it into her mouth, wiped a crumb from her lower lip with the side of a finger. "He eats
little girls like that for breakfast."
Havvick frowned skeptically. "Is he really on the radio?"
She nodded.
"No shit." He smiled at her. "Famous, huh?"
"In his way." She was bored.
"Does he know the guy who sells the ads?"
She slid her chair closer, her knee brushing against his. "He may dress like Cary Grant, but he's got the morals of
George Raft."
Havvick frowned. "Who?"
Ceil laughed and handed him a sandwich. "Never mind. You'll find out."




J ulia watched them danceтАФValentino and Shirley Tem-pleтАФand wondered if Neil would let her use one of the cabins
if the snow got too bad. Sometimes he did, some-times he didn't. He was moody. Very moody. These past three weeks
he'd been walking his temper through mud. As she opened another bottle of champagne, she watched him, trying to
gauge him, failing, swearing when the cork slipped through her grip and bounced off the ceiling. Brandt applauded her
from the end of the bar. She glared until he looked away, stood abruptly and went to the pay phone. From the way he
cupped the mouthpiece in one hand, she knew he wasn't calling his wife. He dressed like a half-witted hick, talked like
someone who's never seen the inside of a school, and seemed to take down more money in a week than she made in six
months. He spent it, too. But not on his wife.
He hung up and returned to his stool, ordered a brandy and gave her another fifty-dollar bill. "Keep the change," he
said grandly.
Dream on, she told him with a look and a sour smile; my bed's not for sale, not for the likes of you.
He sent her a two-finger saluteтАФno hard feelingsтАФwhich made her turn away before she hit him. Like the first time.
A lucky punch, his astonishment, and a legend was born. But damn the man, he hadn't stopped trying. Not overtly,
not like that night. Little waysтАФhuge tips, tips on horses, polite innuendo, the occasional leer when he thought Neil
wasn't looking. Persistent. A slimy old creep, almost pa-thetic in his way, but she had to give him his persistence
because he wasn't nasty about it, wasn't ugly.
Not like Kenny Havvick, who seemed to think he was God's gift to the unwedded, which in his mind meant
unbedded.
The little prick.
The music played on.
Something about a bird.
She suppressed a shudder, didn't want to but looked out the window anyway.
The raven wasn't there.
But it had been.
And it had looked right at her.
Another shudder too quick to cover, and she turned away to watch Trish Avery press closer to Davies. She
changed her mindтАФShirley Temple that girl's not. And him . . . she wondered why it had taken the others so long to
recognize him. Hugh Davies. The East Coast's top-rated evening talk-show host, soon to go national if the papers
were to be believed. She had recognized the voice the second he'd opened his mouth. He spoke almost exclu-sively to
women. Women alone. All ages. Advice and readings and suggestions for good times; sly humor, inti-mate, the