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

Nuts; all of them.
And he snapped his fingers without moving them.
Be damned, maybe that's what was bothering himтАФit was going to be one of those nights.
They happened.
God, did they happen.
As if, on a single somehow hallowed occasion, all the loons were let out of their cages and given a map to his place.
Wives fought husbands with words and brandished forks, fathers argued red-faced with red-faced sons, drunks tried
to climb the spider plants, girlfriends found new boy-friends with their old boyfriends simmering in the next booth,
things not known to modern science were stuffed down the toilets. Every so often. It made no difference if the moon
was full or not. They came out, they came to Maclaren's, they made his life hell and they sometimes made him laugh.
Brandt, for example and by his current mood, had prob-ably had a battle royal with his wife of fifteen years. There
was a small rip on one sleeve above the elbow, his cheek was enflamed as if slapped or punched, what was left of his
hair hadn't seen a comb in several days. She had probably caught him with another woman. It didn't matter who; the
gambler wasn't fussy. And he seldom took precautions to prevent her from finding out. He bragged to his buddies.
She heard. They fought. He came here to scream at his bookie and snarl at Julia and drink the best whiskey and
brandy Neil had to offer. Sometimes, before midnight, he passed out; sometimes, after midnight, he'd take a bath in the
creek, with everyone in the bar looking on.
"So what?" he had once demanded, standing in the water, naked, skin like a mangy bear's pelt. He stabbed a branch
toward the lounge windows. "They ain't never seen a man before?"
"Not like you, pal," Neil had answered.
"Tough shit."
"C'mon, get out."
"Ain't done my armpits yet."
He sat down, knees up, and Neil had walked away.
There had been no talking to him then; there was no talking to him now.
On the top step he paused when music, loud enough to hear but not loud enough to distract, came over the audio
system he had installed last year, the speakers invisibly tucked into the rafters. Big Band music. Always. Benny
Goodman, Gene Krupa, easy on the tempo. He looked at Julia, standing by the receiver and the multidisc CD player,
which were beside the old-fashioned popcorn machine he'd rescued from a dying theater. She waggled a finger at him.
He saw Davies and one of his sisters dancing near the window, both her hands around his neck, his hand low on her
waist.
Sister, he thought, my ass; if they got any closer, it'd be incest.
Havvick and Trish were still in their booth, on the same side now, facing him and not seeing him.
He didn't look any closer.
One of those nights.




So look," Brandt said to Julia, elbows on the bar, leaning partway over to watch her clean glasses, bend down, stand
up, cock her head when the fruit in the tux danced by and gave her an order, some kind of fancy bourbon. "The damn
horse comes in, right? Long shot five lengths across the wire ahead of the favorite. The stupid son of a bitch sends
me my money instead of calling me to come get it. Sends it! Can you believe it? The old crone opens the mail, sees the
check ..." He shrugged sadly, elaborately, sipped dry a Chivas Regal, set the snifter down for a refill. "She says she's
going to divorce me." He rubbed his teeth with the side of a finger. "She won't, though. She loves me too much."
Striped button-down shirt, jeans tucked into wad-ing boots. "Besides, she's too fat and too old to find anyone else
this stage of the game. She's stuck with me. Lived in Deerfield all her life, she wouldn't know how to find her way out
of the county. She cashed the check, too, would you believe it? Bought one of them recliner things for in front of the
television and won't let me use it. Tells me I have to get another horse." He chuckled, and fumbled through his
pockets. "Damn, where's all that change 1 had this morning? She probably took that, too. She does that, you know.