"Guardino, Louise - Feels Like Dignity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Guardino Louise)

There was nothing in what Allen had talked about weeks earlier, when
he'd suggested I come out and do a little fishing sometime. He'd
mentioned the guys-- Joe doing okay as an associate professor in some
northern college, Mike still in the game somewhere in South America, but
nothing about Renny. I thought Renny, like Mike, was still in the hunt
somewhere. Some guys never got out. A shattered hip ended it for Allen.
In a village full of the dead and mutilated, I'd faced my own almost
dead and empty soul and escaped before the last spark died.
I settled into a cheap tourist hotel a few miles outside of the strip.
The truck went to Midas and I took a nap. By night, I was ready. I did
the tour--in and out of Latino clubs, hip-hop roosts, and jazz joints.
Ten p.m. to six a.m., walking the streets, watching the hip hoppers and
salsa-heads party, skate, and snort. Not a sign of Renny.
Escaping the pastel stuccoed facades, I stood looking out at the
waterway. Maybe I was wrong. Not about Renny, but about where he was.
Maybe he was hunkering down, not partying. He'd mentioned a place once,
a peninsula or island on the west coast where he used to go for quiet.
It had been his mother's place. I went back to my truck and pulled out a
map, finding the town on the fourth pass.
Some memory nudging, a telephone book, and an hour-plus driving brought
me to the dirt and gravel driveway leading to Renny's hideaway. It was
one among many, in the midst of town. I drove past, parking near a busy
pier. Jogging back, I glanced down the driveway. The back end of a blue
pick-up peeked out from the curving drive behind the house. Either
someone was home or a junker was rotting in the back yard. There was
almost no cover, a few palm trees, sparse shade. A frontal approach,
bold as the glaring daylight was the best option. I approached,
scrunching gravel, and knocked sharply on the door behind the screen.
When no one answered, I turned away, knowing Renny was watching from
inside.
The door creaked. "Tomas. What you doing here, man?"
I turned back. Renny stood at the door, tense hand on the screen. "You
don't know?" I asked.
"Know what?"
"'Bout Allen. He's dead."
His expression remained flat. "No way. Why'd you come all the way out
here? You could have called."
"That's the thing, Renny. I figured you already knew. Maybe that's why
you're here."
"Yeah? Why'd you think that?" He offered not a sliver of light between
himself and the doorframe.
"You could say Allen as good as told me you'd been there. So I figured
you knew."
"You whacko, man? What you talking about, he tol' you?" Renny's jaw
tightened and eyes hardened.
I looked around. "You going to keep me outside, or what? Not a friendly
gesture, you ask me."
"Who said you're a friend?"
"That's a strange thing to say to a guy you were tight with for so
long."