"Levinson, Paul - Dr Phil D'Amato 02 - The Consciousness Plague 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Levinson Paul)

I looked at him.
"Funny," I said. "But something strange did happen to Dugan's memory. I could see in his face that it was more than just run-of-the-mill forgetfulness."

JENNA WAS FEELING better by the end of the week. At first her cough had gotten worse. Her doc finally prescribed an antibiotic as a precaution, and, lo and behold, not only did she not contract bronchitis or pneumonia, but her cough had mostly subsided now, too. But if the cough was caused by the flu, and the flu by a virus, then the antibiotic shouldn't have had any effect antibiotics snuffed bacteria, not viruses. Well, those kinds of things seemed to happen all the time. Maybe it was just coincidence maybe the cough would have gone away anyway, regardless of the antibiotic. Or maybe it would have gone if all she had taken was a sugar pill....
"You up for something a little more adventurous for dinner tonight?" I asked. I didn't have the heart to offer her another round of boiled chicken, even though my technique came straight from my late grandmother, the best cook in history.
Jenna's eyes lit up and she patted her stomach. "Absolutely! This Omnin was as good as advertised." She pointed to the sheet that had contained her antibiotic pills. One a day for five days; under five percent of patients report any stomach disorders, the indications form advised.
"Should we try that place in Riverdale?" she asked.
"Buena Vista?"
She nodded.
"You sure you can handle Italian?"
She nodded again.
The food at Buena Vista's was delicious. I had a mouthwatering concoction of clams, calamari, shrimp, and mussels over linguine, and Jenna had a marvelous penne alla vodka. Our dry wine hit the spot, too.
We walked slowly back to our car after dinner, and drove back to Manhattan with the windows rolled down. Spring had finally arrived in New York City, with evening temperatures in the low sixties.
"Let's take advantage of this heat wave and walk by the river," Jenna said.
We parked near West Ninety-sixth Street, and walked down to the Hudson. Hyacinths were already in bloom, purple and white in the moonlight, and their perfume was intoxicating. I kissed Jenna, with the waves of the river lapping against the shore as accompaniment. I couldn't recall the last time I'd kissed her like this in public.
"Let's go home," she whispered in my ear.
We were back in our bedroom in our brownstone on East Eighty-fifth Street in fifteen minutes. Jenna began unbuttoning my shirt, and I her blouse.
"You sure you're up for this?" I asked. She responded by unbuttoning more....

AFTERWARD, SHE LAY in my arms, eyes closed but not sleeping.
I kissed her gently, then said, "Let's get married have some kids." We'd been living together for three years. It was time.
She opened her eyes, flecks of green on violet. "You sure you're up for this?" she asked, and smiled.

JENNA WAS SOUND asleep the next morning. I slipped out of bed, showered, dressed, and ate breakfast as quietly as I could. I poked my head back in the bedroom and considered waking her, but she looked so peaceful asleep.
I caught the clanking subway down to work. I realized that my throat had progressed from a tickle to an ache, but otherwise I felt great. I popped in a zinc lozenge, and hoped for the best.
Marriage is no small thing. Neither of us had been married before. I'd come close a few times but ... no one had ever been like Jenna.
I had trouble concentrating at work. Looking at dead bodies, in pictures or the flesh, was never my favorite part of the job. But today they seemed especially out of synch with my mood. You're a forensic detective, some little voice inside my head chided. Who cares about your mood? Live with it.
I turned back to the pictures. Blonde, mid-twenties, strangled, stripped naked, found dead near Riverside Drive two days ago. Jeez, just a couple of blocks from where Jenna and I had been last night. Ed Monti, the new medical examiner, wanted me down in his office for a noontime meeting about this today.
I put on my coat and headed out. I tried Jenna on the cell phone. She had no reason to go across town to the Hudson today, as far as I knew, but I believed in being careful. No answer on the phone. Hmm ... She was probably still sleeping. She'd likely have called to say hello before going out today.
The blonde was stretched out on the table in Ed's examining room. "You know, there's some tribe in Africa, I forget which, which has the same basic word for sleep and death," he said. "And they distinguish between the two by saying just 'sleep' for 'sleep,' and 'really really asleep' for 'death.' " Ed liked to wax philosophical. "But when you look at someone like this" her name was Jillian Murphy "there's really no similarity at all, is there?"
I'd had the same thought many times myself. I thought of Jenna sound asleep in bed this morning....
Ed gave me the details of the Murphy case over lunch in his office. I left to tape a panel on Crime in the New Millennium over at Fox News on Sixth Avenue.
I finally got through to Jenna around four P.M.
"Hey," I said, grinning from ear to ear. "So how are you doing today?"
"I think I'm feeling better," she said. "But I'm maxed out on chicken soup. Should we take a chance and eat out tonight? I'd love some Italian I feel like I've been cooped up inside for weeks."
"Well, sure...."

I STARED AT my cell phone for a long time after we got off.
I knew Jenna wasn't kidding. Could she really have forgotten what had happened last night? I found it hard to believe.
I thought about taking her again to Buena Vista, to see if that might jog her memory. But on the chance that, who knows, maybe something she'd eaten there had triggered some kind of allergic amnesic reaction, I took her instead to Cafe Sambuca's on Seventy-second Street.
We lingered over veal scaloppine and salad. "I think I remember waking up yesterday, but I'm not completely sure it was yesterday," Jenna said, taking another shot at the issue we'd been discussing all evening. "I remember coughing like a lunatic, but I'd been doing that all week."
"Your cough was much better yesterday," I said, "almost gone. No way I'd say you were constantly coughing then."
"So you're saying, what?" Jenna's voice was hoarse. "I've lost a day out of my life the very day that you said let's get married?"
"Could be a little more than a day," I replied. "The last thing we've established you remembering is the initial report on the eleven o'clock news about the Riverside Drive strangling, the day before yesterday. I was in the shower then, I didn't hear it, and it wasn't my case yet, so we wouldn't have talked about it afterward. You sure you remember that report "
"Positive," Jenna said.
"So that's our current baseline for your last memory before the blackout," I said.
She shook her head slowly, still not completely accepting that a day's worth of memories hers of yesterday had apparently vanished. She finally managed a weak smile. "So how did I respond to your proposal?"
I smiled back.
"You still want to marry someone who shares this infuriating characteristic with Jack Dugan?" she asked.
"Well, I'm glad that you at least remember that."