"George R. R. Martin - WC 3 - Jokers High" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

could carry with him.
Bagabond touched his wrist. "Want us to come along? Day like this, a few more
eyes might be valuable at the bus station."
Jack shook his head. "Shouldn't be any problem. She's sixteen and never been in
any big city before. Just watched a lot of TV, her mama says. I'll be right
there at the bus door to meet her."
"She know that?" said Bagabond.
Jack stooped to give the black a quick rub behind the ears. The calico meowed
and moved over to take her turn. "Nope. Probably she was going to phone me once
she got here. This'll just save time."
"Offer's still open."
"I'll have her back here for breakfast before you know it." Jack paused. "Maybe
not. She'll want to talk, so maybe I'll take her to the Automat. She won't have
seen anything like that back in Atelier." He straightened up and the cats yowled
disappointedly. "Besides, you've got an appointment with Rosemary, right?"
Bagabond nodded dubiously. "Nine."
"Just don't worry. Maybe we can all have lunch. Depends on how much of a zoo
downtown turns into. Maybe we can pick up take-out at a Korean deli and have a
picnic on the Staten Island ferry." He leaned toward the woman and gave her a
quick kiss on the forehead. Before she could even halfway raise her hands to
grasp his arms and reciprocate, he was gone. Out the door. Out of her
perception.
"Damn it," she said. The cats looked up at her, confused but sympathetic. The
raccoon hugged her ankle.
Jennifer Maloy slipped through the lower two floors of the apartment building
like a ghost, disturbing nothing and no one, neither seen nor heard. She knew
that the building had gone condo some time ago and what she wanted was on the
uppermost of the three floors that were owned by a rich businessman with the
unfortunate name of Kien Phuc. He was Vietnamese. He owned a string of
restaurants and dry-cleaning establishments. At least that's what they'd said on
the segment of New York Style she'd seen on PBS two weeks ago. Jennifer really
enjoyed that show, which took its viewers on tours of the artsy and stylish
homes of the city's upper class. It presented her with endless possibilities and
tons of usefiil information.
She floated through the third floor, where Kien's servants lived. She had no
idea what was on the fourth floor, since it had been ignored by the television
cameras, so she bypassed it and head for Kien's living quarters on the top
floor. He lived there alone in eight rooms of unrelieved luxury and
opulence-decadence, almost. Jennifer had never realized there was that much
money in laundrommas and Chinese restaurants.
It was dark on the fifth floor, and quiet. She avoided the bedroom with the
circular, mirror-ceilinged bed (a little tacky, she'd thought when she'd seen it
on TV), and the fabulous hand-painted silk screens. She bypassed the
Western-style sitting room with its two-thousand-year-old bronze Buddha gazing



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