"Wildcards - 07 - Dead Mans Hand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

He studied the position of the body, committing it to memory. It wasn't
Chrysalis now, just dead meat, just evidence. When he'd seen all there was to
see, Jay turned his attention to the rest of the room. That was when he first
noticed the small rectangle of cardboard, lying beside her left thigh.
He moved around her and squatted for a closer look. He didn't touch it. He
didn't have to. There wasn't a drop of blood on it, and it was lying faceup. A
playing card.
The ace of spades.
"Son of a bitch," he said.
He was closing the office door behind him when he heard footsteps on the stairs.
Jay pressed himself against a wall and waited. A moment later, a slender man
with a pencil-thin mustache stepped into the hall. He wore slippers and a silk
dressing gown, and there was an unbroken expanse of pale skin where his eyes
should have been. His head turned slowly until he was looking into the shadows
at Jay. "I can see your mind, Popinjay," he said.
Jay stepped out. "Call the police, Sascha," he said. "And don't call me
Popinjay, dammit."

8:00 A.M.
Brennan leaned into the hill, arms pumping, breath flowing easily, sprinting up
the steep grade near the end of the run that had taken him over forested hills
and through dew-drenched meadows. The route he followed varied, but always ended
at the unpaved county road that led him, sweaty and pleasantly winded, back to
the gravel driveway with ARCHER LANDSCAPING AND NURSERY posted at the entrance.
The driveway looped around a series of gardens that were living advertisements
of his horticultural skills. First was a Japanese miniature hill garden in the
tsukiyama form, then an English shrubbery, and third a traditional flower bed
blooming with a dozen different species of a dozen different hues. The driveway
circled the flower bed and led past two greenhouses-one for tropical foliage,
the other for desert species-and the A-frame house.
Brennan finished his run with a gut-busting sprint that brought him around
behind the A-frame. He took a few minutes to cool down and calm his breathing,
then folded himself comfortably into a meditative posture and gazed out over the
kare sansui, the raked gravel bed rippling like frozen water in the morning
breeze. Nested in the gravel were three rock triads. Brennan spent a timeless
time sunk in the pool of zazen, not studying the rocks, their shadows, or the
patterns of the moss that grew on them, then stood smoothly, relaxed, refreshed
and ready for the day.
He went back into the bedroom that was sparsely furnished with a futon on the
polished wood floor, a comfortable chair with a reading lamp and side table
stacked with books, and a large wicker clothes hamper. Jennifer had gotten out
of bed. He could hear water running in the shower of the connecting bathroom.
Brennan took off his sweat-soaked T-shirt and dropped it in the hamper as he
passed on through to the room that served as a combination living room/office.
He flicked on the television to get the morning news, then sat at his deck and
fired up the PC to check his schedule.
He watched the television as the computer tracked down the proper file. Most of
the news was devoted to the Democratic National Convention, convening today in
Atlanta. Nothing of substance had happened yet, but the analysis and predictions
already seemed overblown and overdone.