"Night Warriors - 02 - Death Dream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

'Sure,Т said Lenny, grinning, 'it fills it up.'
'It's poison,Т said John. He checked his watch. 'What time did Dr Hendriksen say he was coming?'
'Right away. He should be here in five or ten minutes.'
'In that case, I just have time to go across the street and get us some steak. And maybe a bottle of champagne, too.'
'John, we have nothing to celebrate! Our whole bedroom was ripped to pieces!'
John kissed her. 'Maybe I'd like to drink a toast to a new bedroom, and to a marriage that's going to be happy there, no matter who tries to spoil it!'
John and Jennifer both gave Lenny a kiss, and left him propped up in bed, reading a Spiderman comic.
Lenny sat there for two or three minutes, quietly turning the pages of his comic. After a while, he began to feel cold, and he reached down toward the end of the bed and drew up the quilted comforter.
As he did so, he saw the seersucker curtains stirring, as if they were being blown by an unfelt breeze. He looked toward the window; his heart began to beat a little bit faster. All he could see were the tops of the trees, and the irregular rooftops of Society Hill, and -farther to the west - the cranes and the structural steel skeletons of Philadelphia's downtown rebuilding program, as well as the ornamental clock tower of City Hall, with its famous statue of William Penn standing on top. He thought the statue was sinister rather than inspiring: the dark, motionless shadow of a long-dead man, encased in bronze.
He opened his comic again. Spidey had a bad case of the grippe, and was sneezing so much that he nearly let go of his web. But then the breeze that wasn't a breeze at all ruffled the page and turned it over, and then the next, and then the next, faster and faster.
Lenny turned toward the window; and froze, speechless with terror. Right outside, her hands cupped above her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun, was his dead mother, peering in at him. When he turned, she smiled, and lifted one hand, and waved. It was her, there was no doubt about it at all. It was his mother, fair-haired, white-faced, and she was smiling at him.
A scream rose from somewhere inside his chest, silent at first, but then higher and louder, until he was sitting in bed with his fists clenched and his mouth stretched open and his eyes wide, screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming.
John reached the bedroom first. He burst in through the door and scooped Lenny up in his arms. 'Lenny! Lenny! It's okay! Everything's okay! It's Daddy!'
Lenny was hysterical. He gasped for breath, thin whining gasps, and his arms and legs were rigid and trembling.
Jennifer rushed into the room. 'My God! I heard him right down in the yard! Is he all right?'
John laid Lenny carefully on the bed, and felt his forehead. He was sticky and chilled, but he didn't seem to be running a temperature. "There,Т he murmured. 'Ssh, you're going to be fine. Ssh.'
At last, still trembling, Lenny quieted down. John said to Jennifer. 'Would you mind calling Dr Hendriksen again, just to make sure that he's on his way?'
'Sure,' said Jennifer.
John knelt close to Lenny's bed and clasped his hand. 'Are you feeling better now?'
Lenny whispered. 'Has she gone?'
'She's just gone to call Dr Hendriksen, that's all. She'll be back in a minute.'
'I don't mean Jennifer.' Lenny glanced quickly and with obvious fright toward the window. John didn't know what he expected to see there, but when he lifted his own eyes and peered toward it, he couldn't see anything except the usual view.
There's nobody there, Lenny,' John said. He stood up and walked toward the window, opened it, and looked out, leaning his arms on the windowsill. 'Apart from the fact that it's nearly forty feet down to the yard, there's nobody in sight, anywhere.'
'She was there,Т whispered Lenny. 'Daddy, she was there, looking in.' 'Lenny, nobody could have looked in. It's impossible. It's a sheer drop, and there isn't even a box to stand on, let alone a forty-foot ladder, which is what they would have needed.'
'It was Mommy and she was looking in.'
John closed the window and returned to the bed. 'Come on, champ, you're not too well, are you? Why don't you close your eyes and try to get a little sleep before the doctor gets here?'
'I don't want to stay in this room,Т Lenny begged. 'I'm too scared. Can't I come downstairs?'
Jennifer returned. 'The doctor just left. Only a few more minutes. How are you feeling, Lenny?'
СFine,' mumbled Lenny.
'He wants to come downstairs and rest on the couch,' said John. 'He says it's too scary up here on his own.'
'Well, that's fine,' said Jennifer. 'I'll carry the comforter, John, and you carry the patient.'
John gave Jennifer a meaningful look, but she shook her head quickly in a gesture that meant not now. She must have overheard Lenny saying that he had seen his mother looking in at his bedroom window. That wasn't the kind of experience that was going to be easy for them to discuss. It was a little more complicated than deciding what they were going to have for lunch.
They took Lenny downstairs, his long legs swinging under John's arms, hard curly head pressed close against the back of John's neck. They tucked him up on the couch, like a young Victorian invalid. "There you go,' John said, grinning. 'You can watch As The World Turns now. That'll do wonders for your education.'
John went through to the kitchen, where Jennifer was preparing the pasta: cold conchiglie with bacon, peas, and ricotta. The kitchen door swung shut behind him, and he stood by the tiled counter for a moment in silence, watching Jennifer pour oil and lemon juice into the bowl of pasta.
'He says he saw his mother.'
Jennifer stopped tossing the pasta shells and slowly put down her fork and spoon. T thought so,Т she said, in a tone implying that Lenny's terror might well have something to do with her having married his father.
'She was looking in at the window,Т said John. 'She was looking in at the goddamned window, that's what he said, and waving at him.'
Jennifer slowly shook her head. 'Hallucinating. It happens sometimes, when they have a temperature. My niece Alice saw a roomful of cats once, when she had the mumps.'
'He's not running a temperatur,Т said John. 'At least, I don't think so. His forehead's quite cool.'
Jennifer briskly chopped up bacon. 'It doesn't take much. Just a couple of degrees over.'
John said, 'You're not upset?'
'Why should I be upset?'
'Well ... him thinking about Virginia so vividly. I don't want you to think that Lenny doesn't love you. That he resents you being my wife or anything.'
Jennifer leaned across the counter and kissed him, slowly and softly, on the lips. 'He lost his mother. Who can blame him for thinking about her? And I can never replace Virginia. I wouldn't even try.'
John dragged a stool across to the counter and sat down. 'He says he saw her in the schoolyard last week, waving at him. And last Friday, at the gas station.'
'He'll get over it. He probably feels strange at the moment - not sure what role he's supposed to be playing. Not sure where he fits in.'
John watched her finish the pasta and arrange it on three blue-rimmed plates. In her yellow open-necked shirt and her designer jeans, she looked young and fresh and very pretty. The fine blond hairs shone on her arms; he stroked them with his fingertips. 'What are you doing? You'll make me spill it.' 'I'm in love with the hairs on your arms.' 'You make me sound like Popeye.' John laughed; and then the doorbell rang. 'Dr Hendriksen,Т said Jennifer.
Dr Hendriksen came out into the hallway, thoughtfully rubbing the back of his neck. He was a stocky, fiftyish man with short-cropped hair and a bulldog face like Teddy Roosevelt's. Despite his disproportionately deep chest and his short, bandy legs, he always wore perfectly tailored suits. Jennifer thought he would have made a better politician than a family doctor.
'I can set your mind at rest on one thing,Т he said. 'There's nothing physically wrong with Lenny. No infection, no temperature. I've had two or three cases of tuberculous meningitis this year: I was worried it might be that. But Lenny is perfectly clear. He's a little listless. Maybe preoccupied more than listless. But there's no sign of fever or vomiting, no headaches. I'd say that, physically speaking, Lenny is one healthy young man.'
СThat's twice you said physically,Т Jennifer remarked.