"Reed, Robert - TreasureBuried" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

past a pack of gray-haired Executives 11-10, but Mekal's wife never showed
again, even in passing. Which seemed to help, because Mekal wasn't quite so
unbearable. He even managed to control himself when they won, limiting his
high-fives because the winded, red-faced opponents were still and always his
superiors. Their position on the pecking order was secure, and Mekal wasn't an
idiot. Yet his good mood persisted into the next morning, him bringing doughnuts
for two hundred and inviting some of his closer associates to his home next
Saturday night. "A social thing, for a change." He grinned and asked Wallace,
"Are you interested?"

"What time?"

Which surprised Mekal, but just for a moment. "So you're feeling social, huh?
Well then, good. Eight o'clock. Bring a date if you want. Your choice."

No date. He could have picked one of two girls that he saw casually, but either
would have been a distraction. A filter. Instead he drove himself to the big
house built on a leveled blufftop, Mekal at the door, Wallace walking into the
big living room with its picture window, him drinking in the view of dusk and
the river, wondering all the time: "Where is she?" It was eight o'clock and half
a dozen minutes. Almost no one had arrived yet. What Wallace had hoped to find
was noise and confusion, using them as a smoke screen to cover his shyness and
the uncomfortable silences. But people never arrive on time for parties; he'd
forgotten that salient fact. And he turned just as the gift emerged from the
kitchen, his scheme gone. Deflated. He offered the weakest smile, and she handed
him a heavy glass filled with sweet punch brighter than blood. "You look
thirsty," she reported. "He said, 'Give Wallace a drink, ' and you're Wallace,
right?"

"Yes." Nobody else around. Just them. . . .

"I'm Cindy. Cin, for short. Whichever." She smiled, showing perfect teeth as
small as a child's. "How does it taste, Wallace?"

He sipped and said, "Very good. Thank you."

"My husband made it. Some special recipe of his."

Suddenly it didn't taste as delicious, but Wallace kept drinking. He was quite
thirsty and afraid that Cindy--Cin--would leave him now. She would feel that her
duty as hostess was finished, or some such thing. So he turned back to the
window and said with force, "It's a lovely view you have."

Were the words as contrived as they sounded?

But she replied, "Thanks," and nodded happily.

"And it's a beautiful house."

"You've never been here before?"