"Dan Simmons - Joe Kurtz 03 - Hard As Nails" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

amusement parks around here when you were a kid?"
Kurtz had to smile at that His childhood hadn't included any amusement park
visits.
O'Toole actually blushed. "I mean, where did people go to amusement parks in
Western New York in those days, Mr. Kurtz? I know that Six Flags at Darien Lake
wasn't here then."
"How do you know this place is from way back then?" asked Kurtz. "It could
have been abandoned a year ago. Vandals work fast."
O'Toole nodded. "But the rust andтАж it just seems old. From the seventies at
least Maybe the sixties."
Kurtz shrugged and handed the photos back. "People used to go up to Crystal
Beach, on the Canadian side."
O'Toole nodded again. "But that was right on the lake, right? No hills, no
woods?"
"Right," said Kurtz. "And it wasn't abandoned like that. When the time came,
they tore it down and sold the rides and concessions."
The parole officer took off her glasses and stood. "Thank you, Mr. Kurtz. I
appreciate your help." She held out her hand as she always did. It had startled Kurtz
the first time she'd done it. They shook hands as they always did at the end of their
weekly interviews. She had a good, strong grip. Then she validated his parking
ticket. That was the other half of the weekly ritual.
He was opening the door to leave when she said, "And I may really give Mrs.
DeMarco a call about the other thing."
Kurtz assumed that "the other thing" was the parole officer's wedding. "Yeah," he
said. "You've got our office number and website address."


Later, he would think that if he hadn't stopped to take a leak in the first-floor
restroom, everything would have been different But what the hellтАФhe had to take a
leak, so he did. It didn't take reading Marcus Aurelius to know that everything you
did made everything different, and if you dwelt on it, you'd go nuts.
He came down the stairway into the parking garage corridor and there was Peg
O'Toole, green dress, high heels, purse and all, just out of the elevator and opening
the heavy door to the garage. She paused when she saw Kurtz. He paused. There
was no way that a probation officer wanted to walk into an underground parking
garage with one of her clients, and Kurtz wasn't keen on the idea either. But there
was also no way out of it unless he went back up the stairs orтАФeven more
absurdlyтАФstepped into the elevator. Damn.
O'Toole broke the frozen minute by smiling and holding the door open for him.
Kurtz nodded and walked past her into the cool semidarkness. She could let him
get a dozen paces in front of her if she wanted. He wouldn't look back. Hell, he'd
been in for manslaughter, not rape.
She didn't wait long. He heard the clack of her heels a few paces behind him,
heading to his right.
"Wait!" cried Kurtz, turning toward her and raising his right hand.
O'Toole froze, looked startled, and lifted her purse where, he knew, she usually
carried the Sig Pro.
The goddamned lights had been broken. When he'd come in less than half an
hour earlier, there had been fluorescent lights every twenty-five feet or so, but half of
those were out The pools of darkness between the remaining lights were wide and