"Anthony Neil Smith - Push-Button Easy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Anthony Neil)

"If I go off in the mountains, you couldn't use it for a few weeks."

"I get the rest of the year."

Ken leaned on the car and shoved his hands in his pockets. He scrubbed a shoe on the ground. They were sweating, needing the air conditioner. The noise on 90 picked up again, traffic ripping currents.

"You really mean it, I can take some vacations?" Ken said.

"Whatever you want. If you need it, take it. Go be happy."

"But I like hanging around with you. It'd be more fun if you came."

"You came down here because of me. You stayed this long. I'm surprised, really. I was looking for this restlessness from you five years ago." Jill put her hands behind her neck and twisted her waist left and right.

Dave came back with the keys and exchanged with Ken, said they could ride without him. Ken and Jill got in, cranked up, and eased it to the road. The leather seats were fantastic and soft. Jill sat back, stretched her legs full in front of her-it was like a den, the room inside. Ken looked at Jill and they laughed like it was a dirty joke. The air was an arctic jet, and there were different settings for driver and passenger. Jill put her face right in front of a vent and blinked fast.

Ken drove up a block to Market Street, turned right, flicked some radio buttons. He said, "It's got that tracking device, where they can find you with satellites."

"The Yukon doesn't have that."

"Where's this nursery?"

Jill told him to take a left at Old Mobile Avenue, between an abandoned gas station and a shabby one, past a muffler shop, until Jill pointed at a cinder block building painted white with Gallespye's in green above the front double doors. There was a pickup truck parked in front. Ken pulled the Seville into a side spot, where they caught a glimpse of the greenhouse in back. They got out and went in, Ken playing with the auto lock key chain.

Inside, the place smelled like shit and felt sticky. It was one big room: a rack of seed packets, garden tools lining the walls, a few birdbaths, lawnmowers. Fertilizer bags were stacked on wood slats. Some tall houseplants, ferns and begonias, were on brick-and-board shelves lining the far left wall, and the greenhouse entrance was at the end of it. A young woman with hair pulled tight and pinned up stood behind the long counter at a cash register. She smiled and said, "Hey."

"What do you need?" Ken said.

"Flowers, petunias I guess. More fertilizer. Some weed killer."

"Seeds?" Ken picked up a pack and shook it, looked at the front. "Popcorn!"

"Just plants. They grow better. Out there," Jill said and headed for the greenhouse, Ken following. A woman passed them carrying a tray of periwinkles.

The greenhouse air had a stronger shit smell mixed with syrupy flower odor. Ken pulled his shirt over his nose, but Jill marched through glancing and touching - zenias, impatiens, heather, roses. The light was hazy green, coating everything. All the plants were in black plastic separators on waist high tables along the walls and down a center aisle. Jill stopped at the petunias and lifted a tray of mixed colors.

"Did I tell you about the bank hits I saw on the news?" Ken said.

"I saw that. They go down easy here."

"I made that deposit today, took the .32 with me, just to see. I could've done it, I know."

"It's different now." She looked at him. "You'd have to catch up with the times, make changes."

"Do you miss it?"

"Yeah," Jill said. "But everybody quits sometime. Cops quit. Bankers quit. We did okay."

Ken leaned in close, brushed her cheek with his lips. He said, "But I miss you and me. We've settled. I go out somewhere, I know I'll see you when I get home. Back then, I never knew. Might've gone to jail, might've got shot, you might've got shot. It made the vows real, you know?"