"Smith, Martin Cruz - Polar Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Martin Cruz)

Slava rocked slightly on his heels, not from the motion of the ship.

Arkady glanced at the door and lowered his voice. 'How many Americans are on board?'

'Four. Three are representatives of the company, one is an American Fisheries observer.'

'Do they know?'

'No,' Slava said. 'Two were still in their bunks. The other representative was at the stern rail. That's a long walk to the deck. The observer was inside having tea. Fortunately, the trawlmaster was intelligent and covered the body before any Americans could see.'

'The net came from an American boat. Didn't they see?'

'They never know what's in the net until we tell them.' Slava pondered. 'We should prepare a proper explaнnation, in case.'

'Ah, an explanation. She worked in the galley.'

'Yes.'

'Food poisoning?'

'That's not what I meant.' Slava's face turned red. 'Anyway, the doctor examined her when we brought her in and he said she is only two hours dead. If you were such a good investigator you would still be in Moscow.'

'True.'

Arkady's shift was over, so he went to the cabin he shared with Obidin, Kolya Mer and an electrician named Gury Gladky. No model seamen here. Gury was on the bottom bunk thumbing through a Sears catalogue. Obidin had hung his overcoat in the closet and was washing slime that clung to his beard like webs on a feather duster. An oversized Orthodox cross swayed on his chest. His voice emanated as a rumble; if a man could speak comfortably from the grave, he would sound like Obidin. 'That is the anti-Bible,' he told Kolya as he looked at Gury. 'That is the work of an anti-Christ.'

'And he hasn't even seen The Sharper Image,' Gury said as Arkady climbed to the upper bunk. In his leisure time, Gury always wore dark glasses and a black leather jacket, like a lounging aviator. 'You know what he wants to do in Dutch Harbor? Go to church.'

'The people have maintained one,' Obidin said. 'It is the last vestige of Holy Russia.'

'Holy Russia? People? You're talking about Aleuts, fucking savages!'

Kolya counted pots. He had fifty cardboard pots, each five centimetres wide. He had trained as a botanist and to hear him talk about the port of Dutch Harbor and the island of Unalaska was to imagine that the ship was going to put in at Paradise and he would have his choice of the Garden.

'Fishmeal in the soil will help,' he said.

'You really think they're going to make it all the way back to Vladivostok?' A thought occurred to Gury. 'What kind of flowers?'

'Orchids. They're more hardy than you think.'

'American orchids? They'd go over big, you'd need some help selling them.'

'They're the same as Siberian bog orchids,' Kolya said. 'That's the point.'

'This was all Holy Russia,' Obidin said, as if nature agreed.

Gury pleaded, 'Arkady, help me. "That's the point"? We have one day in an American port. Men here will spend it looking for fucking Siberian flowers, and Obidin wants to pray with cannibals! Explain to them; they listen to you. We spend five months on this ocean-going shitcan for that one day in port. I have room under my bunk for five stereos and maybe a hundred tapes. Or computer disks. All the schools in Vladivostok are supнposed to get Yamahas. Supposed to, at least. Someday. So anything compatible is worth a fortune. When we get home I'm not going to go down the gangplank and say, "Look what I got in America" and hold up pots of Siberian flowers.'

Kolya cleared his throat. He was the smallest man in the cabin and had the unease of the smallest fish in an aquarium. 'What did Bukovsky want?' he asked Arkady.