"Sheri S. Tepper - The Fresco" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

covered them with the sweater, the poncho, the leftover wrappers, peels and crusts from lunch, plus the
empty soda can along with a couple more she'd found lying near the road. The mushroom bag went on
top. She turned the car and started back down the road, the way she'd come, reaching out every few
moments to touch the backpack, just to be sure it was there. A hundred thousand dollars! Oh, what she
could do with a hundred thousand!
Though maybe it wasn't right to take money for doing one's duty, which this thing probably was. It
felt complicated and troublesome enough to be duty. If she was going to do what the aliens had asked her
to do, well, actually hired her to do, then she would need some of the money to get to the right people,
whoever they were. Not her senator, Byron Morse, with his new, sort-of-Hispanic wife and his far-right
friends. Goose had worked for Morse's opponent during the last election, and he'd talked about the
unethical stuff Morse had pulled. Her congressman, though he was also a hyphenated-Hispanic, would be
a better bet.
The trip that had seemed a long one on the way out was all too short getting home. She saw
immediately that she was not in luck. The studio-cum-garage door was open and Bert was perched on his
so-called workbench drumming his heels against the paint cans on the shelf below. Neither they nor the
dusty canvases against the end wall had been moved in years, but the beer cans scattered around him were
new.
 "Where the hell you been?" he demanded, leaning in the open car window, the smell of him filling
her breathing space with a rank, sweaty, beeriness.
She tried not to breathe and kept her voice steady. "I felt like some exercise and fresh air, so I drove
up to the mountains to hunt mushrooms and have a picnic lunch.тАЭ
"Yeah, I'll bet," he sneered.
She opened the pack and displayed the contents of the mushroom sack. "Mushroom hunting, Bert.
You used to go with me and the kids sometimes. I left you a note.тАЭ
"Your note said you were going shopping.тАЭ
"I plan to. I thought I'd do it on my way home, but I got rained on in the hills, so I decided to come
home and change before I did the shopping.тАЭ
"It'll have to wait. Give me the keys.тАЭ
She became very still inside. Something clicked, like a relay switch. She said softly, "Bert, you know
what the judge said. Now's not the time to get him down on you . . .тАЭ
He jerked the car door open. "Give me the goddamn keys. The judge won't do a damned thing, and
you know it. I'm not drunk, I'm not going to drink, it's Saturday, and nobody's gonna be watching the
goddam monitor on Saturday! I'm going over to Larry's place to watch the game with him and Bill. Now
come on!"
He wore an expression she had learned to heed, one that was a half-step from violence, one that
begged her to cross him and give him an excuse to go over the edge. Normally at this point she dissolved
into sludge, tears and whines, attempts to dissuade him. Today, amid this new clarity, she did a much
simpler thing. Leaving the keys in the ignition, she edged away from him, across the passenger side and
out, taking the pack with her.
"They impounded your car, Bert. If you get picked up in my car, they'll impound my car too.тАЭ
Without difficulty, she kept her voice perfectly level, normally an achievement in itself. "I won't have any
way to get to work.тАЭ
He jeered, "Moo, moo. Bossie-Benita the human cow! You worried your hubby'll let you starve?" He
climbed in behind the wheel and backed out into the street, wheels screaming.
She stood where she was, not moving. The car was stopped, half into the street, while he waited for
her to do something. Come after him, maybe. Make a face. Stamp her foot. It wouldn't take much. Any
little thing. She turned to the trash barrel and took the empty cans from the pack, one at a time throwing
them away, paying no attention to the beer cans, which ordinarily she would have gathered up
immediately. Today she realized he would consider her throwing them away a comment on his morning's
activities, so she let them lie. Bert was always able to establish that she had done something wrong, no