"Alan F. Troop - Dragon DelaSangre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Troop Alan F)

"And I'd beg you to move the cannon into position," I said.

Father chuckled. "Your mother always hated that I kept a few of the old ship killers. When I'd fire
one for you, she'd be mad for weeks. She always worried we'd be heard. Shenever believed we
were far enough from land for the noise to go unnoticed."

It was a wonderful place for a boy to grow upтАж even a strange child like I was. I still like to stand in the
great room on the third floor of our coral-stone house and overlook it all, like a captain viewing his ship
from the top deck. Usually I dine alone each night at the massive oak table in the middle of that room,
Father asleep, rumbling and turning with his dreams in the room below.

From my seat I can survey all the approaches to our island home. To my right, a large multipaned
window faces the endless waves of the Atlantic Ocean. To my left, three smaller windows look out
across the pale blue width of Biscayne Bay to the South Miami skyline on the horizon. In front of me,
two other windows view the swift current flowing through the narrow channel separating us from the bird
sanctuary on Wayward Key. And behind me, yet another window overlooks the mile-wide channel
between our small island and the green tree-covered spits of land called the Ragged Keys.

When the windows are open, no matter which direction the wind blows, it washes through the room like
an unending wave. Always the house smells of sea salt and ocean damp. Always every outside noise
washes through too. Only birds and fish can visit our island and escape notice. Don Henri planned it that
way when he built this house.

Tonight I choose to dine out far from our home, away from the endless waves and restless breezes that
worry at our tiny island. I land our motorboat, a twenty-seven-foot Grady White, at our slip behind
Monty's restaurant in Coconut Grove. It's been almost a week since I've come ashore.

I walk down the dock, ignoring the blare of reggae music and the smells of fried fish and spilt beer that
always seem to fill the air around Monty's thatch-roofed outdoor patio. Just past the restaurant's parking
lot, I pause for the light, and glance across South Bayshore Drive to the green-and-beige concrete tower
on the leftтАФthe Monroe buildingтАФwhere LaMar Associates, my family's business, keeps its offices.

While I've little interest in the daily functions of the company, I find it difficult to pass the building without
giving it at least a cursory glance. After all it houses the company Don Henri founded to manage and
grow our wealth.

Studying the office building's sparse, utilitarian lines, I wonder, as I often do, why anyone would pay an
architect to fashion such an ungraceful edifice. Just to the south of it, workers swarm around the skeleton
of another, taller tower, one probably just as sterile in design.

I curl my lip. I can remember a time when Coconut Grove was a simple bayside village, when a
five-story building would have dwarfed everything in the area. Now concrete towers line South Bayshore
Drive, the well-designed ones crowded and eclipsed by their inferiors.

Unfortunately I have to give myself part of the blame. My family's corporation probably has some money
invested in every building in sight.

A shiny black Mercedes coupe sits parked on the street in front of the concrete tower. I recognize it as