"Van Lustbader, Eric - Linnear 01 - The Ninja" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

THE GROUND BOOK
I
West Bay Bridge, Summer Present
When Nicholas Linnear saw them fish the bloated blue-white thing out of the
water, he turned right around, walking away, and was far down the beach by the
time the real crowd had begun to form.
Flies buzzed furrily along the snaking hillock of sand above the high-tide mark.
The spindrift, drying, was like a lock of a child's fine white hair. Beyond, the
combers rolled in, purple-blue, then white as their tops turned to foam,
spending themselves upon the wet sand at his bare feet.
He dug his toes in, very much as he had done when he was younger, but, of
course, it did no good. The sea leached away the footing from under him and he
grew shorter by inches as the land was eroded by the tide's inexorable progress.
Until then it had been a quiet afternoon, Dune Road lazy in midweek, even though
this was the week after the Fourth of July. He reached unconsciously for the
pack of thin black-tobaccoed cigarettes which he no longer carried. He had given
up smoking six months ago. He remembered the date well enough because it was the
day he had quit his job.
He had arrived at the agency one chill sullen winter's day and had stayed in his
office only long enough to place the ostrich-hide briefcase that Vincent had
presented him with for no apparent reason - it was some months past his birthday
and longer than that since he had been promoted - on his rosewood and
smoked-glass desk that was much too modern to hold anything remotely resembling
drawers. Then he went out, turning left, past the curious, upturned face of Lil,
his secretary, down the beige-carpeted, rose-neon indirectly lit hall. When had
he actually made the decision? He had no idea, really. On the way in, in the
cab, his mind had been empty, his thoughts like ashes swirled in the dregs of
last night's coffee. Nothing else seemed to remain.
He went past the pair of female guardians who, like perfectly carved sphinxes
before a great pharaoh's tomb, flanked the enormous carved mahogany door. The
thing of it was, they were damned efficient, too. He gave a brief knock and went
in.
Goldman was on the phone - the dark blue one, which meant a conversation with a
high-level client, rather than the beige one, which would indicate inter-office
brainstorming - so Nicholas stared out of the window. They're all high-level
these days, he thought. There were days when being on the thirty-sixth floor had
its advantages, but this was not one of them. The sky was so dense with leaden
clouds that it seemed as if a lid had been clamped down on the city. Perhaps,
near nightfall, it would snow again. He couldn't think whether that would be
good or bad.
'Nick, my boy 1' Goldman cried as he cradled the receiver. 'It must've been ESP,
you walking in now! Guess who that was on the phone? No.' He waved one hand. It
looked like a duck, eager to take off. 'Better yet, don't guess. I'll tell you.
It was Kingsley.' His eyes got big. They always got big when he was excited.
'Know what he said? He was talking my ear off about you and the campaign. The
first results are already in. They're "a dramatic improvement", he says. Those
are his words, the schmendric. "A dramatic improvement".'
Nearing sixty, Sam Goldman did not look a day over fifty. He was fit and trim
and always tanned. This, Nicholas had always supposed, he maintained to set off
his shock of brilliant white hair which he wore long and combed straight back.