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

that the light was so dull and leaden. 'Me, I was brought up with rabbis.
They're in my system; no way I can get 'em out now, even if I wanted to.' He
sat forwards in his high-backed chair, his elbows on the desk top, levelled his
gaze at Nicholas. 'You get what I mean?'
Nicholas looked at him. 'Yes, Sam,' he had said, after a time. 'I know exactly
what you mean.'
The aching cries of the circling gulls hid the sound of the siren for a time,
but, as the ambulance drew nearer, its wailing rise and fall, rise and fall,
blotted out all other sound. People were running silently along the expanse of
the beach, looking birdlike and rather awkward as they tried to compensate for
the too soft footing.
He had come out to West Bay Bridge early in the season. In order to survive now,
he had to push it all away from him, into a comforting middle distance, not too
close, not too far away. The agency, Columbia, everything. Not even a discovery
of some drowned corpse was going to interrupt his solipsistic world; it was too
much like the city.
Oddly enough, it put him in mind of the call. It had come only a few days after
he had left the agency. He had been in the middle of the Times's Op-Ed page and
his second Irish coffee.
'Mr Goldman was good enough to give me your home number, Mr Linnear,' Dean
Whoolson said. 'I trust I've not intruded."
'I still don't understand why you've come to me,' he said.
'It's quite simple, really. There has been, of late, a renaissance of interest
in the field of Oriental Studies. The students here are no longer satisfied with
the superficiality, shall we say, of many of our oriental courses. I'm afraid
they view us as sadly out of date in that area.'
'But I'm hardly qualified as a teacher.'
'Yes, we are well aware of that.' The voice was rather dry, like a pinch of
senescent snuff floating through the air. But underneath there was an
unmistakable note of sincerity. 'Naturally we are aware that you do not possess
a teaching license, Mr Linnear, but, you see, this course I have in mind would
be perfect for you.' He chuckled, an odd, startling sound as if made by a
cartoon character. For us, too, I might add.'
'But I have absolutely no familiarity with the curriculum,' Nicholas said. 'I
wouldn't have any idea where to begin.'
'Oh, my dear fellow, it's a piece of cake,' Dean Whoolson said, his voice now
radiating confidence. 'The course is a seminar, you see. Taught by four
professors. Well, three now that Dr Kinkaid has fallen ill. It meets twice a
week during the spring semester with the four - I'm including yourself, of
course - rotating. You see the beauty of it, Mr Linnear? You can leave the
curriculum to the others and stick to what you know better than anyone else in
the Western Hemisphere.' That strange, oddly likeable chuckle came again,
reminding Nicholas of mint chocolates and crime sweets. 'I don't imagine you
would have to concern yourself with overlapping the others' material, would you?
I mean to say,' he rushed on, as if enraptured by the whole-hearted assurance of
his own voice, 'the kind of things - uh, insights, as it were - into the
Japanese mind are just the kind of things we are looking for. The students would
be delighted, no doubt - as would we.'
There was a singing discernible on the line in the ensuing silence between them
and, faintly, Nicholas could make out the inconstant sibilances of other voices,