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

like ghosts', raised in argument.
'Perhaps you would care to see the campus,' Dean Whoolson said. 'And, naturally,
it is most beautiful in the spring.'
Why not try something different? Nicholas had thought. 'All right,' he had said.
People were still running past him, attracted by the anxiety the wailing siren
brought out. A growing knot of curious onlookers hovered, quivering on the
borderline between revulsion and fascination, moths circling a flame in an
ever-tightening orbit. He concentrated on the sound of the surf, curling and
rushing in towards him, calling like a friend, but the human voices, raised in
excitement and query, pierced the afternoon like needles. For them it was but a
side-show attraction, a chance to turn on the six o'clock news and say to their
friends, 'Hey! See that? I was there. I saw it happen,' exactly as if it were
Elizabeth Taylor and her touring party who had rolled through that particular
stretch of surf, and then, as placidly as if they were contented bovines,
-return to their icy astringent martinis, the sliced pepperoni dial someone
had thoughtfully brought out from Balducci's in the city.
His house was of weathered grey shingle and coffee-coloured brick with neither
the pop-eyed Plexiglas bubble windows nor the bizarre cantilevered walls dial
many of the homes had along this stretch. To the right of the house, the dunes
abruptly gave way to flat sand, somewhat lower man dial of the surrounding area.
There had been, until early December, a house worth roughly a quarter of a
million dollars on that property, but the winter had been fully as foul as the
one in 1977-8 and it had been washed away with much of the land itself. The
family was still trying to get the insurance money to rebuild. In the meantime,
there was more open space to the side than was usual along this densely
populated and highly fashionable beachfront.
The breakers seemed to be pounding harder as the tide continued to sweep in and
he felt the cold salt water licking up his ankles to his calves. The bottoms of
his jeans, though turned up several times, pulled heavy with washed sand. He was
reaching down to brush them out when a figure barrelled into him. He fell
backwards with a grunt, someone sprawled on top of him.
'Why the hell don't you watch where you're going?" he yelled crossly as he
disentangled himself.
'Sorry, but you don't have to scream, do you? It was a simple mistake.'
The first thing he saw was her face, though before that he smelled her perfume,
faintly citric and as dry as Dean Whoolson's voice. Her face was extremely close
to his. Her eyes he thought at first were hazel but then he saw that they
certainly had more green in them than brown. There were one or two red flecks
floating in the left iris. Her skin was creamy and lightly freckled. Her nose
was rather too wide, which gave her character, and her lips were plump, which
gave her an innate sensuality.
He grasped her firmly under the arms and lifted her with him.
She immediately drew away, crossing her arms over her breasts. 'Don't do that.'
Still she eyed him, made no move to pass him by. Her fingers curled, rubbing the
flesh of her arms as if his grip had bruised her.
'Haven't we met before?" he said.
Her lips jerked in a quick quirky smile. 'You can do better than that, can't
you?'
'No. I mean it. I've seen you somewhere before.'
Her eyes darted for a moment over his shoulder. When they again alighted on him