"Kate Wilhelm - Dark Door" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

detectives, and they all agree that there was nothing more. In fact, it was
very brave, perhaps even foolhardy, for you to try to help at all."

Carson Danvers sat on the side of his bed. His face was swathed in bandages. A
bullet had grazed his cheekbone, had torn away most of the flesh on one side.
He would need plastic surgery. His right arm was in a cast. A bullet had gone
through his shoulder. His torso was bandaged. They had gone in and removed
part of a rib shattered by the third bullet. The rib had deflected it, sent it
back outward through a second hole. Except for the plastic surgery, he was
repaired, healing, ready to be 'discharged from the hospital.

Dr. McChesney stood up. "If you decide to stay around here, I can recommend a
rooming house where they'll take care of you, and I'll have my nurse set up an
appointment in my office next week."

"That's what I'll do," Carson said. Talking hurt; he kept it at a minimum.

"Okay, I'll make the arrangements. Your company will pick up the bill, they
said. You're on sick leave for the next three months and we'll evaluate your
situation then. Nothing to worry about on that score." He regarded his patient
for a moment, then put his hand on Carson's shoulder. "I don't know how the
hell you dragged yourself up those stairs, either. God knows, John, you did
more than was human as it was. Don't torture yourself. I'll send in the nurse
for you."

Carson knew he had to tell them the truth about who he was, but not yet, he
thought. Not yet. Elly parents, her sister, his parents .... How could he tell
them Gary had gone crazy and killed his mother? Even trying to form the words
it would take to tell them brought a long shudder and made his eyes sting with
tears. Not yet.

The strange thing was the ease with which he was getting away with being John
Loesser. They had found a walletm Loesser's walletrain his pocket; Carson's
things were in his coat left in the Buick that day. Even the man the company
sent out had accepted him. Of course, he had not known Loesser personally, but
he had seen him a time or two. Carson had not been expected to talk then, and
the bandages had concealed his identity further, but even so, he mused, even
so. The few times he had started to explain, he had gone dumb, started to
shake, lost control. Twice they had given him an injection to put him to sleep
again, and the last time they had sent in a new doctor whose name had already
escaped him. A shrink, he had realized after a short time. Guilt, the shrink
had stated ponderously, was the most debilitating emotion of all. He had
talked on, but Carson had stopped listening. Guilt of the survivor, he
realized, was what the shrink assumed he was suffering from. And he was, he
was. Guilt over doing something so horrible to Gary that he had turned on his
own parents with a gun. Guilt over not being able to help his dead wife. Guilt
over not being able to help his child. Guilt, guilt, guilt. But as John
Loesser the guilt was abstract, distant. He would tell them later, he had
decided that day. Much later.