"Kate Wilhelm - Day Of The Sharks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

Someone falls into the pool; within minutes there are a number of rescuers in
the water. After that it seems almost spontaneous, although it never really
is, he knows, for others to begin shedding their clothes to jump in. Gary
swims naked, as do Shar and Audrey, and a dozen others. All laughing and
playing and then huddling in towels and drinking again.

Guests are leaving now, and presently there are only three or four remaining,
drinking with Bill, nostalgic about old times, before the islands were bought.
Veronica has vanished, possibly to go to bed. Gary takes Shar's hand and leads
her to the terrace, beyond it to the velvet lawn where he spreads his towel
and hers to make a bed. He lowers her to the ground; she doesn't resist.

Immediately afterward she draws away. "I have to go in," she murmurs. "I can't
stay out here." She stands over him; he sits up and puts his arms around her
hips, pulls her to him, presses his face into her pubic hair and bites softly.
She moans and sways, but then pushes him away. "No more. Not now."

She runs, naked, gleaming in the patio lights briefly, then vanishes into one
of the rooms that open to the terrace.

Gary swims again, but he knows he is too drunk to be in the water alone; he
climbs out shivering, with exhaustion as much as from the cold. The guest room
has an outside door, he remembers; he finds it and goes in to shower and dry
himself and dress again. Veronica is not in the room. When he returns to the
living room, all the guests are gone. Bill has brought out champagne that he,
Veronica, and Shar are drinking.

They drink until dawn flames the sky and then they go to bed. It is eleven
when Gary awakens with a pounding headache; Veronica is already up and out.

"Take this," Bill says when he enters the dining room. "Don't ask questions,
just drink it." It is a juice drink, heavily spiked with bourbon. For a moment
Gary feels his stomach churn, then it settles down again. The drink is very
good.

Veronica looks awful; her eyes are red rimmed and bloodshot, sunken in her
face. "Why don't you try to sleep some more?" he says, too miserable to care
one way or the other.

From the kitchen come sounds of things being banged about. Bill winces.
"Caterers' clean-up crew," he says. "Let's go out to the dock until they
finish."

"I'll bring the cart," Shar says. "God knows we all need something to eat, and
coffee, lots of coffee."

The sun is hot, but the breeze is refreshing. The bay is about a mile wide;
there are no signs of civilization, as long as they face away from this
subdivision. Now and again a jumping fish makes ripples that undulate in the