"WILHELM, KATE - JUSTICE FOR SOME" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

said. "I'd like a word with you about it before you take off," she added
to Maria.

"We'll be done in about half an hour," Virgil said.

"You want to wait?"

"Not in here," Winnie said, wiping her upper lip with the back of her
hand, fighting nausea again. "I'll be at the house."

She did not go back through the showroom, but headed toward the nearest
door. She glanced again at her brother and Maria; their heads were bent
over the work: communion reestablished.

She was facing the fish hatchery when she stepped outside, where
surprisingly the air felt cool and fresh.

She leaned against the door breathing deeply, gratefully.

Carlos Chiricos entered the building opposite, walking around a hand
truck of shipping boxes at the wide doors; today, Friday, they would
send out a shipment of fish and plants, a busy day for everyone. Rusty
Curlow flew two shipments in his Cessna each week down to Reno, where
they were transferred to a commercial line on their way to the
customers.

"Shit," Winnie said under her breath. That meant that her grandfather
would already be in the shipping room overseeing the packing of the
fish, snails, whatever they were sending, or on his way there, or on his
way to the plants room. He always oversaw this operation. He still
didn't fully believe you could send fish by mail to anywhere in the
world without heavy mortality rates, although by now experience should
count for something. She started back toward the house. She had hoped to
corner her grandfather this afternoon; she had hoped the same thing
yesterday when she arrived, and now she would have to put it off until
Sunday. Tomorrow she would be too busy with the video, and he never
really talked after dinner. Besides, Virgil would be hanging around, or
someone else would drop in. She had to see him alone. And she had to see
him before her mother arrived on Sunday.

Slowly she walked around the pond nearest the house. This was the first
one her grandfather had installed, for therapeutic reasons. When her
grandmother had a stroke, he had retired from government service, and
they had come out here, the area of his childhood, and just for
something to do, he had taken up water gardening and fish breeding. At
first he had said it was for his wife; he had read that watching
goldfish and koi was relaxing, that it took the blood pressure down
measurably just to sit and watch the fish swim. Now, twenty years later,
the little hobby had become a million-dollar business, but the first
pond was still his favorite, and it was the prettiest of them all.