"Wilson, F Paul - adversary 3 - The Touch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson F. Paul)

of the front of the car, then he gently accelerated. The bum pounded his fist
once on the trunk as the car left him behind.
In the rearview mirror, Alan saw the man start running behind the car, then stop
and stand in the middle of the street, staring after him, a picture of dejection
and frustration as he waved his arms in the air and then let them flop down to
his sides.
The episode left Alan shaken. He glanced at the passenger window and was
startled to see a large oily smudge in the shape of the derelict's face. As it
picked up the light of a passing streetlamp, it seemed to look at him, reminding
him uncomfortably of the face from the Shroud of Turin.
He was pulling up to another red light when his beeper howled, startling him
into jamming on his brakes. A female voice spoke through the static:
"Two-one-sevenЧplease call Mrs. Nash about her son. Complains of abdominal pain
and vomiting." It gave the phone number, then repeated the message.
Alan straightened in his seat. Sylvia NashЧhe knew her well; a concerned parent
but not an alarmist. If she was calling, it meant something was definitely wrong
with Jeffy. That concerned him. Jeffy Nash had come to occupy a special place in
his heart and his practice.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. What to do? His usual procedure in
a case like this was to meet the patient at either his office or the emergency
room. His office was on the far side of town, and he didn't want to go back to
the emergency room tonight unless absolutely necessary. Then it struck him: The
Nash house was a short way off the road between the hospital and his own house.
He could stop in on the way home.
He smiled as he accelerated through the green light. He found the thought of
seeing Sylvia invigorating. And a house callЧthat ought to flap the unflappable
Widow Nash.
He followed Main Street around to where it passed the entrance to the Monroe
Yacht and Racquet Club on the west side of the harbor, then turned inland and
passed through the various economic strata that made up "The Incorporated
Village of Monroe." The low-rent district with its garden apartments and rooming
houses clung to the downtown area, eventually giving way to the postwar tract
homes surrounding the high school. From there it was up into the wooded hills
where the newer custom-built homes of the better-off had sprung up in the past
decade. Alan lived there, and would have continued on Hill Drive if he had been
going home. But he bore right at the fork and followed Shore Drive down to
Monroe's most exclusive section.
Alan shook his head at the memory of his first day in town, when he had promised
Ginny that someday they would own one of the homes along the waterfront at
Monroe's western end. How naive he had been then. These weren't homesЧ these
were estates, rivaling the finest homes in Glen Cove and Lattingtown. He
couldn't afford the utilities, taxes, and upkeep on one of these old
monstrosities, let alone the mortgage payments.
Stone walls and tall stands of trees shielded the waterfront estates from
passersby. Alan wound along the road until his headlights swept the two tall
brick gateposts that flanked the entrance, illuminating the brass plaque on the
left that read:
TOAD HALL
He turned in, followed a short, laurel-lined road, and came upon the Nash
houseЧformerly the Borg mansionЧstanding dark among its surrounding willows