Blue Lonesome
- Автор: Пронзини Билл
- Год: 1995
- Язык: английский
- Год: Walker and Company
- ISBN: 978-0-8027-3268-2
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «Blue Lonesome». Краткое содержание книги:
Jim Messenger is a CPA who hates his job, loves jazz, and can’t forget the woman he’s seen eating at the Harmony Café. She goes by the name Janet Mitchell and her only comment when he introduces himself is, “It won’t do you any good.”
When she commits suicide, Messenger has to learn why. From one slender clue he begins a search that is both a hunt for answers and a rite of passage. The name Janet Mitchell is only the first of the lies Messenger uncovers; in “historic Beulah,” Nevada, he discovers secrets coiled like rattlesnakes ready to strike and suffering chat lies like a suffocating blanket over lives put on hold.
By the time his search is over there will have been many changed lives, a horrible murder brought to light, and a quiet, little town torn apart. And all the while Jim Messenger was evolving into a genuine hero.
“Oh God, Jim, I’m not Anna. No way I could live in an apartment in a big city. I’d shrivel up and die inside a year.”
“Dacy, listen—”
“Same goes for Lonnie. We’re desert rats, plain and simple. Our roots go too deep in this piss-poor soil to ever yank ’em up completely.”
“Dammit, listen to me. When I get back what I want to do, what I’m aching to do, is give my boss three weeks’ notice, work out a settlement with my landlord to break my lease, pack up what I own that’s worth keeping, and then drive straight back here. In plenty of time to help you and Lonnie with the roundup. If you do decide to move, you won’t be able to manage it before then and I work cheaper and harder than any regular cowhand.”
Dead silence. Then, slowly, “I don’t believe what I just heard.”
“Believe it. Believe this, too: I love you, Dacy.”
“Oh, now...”
“And I think that if you don’t love me, just a little, you at least care for me. Am I right?”
She was shaking her head, but it was a gesture of exasperation rather than negation. “I swear, I never knew a man like you. Just when I figure I’ve got you pegged, you go unpredictable on me.”
“Good. That’s good. I used to be as predictable as a morning sunrise. Now I’m mule stubborn, batshit crazy, improvisational, unpredictable, and never more sincere or sure of my own mind.”
“You’d give up everything you have in Frisco and move out to some hardscrabble ranch in the middle of nowhere?”
“Everything I have? Dacy, what I’ve got back there is a dead-end job I’ve never much liked, a handful of acquaintances who won’t miss me two weeks after I’m gone, and a lifestyle that has been slowly suffocating me most of my adult life. I don’t have anything in San Francisco. I can shuck it all in three weeks, no regrets, no looking back. But I can’t do it, I won’t do it, unless I’ve got something worthwhile to exchange it for.”
“Me.”
“You, Lonnie, a hardscrabble ranch in the middle of this or some other nowhere — a fresh start for me, too. Absolute commitment on my part, but it doesn’t have to be on yours. You set the terms and I’ll abide by them. Trial period, if you like: three months, six months, a year. Hired man, part-time or full-time lover... whatever you want me to be. But I’ve got to know I’m welcome first, before I leave on Saturday.”
Nothing from her. Her eyes were squint-hidden; he couldn’t see them well enough to read them. In the background now, Mildred Bailey was singing “I Can’t Get Started With You.” Oh Lord, he thought, don’t let that be prophetic.
“Think about it,” he said, “will you do that? Think about it and give me your answer Saturday morning.”
“Well, maybe I should think about it. Talk to Lonnie too, see what he says. But I guess I won’t need to do either.”
“Say it, then. Don’t dance with me, Dacy. Yes or no?”
She said, “Yes.”