The Fallen
- Автор: Паркер Т. Джефферсон
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-06-056238-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Fallen». Краткое содержание книги:
“Never. Why?”
I explained what we had found in the Explorer and that it looked like it could have been ripped off in a struggle.
“It’s hard enough to imagine a man doing that to another human being,” said Stella. “Let alone a woman.”
“Did Garrett have a lover?” I asked.
Stella shook her head. “I would be very surprised. I’d think you would have uncovered her by now. No, Garrett was devoted to me. I say that with pride in him, not ownership or arrogance.”
“How did you meet, you and Garrett?”
She looked at me and smiled very slightly. I was struck again by her unusual beauty, compromised though it was by tragedy, murder, and grief.
“I met Sam Asplundh in a restaurant bar in Los Angeles. I was finishing up my master’s, student-teaching at the time. We dated twice, and then he made the mistake of arranging a double with his brother. I was in Garrett’s pocket by the end of the night, though I had the good sense and manners not to show it to anyone, including Garrett.”
I thought of my own headlong fall for Gina.
“Sam have hard feelings?” I asked.
“Just a little, maybe. He married and divorced.”
“The woman from the Fourth of July party?”
She nodded, remembering.
“Was Garrett’s light blue necktie special to you?” I asked.
“He wore it on our wedding day. Was he... when he...?”
“Yes.”
“God,” Stella said softly. I believe that she shuddered though I couldn’t see much more than her profile, backlit by the kitchen light.
She went to the tape player, rewound, and hit “play.” Their scratchy, poorly recorded voices issued through the apartment like the soundtrack to an old TV show. I could almost picture them as they talked that day, four-thirty in the afternoon and the dark clouds gathering outside for the night’s rain.
GARRETT: You’ll always be that to me. Bye.
“Who’s Mr. Highwayman?” I asked.
Stella came back and sat. “He’s a dashing robber who’s in love with Bess, the landlord’s black-haired daughter. He’s got lace at his chin, and a coat of claret velvet, and his rapier and pistol butts twinkle in the starlight. And he rides off to rob the travelers and swears that if the cops really press him, he’ll hide out and come back to her the next night by moonlight, though hell should bar the way. It was Garrett’s favorite poem when he was a boy. He memorized it as a child and he’d recite it to me. It’s beautiful. It’s quite long. Listen:
I heard her voice evaporate into the sound of the traffic on the street below.
“Does he make it back with the loot?” I asked.
“They’re betrayed by a jealous hostler. It costs them their lives.”
“It sounds good,” I said.
“It’s romantic and tragic.”
I said nothing but I could tell she was looking at me.
“You’ve had your share of tragic,” she said.
“Everyone does if they live long enough.”
“Do you talk about what happened?” she asked.
“I don’t enjoy it.”
“I understand that. I watched the fall on TV. I knew that you had lived, or I wouldn’t have been able to watch it. I can’t really describe how it made me feel. Terrible. Then relieved. Then very hopeful. It made me see that not everything ends in death and tragedy.”
“I’m glad you felt hope,” I said. “It cuts through the darkness better than anything, doesn’t it?”
I heard tires squeal down on the street. I thought of being trapped down in the bottom of that floor safe where Gina’s jewelry used to be.
“Do you mind talking about Samantha?” I asked.
“I don’t enjoy it either,” said Stella.
Neither of us said anything for a long moment.
“What was it like?” she asked. “The fall?”
The image of Vic Malic’s grimace as he held me close came to my mind’s eye. I didn’t want it, but there was nothing I could do to get rid of it. I also smelled the gin on his breath and saw the flames lapping at the window as he spun me around and around. I felt the first thrilling terror of being alone in the air, high up and attached to nothing.
“It seemed to take a long time,” I said. “I thought about a lot of things. At first I tried to will myself to stay up, but that didn’t work. Then all these things raced by in a kind of code that ran much faster than memory or thought. It was as if my total experience on earth were being condensed and played back for me. I wasn’t really worried about dying. I was more worried about... well, more practical things. Like exactly when would I hit, and which bones would break, and how long it would be before I saw Gina again. That’s the most I’ve ever told anyone about it, except for Gina.”
“She’s your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Are you two happy?”
“I can’t tell you how much.”
I went to the window and looked down through the blinds. I’m always somewhat relieved when I look out a window and see that I’m up less than six stories. A group of young women was crossing just then and I thought of Gina trying to jaywalk in front of the Rock Bottom nightclub. I marveled at how large a part chance played in life: the chance that brought Gina and me together on the same street at the same time, the chance that Samantha’s doll would float into the middle of the pool and she would climb a fence without being seen.
“Have you ever watched the film that Garrett made about Samantha?”
“No,” said Stella. “Garrett told me he was making it. And I sat down with him once but could only watch just a few seconds. He mailed me a copy but I never played it.”
“I’ve seen it. It’s difficult. She was perfect.”
“I don’t think I could watch it,” she said. “See, Garrett... Garrett and I had very different reactions to what happened. Garrett wanted to preserve and possess — images, clothes, belongings, her room intact, exactly as it was. For almost six months, I did too. I collected and organized and preserved. Then I saw a white fire. The fire told me to let go. To give up trying to keep my daughter. It told me to forgive and remember, but not to dwell. It told me that if I buried myself with the objects of her life I would never be able to believe in her death. So I let go of most of her things. I allowed only a... reasonable number of her photographs in my home. I unburied myself. And the strangest transformation took place. When I was able to surrender Samantha’s life, I found a measurable quantity of peace. Garrett went deeper the other way. Later, coming from the opposite direction, he found the same peace that I had found.”
From the window I saw the women on the street go into an Italian restaurant. I wondered what it would be like to be single, with friends, and going out for eleven-fifteen drinks in the Gaslamp.
“I guess you’ve seen the video of your fall many times,” Stella said.
“I’ve never watched it.”
“Why not?”
“I think it might scare the piss out of me. Sorry for the language.”
“Your language is fine.”
Through the window I saw another jet heading down to Lindbergh Field. I thought of the lights in Las Vegas again and wondered where she was.