Matt Richtel - The Cloud

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Matt Richtel - The Cloud» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Триллер, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

The Cloud: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Cloud»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

The Cloud — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Cloud», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

She hands me the coffee. I take a big slug, grimacing as the scalding liquid scorches the roof of my mouth.

“It’s even more exhilarating if you pour the whole thing on your head.” She smiles and my heart skips a beat-either from caffeine or the stimulant created by Faith’s proximity. Maybe it’s the same neurological mechanism.

I’m about to make a comment about the fact that it’s strange to me that Faith is composed enough to joke even though she’s allegedly being stalked, when she says: “Thank you for the rescue.”

I swallow hard. I put the coffee into the center console and drive in silence to the end of the alley. I take a left, drive half a block, take another left and drive two blocks, then take another left heading back toward Polk. Just before the intersection, I park in a red loading zone in front of a neighborhood bar called Leap Year. I feel Faith watching me. I turn to her and then back to Polk; half a block up the street, double-parked as it has been, sits the black Mercedes.

“He’s going to see us.” The anxiety is back in her voice.

“We’re behind him. No streetlight shining on us. If he sees us he’d have to turn the car around and we’d be outta here.” But I’m irritated that maybe she’s right. “You have any tips, Faith?”

“Tips?”

“On doing surveillance. You seem to have the knack.”

“I don’t want to do this. I want to be somewhere safe.”

“You’re free to go at any time.”

“You know he’d see me.”

“Then we’re stuck with each other-for now.”

She doesn’t respond.

“Aren’t you curious who is following you?” I turn to look at her. Her eyes glisten with tears. “What’s going on, Faith?”

She sniffles once, then takes a deep breath. With the tips of her fingers, she wipes moisture from under her right eye. She looks at me, suddenly composed.

“So he’s dead? Alan.”

“I think he had a heart attack. I don’t think he was. .” I don’t finish because I’m not sure whether he died of natural causes. He’d seemed hurt when he fell into me. Maybe his heart was already giving out. Or maybe someone drugged him, before or after our collision.

Faith interrupts my introspection. “Are you sick too?”

“No, why. .”

“When you saw Alan, you. . passed out.”

I don’t respond.

“Then it touched a nerve,” Faith says. “You’ve lost someone.”

I think: Ain’t that the truth. My first true love, Annie Kindle, drowned five years ago in a lake in Nevada. My paternal grandmother, Lane, though still alive, suffers intensifying dementia. Polly, who was going to make it all better, left me. Things I love die or go away.

“I was disoriented.” I finally offer my explanation. “I’ve got a concussion.” So, yeah, I think, sick, in a way.

“It’s not my fault.”

“Why would my concussion be your fault, Faith?”

“I was just doing him a favor. That’s it.” She sounds just a tad defensive but maybe fairly so; a man is dead.

“Hold that thought.”

The man in the Mercedes steps out of the car. He’s tall and thin, more leg than torso. He looks in the direction of the cafe where I picked up Faith and cocks his head. He closes the car door and starts walking to the cafe: gangly, awkward strides, long arms, pink head, birdlike. He’s favoring his left leg, but at this distance in the dark I can’t settle on a diagnosis. Maybe lower back pain.

“He knows I’m gone,” says Faith.

The man disappears into the cafe. I can imagine he’s looking around, checking the bathroom, then asking the tattooed dude behind the counter whether he’s seen a brunette in a brown skirt. At some point, he’ll realize Faith disappeared through the alley or he’ll wonder if he lost focus and missed her wandering out the front.

“There he is,” Faith says.

“Turkey vulture.”

“What?”

“He moves like a bird.”

“Absolutely does. The way he cocks his head, a buzzard. You know your birds of prey.”

Back at his car, he finds a ratty-haired man in decrepit full-length coat looking through the back window and scratching his arms. Crack addict. The buzzard pulls out a wallet. He extracts a bill. He holds it up so that the druggie can see it. He drops the dollar onto the ground behind the car.

The addict shrugs and bends to pick up the money. As he starts to stand, the buzzard launches a soccer-style kick at the druggie’s head. Just before he’s about to make contact, the gangly attacker pulls back, sparing the druggie a terrific blow, causing him to fall to the street in a ball.

“Oh God,” Faith says.

“Mean buzzard.”

He climbs into the Mercedes. No sooner does exhaust start to come from his tailpipe than he is off. He peels into light traffic, cutting off a diminutive European smart car made for parking, not surviving crashes.

I pull out to follow. The Mercedes is separated from us by the smart car and an old-model sedan coughing exhaust.

“Take me to my car,” Faith says.

I don’t answer.

“You’re kidnapping me.”

“You think this guy is just playing around?”

“I. .”

“Help me find out what’s going on so that we can both feel safe.”

Faith crosses her arms across her chest, resignation. The Mercedes takes a left onto Bush Street, a thoroughfare that heads in the direction of downtown.

“At least tell me what we’re doing.”

“I’m following him to see where he goes and you’re going to continue telling me how you happened to observe my almost murder by subway.”

I take the left onto Bush. I’m now separated from the Mercedes by only the sedan, a Buick. But I doubt he would be able to see us in the darkness and drizzle. The light turns green. We continue toward downtown.

A few blocks later, the Mercedes takes an abrupt, illegal left turn onto Grant Street beneath an enormous green gate with an orange dragon on the top. Chinatown.

I hear a honk and realize I’ve stopped in the middle of the street. The Mercedes is half a block away now but moving slowly; not surprising given Chinatown’s narrow streets and the challenge of navigating a handful of jaywalkers, the very last of the night’s produce, and shoppers toting bags.

The Mercedes’s taillights disappear over a slight hill.

21

Ihate this place. It’s always had a hold on me-not the mysticism of the hole-in-the-wall herbal dispensaries, the wrinkle-faced trinket sellers in their comically costumed conical hats, the bloodied chickens hung by their feet from the rafters of the Chinese butchers. That stuff I love.

It’s the parking. This is the place where parking Karma goes to die. Tiny spaces, seemingly never free, with what seem to me to be the most arcane rules in a city of arcane parking rules. Here, a sign might read: NO PARKING 8 TO 5 OTHER THAN FIRST TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS OF MONTH AND AS OTHERWISE NOTED. Why not add: PENALTY IS DEATH. Two spots away, a different rule.

I work through a small crowd and crest the hill in time to see the Mercedes slide into a spot. I can’t tell whether it’s legal, but it nevertheless puts us in a pickle. I can’t stop and double-park in these narrow streets.

“Duck,” I say.

“What?”

“Lower your head.”

She understands. We’re about to pass the buzzard. She bends to the left so she’s lying on the seat, out of sight. To stabilize herself, she reaches across the center of the car and her fingers brush my knee.

To avoid having him see me, I instinctively contract my neck, trying to pull my head inside my body. I also slow to keep from getting too far ahead of the Mercedes, but even at this pace, we’re a full block ahead of our prey. Faith sits up.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Cloud»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Cloud» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «The Cloud»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Cloud» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x