Kitabı oku: «The Racer», sayfa 4
10. The shortest path
Darkness hadn’t yet settled the streets of Heartstone, but the last rays of the sun had already dissolved. There was less and less traffic on the roads. Streetlights and neon signs stood out, while house windows glowed brightly.
Deborah Minton bustled around the kitchen like a whirlwind, not stopping for a minute. Watching her from the outside, there would hardly be anyone who would believe that this woman was an art teacher for kids. In terms of her activity, Deborah was more suitable for the work of an athlete or a courier who, even on her own two feet, would never be late with a delivery. She was almost finishing stuffing the chicken with vegetables when she suddenly decided to check the top shelf on the refrigerator door. Deborah discovered that she had no yeast and called her daughter:
– Ursula.
A twelve-year-old golden-blond girl in a blue long-sleeved T-shirt and maroon breeches came running at her mother’s voice. Ursula had dozens of thin braids on her head. She had been begging for such a hairstyle for a long time, although the parents did not understand where their child saw such a style, because Ursula had no clue where she got the idea. Since Deborah was very late at work those days and did not have time to braid her daughter’s hair, she asked Ursula to wait until the end of the week. But the husband, running his hand over his hair, said that it was time for him to get a haircut and it would be better for him to take his daughter with him, so that while he was getting his hair cut, someone would do the girl’s braids at the same time. John Minton owned a local bakery, so he never spared money for his daughter. He told Ursula that her hair should be done by a professional stylist, although he knew that three of the four stylists were amateurs. But it was more important for him to make his daughter feel like a princess.
Ursula ran up to her mother and said, looking at her with a questioning glance:
– What?
Without lowering her head, Deborah took out a few coins from the box, gave them to her daughter and said:
– Bunny, go to the supermarket for yeast.
– I’m on it! – the girl barely said before she immediately rushed off.
– Ursula! – Deborah slowed her down. – No running, walk! And look both ways when you cross the street.
– Okay – the girl answered on autopilot.
Deborah said the same words every time she sent Ursula to the store. Despite the fact that the supermarket was located directly opposite the house, and there were almost no cars on the street, Deborah blindly followed her habit.
Ursula entered the sales area and said, waving to the cashier:
– Hello.
– Hey, cutie – nineteen-year-old Cassandra Bello answered with sleepy eyes, yawning at the end of the phrase.
– How are you? – Ursula asked, approaching the cash register.
Cassandra rested her head on her palm, leaning on a relaxed elbow, and answered, almost closing her eyes:
– I am sleepy.
– Well, what about the rest?
– The rest is fine.
– Well, make sure that no one robs the cash register.
Cassandra smiled and replied:
– Yes, it will be a Greek tragedy.
Each trip, even for the smallest purchase, kept Ursula in the supermarket for at least half an hour. All the employees here knew her, with whom she chatted out of habit, without missing a beat.
Ursula began to walk between the aisles, where along the way she came across the owner of the store, Yann Leblanc, who, standing on a stepladder and leafing through documents in his hands, checked the purchase prices with the prices on the shelves.
– Hello Mr. Leblanc.
– Hey there! – he replied.
– How are you doing?
– Eh, could be better. But no fires or robberies, so that’s something.
They both laughed and Ursula added:
– I don’t know about the fire, but without a robbery it’s great.
These words caused even more laughter from the supermarket owner.
Ursula walked a little deeper into the trading floor. There she met Raymond Rafferty, who, like Cassandra, sometimes worked at the checkout, but most often either laid out goods in the hall or worked in the warehouse. At that moment, Raymond was arranging goods on shelves with dairy products.
– Oh! Diva – Raymond almost exclaimed when he noticed the approaching girl.
When Ursula had just started school, one day Raymond asked her, arranging goods in the next row: “What do you want to become when you grow up and finish studying?”, – to which Ursula replied: “A diva”. Since then, Raymond has called Ursula a diva.
Raymond was twenty-six. After school, he got a job at Leblanc’s supermarket and since then he has only known one job in his life. This is largely why Raymond knew all the visitors by sight. But for Yann Leblanc, what was more important was that this guy knew every corner of the store, every rack, every product item. He could place goods on a shelf without taking his eyes off the box, and the goods would be arranged with pinpoint precision. The speed of servicing the trading floor at Raymond’s was perfected to the point of automaticity. He alone, in a couple of hours, could complete the amount of work that three other people could do in half a day. For this reason, Yann rarely put Raymond at the checkout, knowing how much productivity he would lose on the sales floor.
– How are you? – Raymond asked, continuing to arrange packets of cookies.
– Tolerable. And you?
– Same old, same old. Diva, where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you for a couple of weeks?
– Weeks. But not years.
Raymond smiled as he put the empty box in his cart and pulled out a new one.
– So do not worry. I can’t live without you – Ursula said. – In the end who will get me fresh yogurt, and not the two-week old trash that is on the shelf?
After these words, Raymond laughed louder, answering:
– So that’s why you’re friends with me: just for the sake of fresh yogurt and chocolate.
– What else is it for? If friends cannot bring you benefits, then they are no longer friends.
Raymond was struck by the thought that if he had seen this girl for the first time, he would have decided that she was the daughter of some Jew. But Ursula’s sassy wit always came with a bite.
The girl chatted with Raymond for some more time, after which she took the yeast and went to the checkout, where she paid and advised Cassandra to drink coffee instead of nodding off.
Ursula went out into the street and, out of habit, began to cross the sidewalk, approaching the curb. She never looked around at night because it seemed to her that she would definitely notice car headlights if they appeared. But that evening an unusual car was approaching from the right. Its headlights were barely visible from afar. But Ursula felt the car approaching even before her eyes noticed the dim glow of the headlights. The car drove slowly along the adjacent lane. Ursula froze, as if her legs were covered with a thick layer of ice, which could not be said about her heart. Her heart, racing with fear, pounded like it might burst.
Passing in front of the supermarket building, the car turned around, moving from the far lane to the near one and stopped in front of the curb opposite the supermarket, where Ursula was standing.
On any other day, it wouldn’t have seemed odd. But that evening was unusual. Because it was that Dodge.
11. Gambler
On the day of cash and debauchery, Carter Beckran decided, if not to indulge in sin, then at least to stop one step away from it. He bought two lottery tickets for himself and his father, thereby trying to chase a mild thrill. Carter treated excitement as a kind of need and preferred to satisfy it on a harmless scale, so as not to cause significant harm to his pocket. In many ways, Saul Beckran developed this trait in his son. He was already in his seventy-second year. He was half a head shorter than Carter, with gray hair around a wide bald spot on his head, a beard that was never completely shaved, and a noticeable paunch that had begun to appear since Saul began to experience problems with his back and legs, which is why he stopped running the business, leaving everything to Carter. After retiring, Saul became interested in fishing and literature. His collection consisted of more than a thousand books in the field of history and philosophy. Saul also began to develop skills in assembling ships in glass bottles. But not all the time was spent on entertainment and hobbies. Saul was constantly looking for where and what to repair. When his youngest granddaughter had a flat tire on her bicycle, he was happy because there could be nothing better for him than restoring his granddaughter’s favorite toy. True, a week later Saul decided to buy a new bicycle for the girl. But over the years, the opportunity to work around the house began to narrow. The back and joints in the legs were making themselves felt more and more. He lost his wife at thirty-two to a cerebral hemorrhage. Saul endured the tragedy with difficulty. Having raised his only son, he considered his grandson and two granddaughters as fair compensation for losing his wife too soon. Carter’s wife, Giselle, became like a daughter to him. Sometimes Saul thought that his relationship with his daughter-in-law worked out from the first day due to the fact that Giselle practically did not know her father, who abandoned her mother when she was three and a half, and her mother was then still pregnant with her sister. This was partly true. Having met such a smiling and friendly father-in-law, who at every meeting hugged her like his own daughter, Giselle highly appreciated this attitude and for the first time understood what paternal warmth was. The presence of her mother became something natural for her, but she never knew her father’s warmth and could hardly imagine what it was.
Since her student days, Giselle wore the same hairstyle, slightly shortening her hair, which fell about twenty centimeters below her shoulders. For all thirty-nine years, Giselle’s hair never dyed, always chestnut. She had large black irises, neat eyebrows with a graceful curve at the outer edge, slightly convex pinkish lips with small dimples on her cheeks and eyelashes so thick that if Giselle had become some kind of celebrity, the whole world would have forgotten about Elizabeth Taylor.
She perfectly mastered the entire list of her husband’s addictions and passions and therefore, until the last moment, she tried not to distract him from the lottery, but too many dishes had accumulated after dinner and she could no longer wait:
– Carter, – she called from the kitchen, – the sink is clogged.
Carefully monitoring the numbers popping up on the screen and their presence on the tickets, Carter answered without looking up from the tickets:
– Five minutes.
– Honey, the dishes have been waiting since dinner.
Completely immersed in the game, Carter did not really hear his wife’s words and muttered:
– Yeah, yeah – he muttered.
There was a short pause between the spouses.
– Carter – Giselle called, but there was no response from Carter.
Then Giselle said:
– OK. Until he loses, it’s useless. – Then she turned to Ines: – I’ll go to the studio. When the lottery ends, remind him about the sink.
– Okay – Ines answered.
Giselle was a professional painter, for which, after her marriage, Saul allocated for her one of the largest rooms in their three-story house, where she set up a workshop. Fifty-seven paintings that came out from under her hand left the walls of this house. Some were bought by private art connoisseurs; some paintings travel to various exhibitions. Six years ago, Giselle was first invited to an exhibition in San Francisco, where she was offered to exhibit her work. That day, to congratulate his wife, Carter went to a jewelry store and just grabbed the priciest ring, because he did not understand anything about the quality of jewelry, but saw only one criterion for determining the value of jewelry. Two years later, Giselle visited Los Angeles and New York. Another six months passed and she received an offer from Rome. After visiting Europe, she received an order for two dozen paintings from a private gallery. Giselle was already finishing work on the eighteenth canvas and was planning to go to Paris next year, and she was especially looking forward to this trip because she had made Carter promise that he would fly with her.
Ines was seventeen years old. She, and twelve-year-old Rebecca, were youthful versions of their mother, except that they did not have as thick eyelashes. For days on end she studied the works of Freud, Jung, Fromm, Le Bon and Bekhterev, preparing to enter the psych department at Princeton. Since childhood, Ines had a keen interest in observing people, studying their manners, voices, gestures, facial expressions, and she was especially interested in how different people react to the same external stimuli. For her, a person has always been a certain object of research and an experimental sample, from whose behavior certain conclusions can be drawn. Ines was especially interested in cold reading grounded in science. When meeting a new person, each time she tries to assess the person’s appearance as quickly as possible and from this make a description of the psychological portrait, so that later, as the acquaintance develops, she can compare her primary conclusions with verified facts.
Giselle had already climbed the stairs to the workshop, which was located on the third floor. As soon as she was out of sight, Ines immediately came up behind the chair in which Carter was sitting, leaned over, touching his shoulder with her loose brown hair, and asked in a soft voice:
– Dad, can you clean the sink?
– Now, honey. I’m almost there.
Ines leaned even lower, hugged Carter’s neck with both hands, pressed her cheek to his and said:
– Please. I’ll play for you.
Sitting in another chair, which was a couple of meters away, Saul looked at his granddaughter from under his brows and said:
– Ines, it’s better for you not to start. God forbid you get hooked. Your father and I have fought the gambling itch all our lives. Cards, checkers, backgammon, chess, racing are our curse. Can’t resist betting on something.
Carter added:
– Our happiness is that we are father and son. Otherwise, one of us would have been bankrupt a long time ago.
All three of them laughed, looking at each other.
– Well, I must inherit something from my dad – said Ines, which caused Saul to laugh out loud, and Carter proudly said:
– That’s my girl.
After a couple of seconds, another number appeared on the screen. Carter looked at the ticket and realized that he would not have time to cover all the numbers.
– Damn it – he said and got up from his chair, going to the basement to get some tools.
Ines approached Saul, kneeling down and folding her hands on the armrest. She asked, looking at the ticket:
– Grandpa, what do you have?
Staring tensely at the screen through half-closed glasses, Saul replied, maintaining his concentration:
– Let’s see.
The number flashed on the screen and Saul shouted:
– We won!
Ines hugged her grandfather tightly and kissed his bearded cheek. Without getting up from his chair, Saul hugged his granddaughter to him with both arms and added:
– Three hundred fourteen dollars. God, it’s been a while since I hit such a jackpot. – Then he handed the ticket to Ines and said: – Here, sweetie. Share with Rebecca.
Then, hearing footsteps coming from the direction of the stairs, Saul turned half sideways and shouted:
– Carter!?
Carter appeared in the hall with a set of tools.
– Yes?
– You’re a loser.
Opening his arms, Carter said sarcastically:
– Thank you, dad. Real supportive.
12. Attention! Smoking kills!
Fourteen’s not the age to come clean about smoking to your parents. Despite the fact that classmates Gordon and Quentin tried to hide and smoke without prying eyes, they nevertheless held a cigarette quite professionally. They tried all types of tobacco products: strong, weak, filtered, unfiltered, Marlboro, Camel, Winston, Bond Street. At the initial stage, when preferences haven’t settled, you try the entire range. But as the lungs gain experience, a completely conscious choice arises. For Quentin and Gordon, the choice fell on Marlboro.
They were motivated to become intimately familiar with tobacco smoke by Nicolas Cage in the film “Wild at Heart”. To be more precise, it was a scene in which he and Laura Dern tear up the dance floor, with Cage, all fired up, boxing the air in front of him, then doing some vigorous kicking. But what was most memorable was how effectively Nicolas Cage got rid of his cigarette before laying out a guy pestering his girl. These were the shots that predetermined Quentin and Gordon’s passion for cigarettes.
It was a day off, but not a day off for their smoke session. They usually did this after school, but on weekends and vacations they gathered in a variety of places. However, the diversity was not due to their desire to somehow dilute the scenery, but simply due to the fact that in most places someone was constantly looming: either some young mother with a stroller, or old ladies gossiping about everyone in the area, or young punks will gather on the playground, or lovers of a healthy lifestyle will set up a running track. So they had to rush around all sorts of nooks and crannies. This time fate turned out to be more favorable to Gordon and Quentin and there was no one in central park. But it would be strange to meet someone in the park at ten-thirty at night who would like to get some fresh air. The teenagers walked deeper into the park and, once again making sure that there was no one nearby, began to light up. They took a drag on their cigarettes and continued walking, moving towards the playground.
– Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh… – Gordon said with a face as if he had experienced ecstasy, exhaling tobacco smoke. – No, it’s impossible without this. Dude, how are we going to get off this? – he asked, looking at Quentin walking next to him.
– Who is forcing you to quit?
– Dude, if my father finds out, he’ll kill me, and before that he’ll make me quit this crap.
– Oh, well, yes – answered Quentin. – Well, here’s an incentive for you to try not to get caught. So watch your back to not get caught.
Gordon took a long drag and even before exhaling said:
– Why should everything that is addictive be prohibited?
– Everyone thinks that this is supposedly harmful to health.
– Why then was it necessary to invent? All the lame stuff’s allowed, but all the things without which you begin to experience withdrawal are immediately banned. Damn, no logic. Why are there no harmless drugs?
Exhaling smoke, Quentin replied:
– Who said that they don’t exist?
– For example?
– Hmm… – Quentin smirked, and then added: – Sex. What is it not a drug? True, without safety precautions there are consequences.
– Dude, that’s what I’m talking about! To hell with cigarettes and alcohol. People came up with them on their own. But SEX! Where a person is not involved at all, nature itself punishes with syphilis, herpes, or knocking someone up.
– You’re dropping truth – answered Quentin, looking at the tree crowns dissolving in the darkness.
They approached the balance swing.
– There are pitfalls everywhere in this life – Gordon stated.
– Hey, what is this? – Quentin said in a muffled voice.
– Where? – Gordon asked, narrowing his eyes.
Quentin stuck out his index finger, pointed into the darkness and said:
– Over there.
Without sitting on the balance swing, the friends walked a little further to the merry-go-round. With each step the darkness became less dense, and the picture became more clear. They came close and took a better look. Quentin put his hand on it, shook it slightly and said:
– Hey, you okay?
A few seconds later, Quentin was already tugging at her shoulder, but there was no reaction.
– Quentin? – Gordon said frozen. Having received no answer, he repeated without looking away: – Quentin?
– What?
– Check your pulse.
Hearing about this, Quentin seemed to be overwhelmed and uneasy.
That evening Father Benetti stayed at Bernard Hughes’s house. It was common practice for him to occasionally visit homes where a family had suffered a loss. And in every home Leonardo Benetti became a welcome guest, especially in such difficult days. Martha topped up the tea every time the cup was empty, as bartenders do with alcohol, so that a client keeps going. She didn’t want the priest to leave. His presence softened the mental pain and Father Benetti understood this, but he also could not sit endlessly.
The next morning, a funeral ceremony for Gloria Nelson was to be held and it was necessary to get some sleep, although such a series of unnatural deaths plunged the priest into depression, which resulted in insomnia. At the same time, the craving for sleep arose unexpectedly and several times a day. Against this background, the Father sharply increased the dose of coffee he consumed, which he now drank every five to six hours. And all of this in total was already beginning to affect him.
Before leaving the Hughes family home, he asked for a cup of coffee when he felt sleepy again. It is possible that thanks to this, the priest noticed in time a boy who had jumped out onto the road, waving his arms above his head and shouting something. The figure of a teenager suddenly appeared in front of the car’s headlights and the Father managed to brake. He jumped out of the car in a hurry and didn’t even have time to utter a sound when the boy began to shout through his gasping breaths:
– Fa… Father Benetti! Help!
– What? What’s happened?
– Th… There… – Gordon was breathing deeply and couldn’t really say anything coherent. He simply pointed his finger towards the park and called for the priest. Father Benetti put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said:
– Let’s go.
From Gordon’s appearance, he understood that it was easier to follow him than to wait until he calmed down and the ability to formulate thoughts returned to him.
Two minutes later they found themselves on the playground, where Quentin was squatting, hidden behind a tree, looking fearfully out of the corner of his eye towards the beam carousel. Gordon never managed to bring him to his senses enough to force him to go with him. Father Benetti came up to him, sat down and, placing one hand on Quentin’s shoulder, said:
– Look at me. Hey. Can you hear me?
– Father Benetti – Gordon said nervously, grabbing the priest’s hand. – It’s there. Come on.
Gordon led the priest through the darkness, which was thickening literally every minute and it was already possible to navigate only by bare outlines. Gordon felt the frame of the swing with his hand and said:
– Here. She is here.
Father Benetti took a lighter from his pocket, which he always kept with him in case he needed to light a candle, and lit it in front of him. The corpse of Ursula Minton appeared before him. She was lying on her back between the handrails, and her legs were hanging from the centrifuge. Her braided hair fanned out around her head, which was tilted to the right side. Her skin color still retained a slight shade of pink, but she was already cold. The priest put his hand to his lips, which began to tremble. This sight shattered him as quickly as it did the teens.
A minute later, Father Benetti pulled himself together, took a handful of coins from his pocket, handed Gordon a few pieces and said:
– Run, call the sheriff.
– I’ll be fast – Gordon said, sprinting to the payphone.
Fourteen and a half minutes later, tires screeched as the sheriff’s car stopped. Next came Jenna and forensic scientist Larry Green. A van has already been sent from the morgue.
Desmond ran up to the beam carousel with the flashlight on and asked:
– Father, you didn’t touch anything?
The priest moved his lips silently for a while, but then he shook his head and answered:
– No-no. I… I just sent the boy to call you at the office, and I stayed here.
– Fine.
After a short silence, Father Benetti said with a trembling voice:
– What is it? God, she’s still a child.
Jenna came up to him and took him to the nearest bench, sitting down next to him. She stroked the sobbing priest’s shoulder, trying to calm him down just as he had helped her find calm.
