Mystic River / Таинственная река. Деннис ЛихэйнЧитать онлайн книгу.
He could feel their youthful energy. When Jimmy was a kid that energy had ruled over him. And then… then you just learned how to keep it someplace. You hid it away.
His eldest daughter, Katie, was nineteen years old and so, so beautiful. At the store this afternoon, as she was leaving, she'd kissed Jimmy's cheek and said, “Later, Daddy,” and five minutes afterward Jimmy realized he could still feel her voice in his chest. It was her mother's voice, he realized. Her mother, almost fourteen years dead now, and coming back to Jimmy through their daughter. Saying: She's a woman now, Jim. She's all grown up.
A woman. Wow. How did that happen?
Dave Boyle hadn't even planned on going out that night.
It was a Saturday night, after a long week of work, but he'd reached an age where Saturday didn't feel much different than Tuesday, and drinking at a bar didn't seem much more enjoyable than drinking at home.
So he'd tell himself later, after it was all over and done, that Fate had played with him. Fate had played with Dave Boyle's life before.
So Dave knew Fate when he saw it. Because it hadn't been planned. It hadn't. Dave, alone late at night in the days afterward, would say softly to the empty kitchen: You have to understand. It wasn't planned.
That night, he'd just come down the stairs after kissing his son, Michael, good night and was opening the fridge for a beer when his wife, Celeste, reminded him that it was Girls' Night.
“Again?” Dave said.
“It's been four weeks,” Celeste said.
Once a month, Celeste and three of her coworkers got together at Dave and Celeste Boyle's apartment to watch a movie, play cards, drink a lot of wine, and cook something they'd never tried before. Dave had three options on Girls' Night: he could sit in Michael's room and watch his son sleep, hide in the back bedroom and watch TV, or go out and find someplace where he wouldn't have to listen to four women chatting. Dave usually chose number 3.
And tonight was no different. He finished his beer, kissed Celeste, and then he walked out the door and down the stairs past Mr. McAllister's apartment and out through the front door into Saturday night in the Flats. He thought about walking down to a bar, but then decided to drive instead. Maybe go to the Point, take a look at the college girls.
As Dave's car drove into the Point, he tried to remember if he knew anyone his age or younger who lived there anymore.
He stopped at a red light. Ever since a man had tried to jack his car while he was in it with Michael, Dave kept a.221 under the seat. He'd never fired it, but he held it a lot.
Just last week, Mr. McAllister, Dave's landlord, had told Dave that housing values[18][19] were going up. “Where would I go?” Dave was thinking. He wondered where the hell they were going to live. On what he and Celeste made together, they'd be lucky to get a two-bedroom in a place where stairs smelled like piss, rats ran behind the walls, and junkies walked through the halls, waiting for you to fall asleep.
The light had turned green, and Dave went through the intersection.
That night Katie Marcus went out with her two best friends, Diane Cestra and Eve Pigeon, to celebrate Katie's last night in the Flats, last night, probably, in Buckingham.
They sat down at a table in the back of Spires Pub, and drank shots, and shrieked every time a good-looking guy gave one of them a look. They'd eaten a big meal at the East Coast Grill an hour before, then drove back into Buckingham and smoked a joint in the parking lot before walking into the bar. Everything was hilarious now.
Once the place got crowded, they moved to Curley's Folly in the Point, smoking another joint in the car.
“That car's following us,” Katie said. “It's been behind us since we left the bar.”
Eve looked at the lights in the rearview mirror. “Oh, come on, Katie, that was, like, thirty seconds ago!”
“Hello? It's your paranoia again,” Diane said and started laughing.
“Bitches,” Katie said, annoyed. She fell onto the backseat, feeling all dreamy, thinking this was it, this was what you lived for, to giggle like a fool with your giggling-fool best friends on the night before you'd marry the man you loved.
Four bars, three shots, and a couple of phone numbers on napkins later, Katie and Diane were so drunk they got up on the bar at McGills and danced even though the jukebox was silent. Eve sang, and Katie and Diane were dancing and shaking their hair until it covered their faces.
Which is where they were when Roman Fallow showed up with his latest girlfriend. Bad news for Katie, because Roman was friends with Bobby O'Donnell.
Roman said, “You're a bit drunk there, Katie?”
Katie smiled because Roman scared her. Roman scared almost everyone. A good-looking guy, and smart, he could be funny as hell when he felt like it, but there was a strange hole, an emptiness in Roman.
“Yeah, I'm a bit,” she said.
That amused Roman. “A bit, huh? Yeah, okay, Katie. Let me ask you something,” he said gently. “You think Bobby would like hearing you were drunk at McGills tonight? You think he'd like hearing that?”
“No.”
“I don't like it either, Katie. You see what I'm saying?”
“Right. I'll go home right now,” Katie said. “I've had enough.”
Roman smiled and put his arm around his girlfriend. “Shall I call you a cab?”
“No, no. We'll get one, no problem.”
“All right then, Katie, we'll be seeing you.”
Eve and Diane were already at the door. Outside, Diane said, “Jesus. You think he'll call Bobby?”
Katie shook her head, though she wasn't sure.
In the parking lot, Eve threw up[20]. When she was finished, she asked Katie, “You going to be okay to drive?”
Katie nodded. “I'll be fine.”
As they drove out of the parking lot, Katie said, “Just one more reason to leave. One more reason to get the hell out of this town.”
They drove carefully through the Flats, heading for Eve's house, Katie staying in the right lane, concentrating. Suddenly, Diane had decided to stay at Eve's place instead of going to her boyfriend's house, so she and Eve got out together. It had begun to rain, but Diane and Eve didn't seem to notice.
They both turned and looked back through the open passenger window at Katie.
“You going to be okay?” Diane asked.
Katie smiled, “Yeah. Of course. I'll call you from Vegas. You'll come visit.”
“Flights are cheap,” Eve said. She and Diane put their hands in through the window and Katie shook each of them, and then they stepped back from the car.
“Okay,” Katie said, finally. “I'm going to go before someone cries.”
They waved. Katie waved back and drove off.
They stayed on the pavement, watching, long after Katie's car had disappeared in the distance. They could smell the rain and the Penitentiary Channel on the other side of the park. They felt there were other things still left to say.
For the rest of her life, Diane would wish she'd stayed in that car. She would give birth to a son in less than a year and she'd tell him when he was young that she believed she had to stay in that car, and that by getting suddenly out, she'd changed something.
Eve would marry an electrician and move to a ranch house. Sometimes, late at night, she'd tell him about Katie, about that night, and he'd listen, but he wouldn't say much because he knew there was nothing to say. Sometimes Eve just needed to say her friend's name, to hear it, to feel it on her tongue.
But
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