False Memory полностью

As the doctor reaches the car, the coyotes fall silent, having caught a whiff of somenewspoor that makes them cautious, and no doubt the cause of their caution is Abriman himself In the sudden hush, a sound above makes him look up.

Rare albino bats, calligraphy on the sky, sealed by the full moon. High looping white wings, faint buzz of fleeing insects: The killing is quiet.

The doctor watches, rapt. The world is one great playing field, the sport is killing, and the sole objective is to stay in the game.

Carrying moonlight on their pale wings, the freak bats recede, vanishing into the night, and as Ahriman opens the car door, coyotes begin to wail again. They are close enough to include him in the chorus if he wished to raise his voice.

By the time he pulls shut the door and starts the engine, six coyotes — eight, ten — appear out of the brush and gather on the grave/ed lane in front of the car, their eyes fiery with reflections of the headlights. As Ahriman drives forward, loose stones crunching together under the tires, the pack divides and moves ahead along both shoulders of the narrow lane, as though they are the out runners of a Praetorian guard, escorting the Jaguar A hundred yards later, when the car turns west, where the high city rises in the distance, the slouching beasts break away from it and continue toward the ranch house, still in the game, as is the doctor

As is the doctor.

Although Susan Jagger’s soft quaverous cries of grief and shame were a tonic, and though the memories of the Pastore family that her tortured voice had resurrected were refreshing, Dr. Ahriman was not a young man now, as he’d been in his New Mexico days, and he needed to get at least a few hours of sound sleep. The day ahead would require vigor and an especially clear mind, because Martine and Dustin Rhodes would become far bigger players in this complex game than they had been thus far. Consequently, he ordered Susan to overcome her emotions and finish getting dressed.

When she was in her panties and T-shirt once more, he said, “Get to your feet.”

She rose.

“You are a vision, daughter. I wish I could’ve gotten you on video tonight instead of next time. Those sweet tears. Why, Daddy? Why? That was particularly poignant. I won’t ever forget that. You’ve given me another albino-bats moment.”

Her attention had shifted from him.

He followed her gaze to the ming tree in the bronze pot atop the Biedermeier pedestal.

“Horticulture,” he said approvingly, “is a therapeutic pastime for an agoraphobic. Ornamental plants allow you to remain in touch with the natural world beyond these walls. But when I’m talking to you, I expect your attention to remain on me.”

She looked at him again. She was no longer weeping. The last of her tears were drying on her face.

An oddness about her, subtle and indefinable, nagged at the doctor. The levelness of her stare. The way her lips were pressed together, mouth pinched at the corners. Here was a tension unrelated to her humiliation and shame.

“Spider mites,” he said.

He thought he saw worry crawling through her eyes.

“They’re hell on a ming tree, spider mites.”

Unmistakably, what spun across her face was a web of worry, but surely not about the health of her houseplants.

Sensing trouble, Ahriman made an effort to clear the postcoital haze from his mind and concentrate on Susan. “What are you worried about?”

“What am I worried about?” she asked.

He rephrased the question as a command: “Tell me what you’re worried about.”

When she hesitated, he repeated the command, and she said, “The video.”