The Night Manager полностью

It is Amos the Rasta, with his Samsonite briefcase. Nobody buys from Amos, but that never bothers him. Nobody much comes to the beach. All day long he will sit upright on the sand, smoking ganja and staring at the horizon. Sometimes he unpacks his Samsonite and sets out his offerings: shell necklaces and fluorescent scarves and twists of ganja rolled up in orange tissue paper. Sometimes he dances, rolling his head and grinning at the sky, while Bones, his dog, howls at him. Amos has been blind since birth.

"You been out runnin' up there already, high on Miss Mabel Mountain, Mist' Thomas? You been communin' with voodoo spirits today, Mist' Thomas, while you was up there doin' your runnin'? You been sendin' messages to those voodoo spirits, Mist' Thomas, high up on Miss Mabel Mountain?" Miss Mabel Mountain being seventy feet at best.

Jonathan keeps smiling ― but what is the point of smiling to a blind man?

"Oh sure. High as a kite."

"Oh sure! Oh boy!" Amos executes an elaborate jig. "I don't tell nothin' to nobody, Mist' Thomas. A blind beggar, he don't see no evil and he don't hear no evil, Mist' Thomas. And he don't sing no evil, no sir. He sell scarves to gentlemen for twenty-five sweet dollar bills and go his way. You like to buy a fine handmade silk foulard, Mist' Thomas, for yo' lady-love, sir, in exquisite taste?"

"Amos," says Jonathan, laying a hand on his arm for good fellowship, "if I smoked as much ganja as you do, I'd be sending messages to Father Christmas."

But when he reaches the cricket ground he doubles back up the hill and recaches the magic box in the colony of discarded beehives before taking the tunnel to Crystal.

* * *

Concentrate on the guests, Burr had said.

We must have the guests, Rooke had said. Everyone who sets foot on the island, we must have his name and number.

Roper knows the worst people in the world, Sophie had said.

They came in all sizes and durations: weekend guests, lunch guests, guests who dined and stayed and left next morning, guests who did not take so much as a glass of water but strolled with Roper on the beach while their protection trailed them at a distance, then quickly flew away again, like guests with work to do.

Guests with planes, guests with yachts; guests with neither who had to be fetched by Roper jet or, if they lived on a neighbouring island, Roper chopper, with the Crystal insignia and the Ironbrand colours of blue and grey. Roper invited them, Jed welcomed them and did her duty by them, though it appeared to be a matter of real pride to her that she knew not the first thing about their business.

"I mean, why should I, Thomas?" she protested, in a gulpy stage voice, after the departure of a particularly awful pair of Germans. "One of us worrying is quite enough in any household. I'd far rather be like Roper's investors and say, 'Here you are, here's my money and my life, and mind you bloody well look after them.' I mean don't you think it's the only way, Corks? I'd never sleep otherwise ― well, would I?"

"Dead right, old heart. Go with the flow, my advice," said Corkoran.

You stupid little equestrienne! Jonathan raged at her, while he piously agreed with her sentiments. You've put yourself in size-twelve blinkers, and now you're asking for my approval!

For his memorising, he filed the guests by category and dubbed each category with a piece of Roperspeak.

First came the keen young Danbys and MacArthurs, alias the MacDanbies, who manned the Ironbrand offices in Nassau and went to the same tailor and trailed the same classless accents and came when Roper beckoned and mixed when Roper told them mix, and left in a flurry or they'd never make it to their desks in time next day. Roper had no patience with them: neither had Jonathan. The MacDanbies were not Roper's allies, not his friends. They were his cover, forever twittering about land deals in Florida and price shifts on the Tokyo exchange and providing Roper with the boring outer shell of his respectability.