Tuesday Mooney Wore Black. Kate Racculia
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Название: Tuesday Mooney Wore Black
Автор: Kate Racculia
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Эзотерика
isbn: 9780008326968
isbn:
He tugged on his right earlobe, and Dorry blinked. A tell. He had a tell. The next thing out of his mouth would be a lie, or, if not a direct lie, something that wasn’t entirely the truth. Her mother had had a tell: whenever she was about to drop a Wild Draw Four on Dorry in Uno, she tapped her fingers on the cards.
He inhaled. His chest rose. So many tells, thought Dorry, and looked at Tuesday, who had no tells, or at least none that Dorry had ever noticed.
“Why does everything have to be about money?” he said. “Honestly, and I would expect someone who roots around in the digital drawers of rich people for a living to know this already, if you have enough money, it stops meaning anything. You can’t touch it or taste it or feel it. Then the things that matter become what you can touch, or taste, or – feel.”
“Objects, you mean. Something in Pryce’s collection,” Tuesday said.
“Let’s just say” – his already deep voice lowered, which made the bottoms of Dorry’s feet tingle – “that the value is sentimental.”
Tuesday didn’t respond.
“One hundred fifty thousand,” he said. “Final offer.”
“One hundred fifty is my retainer, plus expenses,” said Tuesday. “I want a working partnership. We split the detecting, the legwork, fifty-fifty. If we win, we split the reward fifty-fifty. I’ll take half, you take half. Or you can buy me out, for however much Pryce’s estate is currently valuing whatever the prize turns out to be.” She smiled. “But for no less than five million.”
Dorry’s throat dried up. She made a little coughing sound halfway between a gasp and a laugh.
“Oh, now you’re playing hardball,” said Archie.
“Still not,” said Tuesday, grinning. “But closer.” She stuck out her hand.
Archie paused.
“Why does everything have to be about money?” Tuesday said. “C’mon, I know you’re good for it. I’ve done the research.”
He slid his hand into hers.
“We start tonight,” said Tuesday. “Because you know anyone else who’s serious has already started too.”
So Archie came in. He introduced himself to Dorry with a handshake, and Dorry felt herself start to giggle, because seriously, a handshake? Then her hand went sort of rigid in his warm grip, and after he let go, her first thought was I did that wrong. Or did she? How was she supposed to shake a guy’s hand, a guy who wasn’t her dad’s coworker, wasn’t her mom’s old college friend, wasn’t saying, while they held her cold hand, I’m so sorry for your loss?
They all sat at Tuesday’s rickety Ikea table and ate and strategized.
“Tell me about Pryce,” said Tuesday.
“He was a weirdo. A true-blue, first-class, dyed-in-the-wool weirdo.” Archie dipped a piece of naan into the malai kofta sauce. “New money, vulgar money. Barely tolerated. And I really don’t think he gave a fuck. Oh—” His eyes darted to Dorry.
Dorry snorted. “Dude,” she said, “you kiss your mutha with that fucken thing?”
“This is your influence?” he said to Tuesday. “Look what you’re doing to the youth.”
“I believe the children are our future,” said Tuesday.
Dorry cleared her throat.
“Oh children,” said Tuesday, “do you have something to say?”
Dorry felt herself blush. She did. She had a lot to say. She coughed. “Um, I think I might – know where to start looking.”
Tuesday’s head jerked like a bird’s. “Wha— that’s great. Where?”
Dorry looked at Archie, blushed again, and looked back at Tuesday. “Do you really trust this guy?” she asked. She didn’t, but she trusted Tuesday completely.
“I trust his money,” said Tuesday.
“I want a cut,” Dorry said.
Tuesday cackled. “And that,” she said to Archie, “is hardball. You got it, kid. I can’t spend five million all by myself.”
“Actually, you can,” said Archie.
“Well, I have no plans to go to college again. Dorry needs it more than I do.”
Dorry knew she was still blushing – she could feel her face almost pulsing, and a cool tight spot in the middle of her forehead – and when she stood up, she shook a little. Even if Tuesday only shared one million dollars, it meant Dad could afford the apartment for as long as they wanted. It meant they would never have to move back to the suburbs, or buy a car or have to drive one. And if neither she nor her father ever learned to drive, they could never hit a patch of black ice and smash through the guardrail of a bridge and sail into the river below. They could never be missing for two days in a blizzard, sealed under ice and snow.
They could never drown in freezing water with their seatbelt still on.
She grabbed the letters she’d been reading before Archie knocked on the door. Gunnar was sleeping on them (of course), and was less than pleased to be displaced. “Pryce had a real problem with Valentine’s Day,” she said, handing the printouts to Tuesday. “Every year, he wrote about what a sham it is. He calls candy hearts hideous hearts.”
She heard Tuesday suck in a breath.
“I started circling the first words, then the first letters, of each Valentine’s clipping. In order. So far I have P A R. It could be spelling a word, right? And didn’t the obit say something about hearing the city’s hideous heart?” She was talking too fast. “We’d have to find them all to be sure, but I bet – I bet the first letter of every Valentine’s letter spells Park. As in Park Street.”
“Park Street station. The oldest subway in America. Of course,” said Tuesday. “Where else but under the ground would the old city’s heart be beating?”
“Where else?” said Dorry. Her own heart was leaping like it would never stop.
Tuesday, on the sidewalk outside her apartment, snapped her bike helmet’s chin buckle.
She couldn’t believe she was doing this.
But of course she was doing this. It was the most fun she’d had in an age.
“Archie,” СКАЧАТЬ