Читать книгу Jane Hawk Thriller - Dean Koontz - Страница 28

Charlie Weatherwax leaves the blind man in the park, crosses the boulevard, and walks through the public spaces around city hall, into a residential neighborhood of tree-lined streets, and from there into the fabled shopping district of Beverly Hills, north of Wilshire. The sidewalks are crowded with moneyed locals bearing shopping bags, also with gaping tourists dazzled by the gleaming shops as well as by the countless Mercedes, Bentleys, and Rolls-Royces. They see one another and interact, but they do not know one another, these islanders of the human archipelago, and they would have it no other way, though if asked they would lay claim to all manner of communal values.

As the sky gradually darkles and the lighted windows of the closing shops radiate glamour and romance into the evening streets, he makes his way to a fine restaurant at which he has a reservation. A choice table awaits him in a corner of the elegant Art Deco bar, the design of which seems to have been inspired by the clean, highly stylized features of his face.

He is not halfway through his martini when he receives an encrypted call on his smartphone. In spite of all its vast resources in both the public and private sectors, the Arcadian revolution has taken two weeks to get a lead on Vikram Rangnekar, but at last they are ready to provide Charlie with an address. His team will be awaiting him at the Peninsula in an hour.

He must be satisfied with a less leisurely dinner than he anticipated, and a single martini instead of two. But the evening will be a lively one, with hard truths taught to the revolution’s enemies.