Читать книгу Sky Key - Джеймс Фрей, James Frey, Nils Johnson-Shelton - Страница 16

Alice doesn’t like beds as much as she does hammocks, especially on ships, so she’s slung her hammock across her small cabin. She lolls around, letting the motion of the sea swing her back and forth.

She tosses a knife end over end and catches it. Tosses and catches. Tosses and catches. One slipup and it could land in her eye, skewer her brain.

Alice doesn’t slip up.

She’s not thinking of much. Just the knife and of slaughtering Baitsakhan when she finds him.

And of the fear on Little Alice’s face. She has seen it in her dreams so many times that it’s burned into her consciousness.

Little Alice.

Screaming.

What is it about this girl she’s never met? Why does Alice care about her? Dream about her?

Shari’s a good nut, that’s why. I am too. The rest are bastards, so fuck ’em.

Her satellite phone rings. She picks it up, presses talk.

“Oi, that Tim? Yeah, yeah. Right. Good! And you spoke to Cousin Willey in KL, yeah? Great. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Naw, none of that. Just my blades. No, Tim, I mean it! I don’t need any guns, I’m telling ya. You know me. Purist and all. Oh, all right, fine. You make a good point. Every one of these Player bastards is probably armed to the teeth, true and true. Just keep ’em small, and only hollow tips. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, any news on the rock? Anyone figure out where it’s gonna hit? ’Cause when it does, your Alice doesn’t want to be nowhere near. You neither? ’Magine that.”

She flicks the knife into the air above her head. It turns nine times. She catches it between her index finger and her thumb. Tosses again.

“Any luck with Shari? Oh, really? When were you gonna tell me, ya wanker? I oughta come back there and carve your freckle out, Tim. Well, what is it, then?”

She catches the knife by the handle and leans so far out of the hammock that she thinks she’s going to flip out, but she doesn’t. She sticks a leg out the other side and is perfectly balanced. She scratches a number on the wall. 91-8166449301.

“Thanks, Tim. Don’t die until you get to see it all go down. Gonna be a sight. Yeah, later, mate.”

She presses talk again, settles into her hammock, calls Shari’s number.

Rings 12 times, no one answers.

She calls again.

Rings 12 times, no one answers.

She calls again.

Rings 12 times, no one answers.

She calls again and again and again and again, and she will keep calling until someone does answer.

Because she has something very important to tell the Harappan.

Something very important indeed.