Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
He was smaller than Sean by at least four inches, and at first glance appeared to be a skinny runt of a lad with a grey complexion as though road grime and sump oil had soaked mt his skin. He had nervously shy mannerisms, hanging his head and avoiding eye contact. It had taken some time for Sean to realize that Rufus's lean body was sinewy hard, that he was as quick and agile as a whippet, and that his whining voice and shifty eyes hid a sharp street-wise intelligence and a caustic and irreverent wit. It had not taken long after that for him to be promoted to the rank of principal lieutenant in Sean's gang.
Since graduating without particular distinction from Costello's Academy, his father had insisted that Sean enter articles with the object of one day becoming a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. The auditors of the Courtney Mining and Finance, Messrs Rifkin and Markovitch, had been prevailed upon, not without some misgivings on their part, to accept Sean as an articled clerk.
This employment was not as dreary as Sean had at first imagined.
He had no compunction in using the family name and his boundless charm to work himself into the plummiest audits, preferably of those companies which employed a large female staff, and none of the senior partners had courage enough to report to Shasa Courtney that his favourite son was on a free ride. The Courtney account was worth almost a quarter of a million pounds annually.
Sean was never more than an hour late for work in the morning, his hangover or his lack of sleep hidden by gold-framed aviator's glasses and his brilliant smile. A little judicious rest during the morning and some light banter with the typists and female clerks would set him up for a lunch at the Mount Nelson or Kelvin Grove which ended just in time for a swift return to the office to hand in an imaginative rep(;rt to the senior partner, after which he was free for a game of squash or an hour's polo practice at Weltevreden.
He usually took dinner at home, it was cheaper than eating out, and although Shasa added substantially to the miserly salary paid 'by Messrs Rifkin and Markovitch, Sean was always in a financial crisis.
After dinner he was free to shed his dinner jacket and black tie and change into a leather cycling jacket and steel-shod boots and then his other life beckoned, the life so different from his diurnal existence, a life of excitement and danger, full of colourful fascinating beings, of eager women and satisfying companions, of deliberate risks a: wild adventures - like the one this evening.
Rufus unzipped his black leather jacket and grinned at hiJ 'Ready, willing and able, as the actress said to the bishop." Und the jacket he wore a black roll-neck sweater, black trousers and his head a black cloth cap.
They didn't have to discuss what they were about to do. They hi worked together on the same kind of job four times already, and the planning had been gone over in detail. However, Rufus's gr was pale and tense in the starlight beneath the trees. This was the most ambitious project yet. Sean felt the delicious blend of fear or excitement like raw spirit in his blood tingling and charging him.
This was what he did it for, this feeling, this indescribable euphor with which danger always charged him. This was just the first tick of it, it would grow stronger, more possessing, as the danger il creased. He often wondered just how high he could go, there mu: be a zenith beyond which it was not possible to rise, but unlike tk sexual climax which was intense but so fleeting, Sean knew he had not even approached the ultimate thrill of danger. He wondered what it would be like, killing a man with his bare hands? Killing a woma the same way - but doing it as she reached her own climax beneat him? The very idea of that always gave him an aching erection, bu until those opportunities presented themselves, he would savour th lesser moments such as these.
'Nail?" Rufus asked, offering him his cigarette tin, but Sean shoal his head. He wanted nothing to blunt his enjoyment, not nicotine no alcohol, he wanted to experience the utmost enjoyment of every instant 'Smoke half of it and then follow me,' he ordered, and slipper away amongst the trees.
He followed the footpath along the low bank of the stream an( then crossed at a shallow place, stepping lightly over the exposer rocks. The high diamond-mesh security fence was on the opposit bank, and he squatted below it. He didn't have to wait long. Withir seconds a wolflike shape appeared out of the darkness beyond the fence, and the moment it saw him the German shepherd rushed all him, hurling itself against the heavy-gauge wire fence.
'Hey, Prince,' Sean said quietly, leaning toward the animal, showing not the least sign of fear. 'Come on, boy, you know me." The dog recognized him at last. It had only barked once, not creating enough of an uproar to alert the household, and now Sean gently pushed his fingers through the diamond mesh, talking softly and soothingly. The dog .sniffed his hand and its long tail began to wave back and forth in friendly salutation. Sean had a way with all living creatures, not only humans. The dog licked his fingers.
Sean whistled softly and Rufus scrambled up the bank behind him. Immediately the German shepherd stiflened and the hair on its back came erect. It growled throatily and Sean whispered, 'Don't be a fool, Prince. Rufus is a friend." it took another five minutes for Sean to introduce the two of them, but at last in response to Sean's urging, Rufus gingerly put his fingers through the mesh and the dog sniffed them carefully and wagged his tail.
TI1 go over first,' Sean said, and swarmed up the high fence. There were three strands of barbed wire at the top, but Sean flicked his body over, feet first, arching his back like a gymnast. He dropped lightly to earth and the dog rose on its hind legs and placed its front paws on his chest. Sean fondled his head holding him while Rufus came over the barbed wire with even greater agility than Sean had.
'Let's go,' Sean whispered, and with the guard dog padding along beside them they went up towards the house, crouching as they ran and keeping to the shadow of the ornamental shrubs until they flattened against the wall, shrinking into the leafy ivy that covered the brickwork.
The house was a double-storied mansion, almost as imposing as Weltevreden. It belonged to another leading Cape family, close friends of the Courtneys. Mark Weston had been at school with Shasa and in the same engineering class at university. His wife, Marjorie, was a contemporary of Tara Courtney's. They had two teenage daughters, the elder of which Sean had deprived of her virginity the previous year, and then dropped without another phone call.
The seventeen-year-old child had suffered a nervous breakdown, refusing to eat, threatening suicide and weeping endlessly until she had to be taken out of school. Marjorie Weston had sent for Sean to try to remonstrate with him, and persuade him to let her daughter down gently. She had arranged the meeting without her daughter's knowledge, and while her husband was on one of his regular business trips to Johannesburg.
She took Sean to her sewing room on the ground floor and locked the door. It was Thursday afternoon, the servants' day off, and her younger daughter was at school while the eldest, Veronica, was in her bedroom upstairs palely pining.
Marjorie patted the sofa. 'Please come and sit next to me, Sean." She was determined to keep the interview friendly. It was only when he was beside her that Marjorie realized how infernally good-looking he was. Even more so than his father, and Marjorie had always had a strong fancy for Shasa Courtney.
She found that she was becoming a little breathless as she reasoned with Sean, but it was only when she placed her hand on his bare arm and felt the elastic muscle under the smooth young skin that she realized what was happening.
