Porsche 911, and repaid the loan in a year and a half.
The head of the HR department, a lady of forty-seven years old, always bought herself some kind of jewelry at various intervals. Over the course of a couple of years, she accumulated so much jewelry that the work team began to say that it was better to give up the New Year tree at the end of the year, because they had their own walking tree that sparkled from top to bottom. No matter what day she came to work, her neck, earlobes, wrists and fingers were thoroughly hidden under a decent layer of gold and precious stones.
Another lady of mature years, a deputy chief accountant in her fifties, also had her own hobby. She set aside money every six months for her biggest expense item. Every vacation she went to a Mexican resort, which was especially popular with divorcees and wives disillusioned with family life, where they were seduced by dozens of gigolos who were ready, for the money of rich women who were old enough to be their mother, to make any of their fantasies come true.
Every birthday, bachelor party, bachelorette party or any other event requiring a wild celebration, where the culprit is a person working for Carter Beckran, turned into a feast for the stomach and a test of strength for the liver, because in these cases the amount of alcohol and exotic dishes was greatly exceeded usual meanings for Heartstone. The whole town knew what you could achieve by working for Carter Beckran, and so working for the Beckran & Co. was a dream for most Heartstone residents.
In conversations at home with his father, although Carter joked, saying: “I sense that soon they will have to cut their salaries, otherwise they will soon spend all their savings on alcohol and whores”, – he himself was not against indulging in something from time to time. However, what was noteworthy was that all his pranks regarding spending money were either completely insignificant or truly homeric. Sometimes it was a bottle of the most expensive alcohol he could find. But one day Carter bought a Cadillac Commando armored personnel carrier and drove it for six months until he got tired of it, after which he sold it to a private military company.
9. Dancing with death
Leonardo Benetti has already forgotten the last time he had to hold two funeral services in one day. After the coffin with the body of Norman Hughes is taken out of the church, the farewell ceremony for Dana Host will begin. Father Benetti did not sit down from the moment the coffin was carried into the church. He approached each of those who were close to the deceased. Relatives, neighbors, acquaintances, friends, his classmates and school teachers. When Father Benetti came up to express his condolences to Norman’s mother, she hugged the priest tightly and did not let go for about fifteen minutes. Father Benetti stood patiently and patted Martha Hughes on the shoulder, uttering comforting words that few could find in such moments. But Leonardo Benetti knew how to do this and could speak mournful speeches without stopping, trying to alleviate the mental suffering of the mourners. It’s unlikely that anything can comfort the souls of those grieving after the loss of a loved one, but when there is someone whose hugs and words of sympathy give at least a drop of warmth, it becomes very important. It was this kind of warmth that emanated from Father Benetti.
More and more people were arriving at the funeral every few minutes. Norman was buried in a closed coffin. His identity was identified using the results of a genetic examination, comparing the DNA of the corpse with the DNA of Bernard Hughes, Norman’s father. The closed coffin gave some the impression that a ghost was being buried here today.
Desmond, Jenna and Harry crossed the threshold of the church. The sheriff and his deputies arrived in the same car. Each of them had a bouquet left in the car, which was to be laid at the cemetery. In addition to the red carnations, Desmond bought a wreath on which was written: “To the bravest guy in Heartstone from his colleagues”. Although Desmond paid for the wreath entirely out of his own pocket, he nevertheless considered it necessary to present it on behalf of the entire team. Jenna bought ten red roses from herself. Having crossed the threshold of the church, she remembered how she had recently buried Pierce, and this made her feel doubly bad. Harry admitted that he doesn’t understand anything about flowers and asked Jenna to help him choose. She picked out a dozen roses for him in a soft scarlet hue. Leaving the flowers and wreath in the trunk, they entered the church, heading straight to Norman’s family. They shook hands and hugged Bernard, Martha, and Norman’s twenty-nine-year-old sister Sabrina. Martha reacted the same way to hugs from her son’s colleagues, not letting go of each of them for several minutes. Wrapping her arms around Desmond’s neck and pressing herself against his shoulder, Martha’s crying became stronger. Seeing Sabrina’s face pink from endless tears, Jenna fell into an even greater sense of grief and, hugging her, did not let go of her for some time. Next came relatives who came from Austin, Houston and Oklahoma.
The number of people grew faster and faster as the time at which the farewell ceremony was scheduled to begin approached.
Soon Father Benetti began to walk around the arrivals and invite them to sit down so that they could begin.
The first eight rows on both sides were jam-packed. Silence reigned in the church and Father Benetti began his speech:
– Today we have gathered here because there is one less son in this world. There is one less brother. Sometimes life ends suddenly, and the more painful this loss becomes…
Riggan Brooks sat by the phone in the sheriff’s office. When cases arose that neither the sheriff nor any of his deputies were in the office, Desmond asked Riggan to sit on the telephone as the person on duty. In this sense, he enjoyed the trust of the sheriff, which he occasionally allowed himself to show off in front of his acquaintances. The feeling of being alone in the law enforcement office with the approval of the sheriff himself caused him to experience a sharp increase in self-esteem and self-confidence. Now he is in charge here, albeit without official authority.
Before leaving, Desmond warned Riggan not to go into the corridor with the temporary holding cells where Spencer was sitting, who, if he found out that there was a young boy on duty, could blow his brains out, hoping for something there. The sheriff made such warnings all the time, although he did not doubt the guy.
In all this time, Riggan had never had to take any kind of emergency call about an incident, although deep down Riggan felt that this was exactly what he needed to complete the sensations, to realize that he was in a real office of a real sheriff, especially that this time there is also a prisoner in the cell.
That day, Riggan just had a day off. While the sheriff and his deputies were at the funeral, he reclined more comfortably in Harry’s chair, folded his legs on the table and unfolded a magazine dedicated to events in the world of cinema in front of him. Riggan was stuck on an article that described the details of the filming process for “Gone in 60 Seconds”, which had been released a year earlier. Having read it to the end, he once again looked at the photographs from the set and a joint photograph of Dominic Sena and Jerry Bruckheimer. Next was a biography of Clint Eastwood with a dozen photographs in different images in which he was filmed, arranged in chronological order. After it there were articles about new technologies in the field of visual effects, analysis of the film market, articles by film critics, plans of Hollywood studios, and on the back there was a table with a schedule of world premieres of some films in the coming months, which, according to surveys, are the most anticipated. After the article about “Gone in 60 Seconds” Riggan lost interest in the magazine and took the latest issue of Playboy out of his backpack, immediately after which the day ceased to be languid. After half an hour Riggan began to notice that the reaction to naked female bodies was too strong and he decided to return to the film magazine. He ran through the movie schedule and noticing “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” on the list,
