Gorman, Ed (ed.) - Invitation to Murder / Горман, Эд (ред.) - Приглашение к убийству [1993, EPUB, ENG]

THE DEAD PAST by Nancy Pickard LA BELLEZZA DELLE BELLEZZE by Bill Pronzini OPEN AND SHUT by John Lutz NONE OF MY BUSINESS, BUT... by Carolyn G. Hart DEAD ON ARRIVAL by Joan Hess INVITATION TO MURDER by Richard Laymon DARKE STREET by Gary Brandner PRETTY BOY by Billie Sue Mosiman THE LIFE AND DEATHS OF RACHEL LONG by Kristine Kathryn Rusch MERLIN AND THE HITMAN by Teri White ANYTIME I WANT by Andrew Vachss QWERTY by William J. Reynolds A BUNCH OF MUMBO JUMBO by Jan Grape THE BODY BEAUTIFUL by Judith Kelman DEADTRIP by William F. Nolan STILL LIFE WITH GOLD FRAME by Rex Miller WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY by Barbara Paul SNOW ANGELS by Loren D. Estleman

1.

That Sunday, the day before she died, I went down to Aquatic Park to watch the old men play bocce. I do that sometimes on weekends when I’m not working, when Kerry and I have nothing planned. More often than I used to, out of nostalgia and compassion and maybe just a touch of guilt, because in San Francisco bocce is a dying sport. Only one of the courts was in use. Time was, all six were packed throughout the day and there were spectators and waiting players lined two and three deep at courtside and up along the fence on Van Ness. No more. Most of the city’s older Italians, to whom bocce was more a religion than a sport, have died off. The once large and close-knit North Beach Italian community has been steadily losing its identity since the fifties—families moving to the suburbs, the expansion of Chinatown and the gobbling up of North Beach real estate by wealthy Chinese—and even though there has been a small new wave of immigrants from Italy in recent years, they’re mostly young and upscale. Young, upscale Italians don’t play bocce much, if at all; their interests lie in soccer, in the American sports where money and fame and power have replaced a love of the game itself. The Di Massimo bocce courts at the North Beach Playground are mostly closed now; the only place you can find a game every Saturday and Sunday is on the one Aquatic Park court. And the players get older, and sadder, and fewer each year. There were maybe fifteen players and watchers on this Sunday, almost all of them older than my fifty-eight. The two courts nearest the street are covered by a high, pillar-supported roof, so that contests can be held even in wet weather; and there are wooden benches set between the pillars. I parked myself on one of the benches midway along. The only other seated spectator was Pietro Lombardi, in a patch of warm May sunlight at the far end, and this surprised me. Even though Pietro was in his seventies, he was one of the best and spryest of the regulars, and also one of the most social. To see him sitting alone, shoulders slumped and head bowed, was puzzling. . . .