"Best, Mark - Comeback" - читать интересную книгу автора (Best Mark)

Mike's eyes didn't avoid mine. They called me to the bar while his calloused hands poured me a stiff drink. I drank it quickly, the burning liquid numbing some of the pain. He poured me a second drink and motioned me to the back room.

"What happened?" Mike asked once we were alone. We sat on empty kegs and I told him the tale, leaving nothing out. He didn't speak during my story. He didn't move. Only his soft blue eyes hardened.

When I finished, Mike spat on the floor. "I hate that fat bastard," he said. "You can't trust him. When he walked a beat down here, he'd shake us down five, six times a month, and that was after the precinct cut. He's brutal. Gets kicks out of hurting people. You do this for him, he may chill you anyway."

"That's what I thought when he offered me the ten grand. Easier to give me a bullet than to pay me. Who's gonna know?"

Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. The air was heavy with hatred. I said, "What about Ettleman? You think I could square with him?"

Mike shook his head. "You could try, but I wouldn't trust him, either. He's as cold as Slattery, but he's smart. Both ways, you're screwed."

I stood up and walked to the other side of the room. There was a poster on the wall with the name of a popular beer, bottles dressed like players, and the entire NFL schedule for next year, including the playoff games and the Super Bowl. I liked football. I hadn't been able to see much of it in jail. It was one of those things I'd missed, along with sunshine and showering alone. I didn't want to go back.

"I don't have much of a choice."

"You gotta do what you gotta do," Mike told me.

I nodded. "I have no right to ask, but I need help." I picked up a cocktail napkin and wrote out a list. I handed it to Mike, along with Slattery's thousand dollars. "There's a few things I'd like you to do for me."

Three days later, at precisely 8:31 pm, a 1998 Saab 9000 belonging to Assistant District Attorney John A. Ettleman exploded in the basement garage of his midtown apartment building. Two automobiles parked nearby also caught fire and exploded. It took fire fighters half an hour to get the blaze under control. Ettleman's body was pulled from the Saab, but the corpse was so charred the coroner requested the deceased's dental records for the purpose of positive identification. Arson and homicide investigators were called in to examine the accident site to determine the cause of the blast.

I read this in the newspaper the next morning. Much of the story I already knew, having been just outside the garage when the explosion occurred. As soon as the blast came, I drove away, parked the stolen car by a loading dock, and tossed the leftovers from the bomb into the river. Then I went to the pay phone and made a call.

I paced nervously as I waited for Slattery to arrive. I kept remembering Iron Mike' s warning. If he decided to chill me, there wasn't much I could do. If he let me live, he'd have something on me, and Slattery was a man who liked having things on people. But then, I'd have something on him, and Slattery was not a man who liked someone having something on him. As my whole purpose in his plan revealed, he was not above swatting an annoying pest.

I tried to stop thinking about it and checked my watch. It was after midnight. We were meeting in the warehouse district. From ten PM to three AM, the area was completely devoid of people, except for the occasional watchman who wasn't staying warm inside. It was a nice, private place to meet. If Slattery was going to chill me, this would be his ground.

I heard his car before I saw it. It made a rumbling sound on the cobblestoned street. Slattery drove a big, ugly, lime green Cadillac. Even in the dim light of the night sky, the color was blinding.

Slattery pulled up twenty feet from me and hoisted his lard out of the car. He left the motor running, and his gun was drawn.

"Okay, Jacko. Do like I say. Turn around slow and put your hands in the air. That's right."

He came up behind me and patted me down. I wasn't even carrying lint. "Good. Put them down."

I put my hands down and turned around. Slattery had put his gun away and was holding out a thick manila envelope. "Ten grand, all in hundreds." I looked in the packet to make sure. It was filled with c-notes.

Slattery laughed as I put the money in my inside coat pocket. "You thought I was gonna kill you, or at least stiff you for the money. You don't understand, Jacko. I can afford to be generous. With Ettleman gone, my power doubles. You did me a favor. But I want you out of my city. You come back here, or ever try strong-arming me, you'll be dead like Ettleman. You follow?" His chubby fingers poked me in the chest for emphasis. I nodded. "Good. Then I won't see you around." Slattery laughed at his own joke as he walked back to his car.

He was still laughing when he pulled away, and he was probably laughing when that ugly green chariot burst into an orange and yellow ball of flame.

The late Assistant District Attorney John A. Ettleman stepped out from a darkened doorway up the street. He smiled as he walked up to me. "My compliments," he said, holding the detonator up. Your little toy works quite well."

Ettleman was a slim man, the lines of his body made to look even slimmer by the expertly tailored gray suit and black wool topcoat he wore. With his short, blond hair blowing in the wind, he looked innocent, almost childlike, a sweet little angel who would hack his sleeping parents to pieces with Dad's rusty axe. He didn't look much like a dead DA.

"Who the hell was in the Saab, Ettleman? That wasn't part of the deal."

"Mr. Rollins." He addressed me as if I were a witness being cross-examined. "If there had been no body in the car, Lieutenant Slattery would likely have killed you. Besides, Anthony was an inadequate chauffeur, as well as having a problem with silence. I would offer you his position," he paused, pulling a packet from his topcoat, "but I don't think gainful employment will be a pressing matter." He handed me the envelope. "Twenty-five thousand dollars to extend my life and to shorten Slattery's. It seems a fair exchange. I'm still curious as to why you made the offer."