"Dann,_Jack_-_The_Diamond_Pit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

"_Don't call me Clarence or I'll break your legs._"
"_You an' whose army_?"
I snapped awake and looked around the room, which resolved around me. Walls, floor, ceiling seemed to be made of a piece, a smooth, translucent layer of opal, which glowed with light; but I could not discern the source of the suffusing light, nor could I see the inset marks of tile, only high, straight, iridescent planes that reached to a ceiling of the same substance. I was lying in a comfortable feather bed with a jewel-inlaid footboard; the bed and an ebony table and elbow chair were the only pieces of furniture in this smooth, glittering travesty of a monk's cell.
"Well, sleeping beauty has awoke," said Clarence. He had a pale, freckled complexion, red hair that was graying, and a pop-eyed look, no doubt because his eyebrows were so white that they seemed to disappear. "You're probably still feelin' dopey," he said to me. "The slaves drugged you so Old Jefferson could do his interrogation. Takes a while for it to wear off."
"Well, they didn't drug _me_," said the man who had been goading Clarence about his name. He was bald, tall, and aggressive; and he had a ruddy complexion like Clarence -- it was as if both men were of the same Irish and Dutch ancestry. Both wore pants and shirts that looked like pajamas, except Clarence wore an aviator's jacket and the bald man wore a cap.
Eleven other men were standing in the room behind them, and a short wiry aviator -- I was sure right then and there that they were _all_ aviators -- said, "Old man Jefferson drugged _everybody_. Even you, Monty. You just don't remember none of it, while we do."
"But none of us remembers much," said Clarence, who introduced himself as Skip, and then introduced me to Monty Kleeck and Farley James and Rick Moss and Carl Crocker and Eddie Barthelmet, Harry Talmadge, Keith Boardman, Gregory "Cissy" Schneck, "Snap" Samuel Geraldson, and Stephen Freeburg, who "was the only Jew in this mess of Protestants."
"You a Jew too?" asked the skinny, nervous upchuck who was called Cissy. There was a meanness in his voice, but he wasn't big enough to back it up, and I knew he was more dangerous than the three-hundred-pound hulk they called Snap.
I thought about saying yes, but I figured I might be here a while -- maybe for life, from the look of them -- and so I said, "No, I'm Catholic. You have a problem with that?"
"No, no," said Cissy, backing off. "I got no problem with Christians." Then in an undertone he said, "Long as they're Christians -- "
"Where the hell am I?" I asked, some of the muzziness from the drugs finally clearing -- if, indeed, I'd been drugged. I directed myself to Stephen Freeburg, who had the same kind of dark, sharp features as Rudolph Valentino, who last I heard had gone to prison for bigamy.
"You're in the Randolph Estes Jefferson Hotel," Freeburg said, smiling. "It's probably the fanciest, most comfortable jail in the world. And unless you can think of something we haven't, you're here for life."
"No, we'll get out," said Carl Crocker, a short, overweight, squarish chap with bristly brown hair -- they must feed these guys pretty well, I thought; but everything was just words and thoughts wriggling like worms in sand. Nothing seemed real. My mouth felt like it was stuffed with wire. My eyes were burning. My head was pounding. Wake up, I told myself. Wake the hell up.
"Yeah, your tunnel," Freeburg said sarcastically. "Next, you and Snap will be drilling straight down." Everyone laughed at that.
I guess I looked bemused because Eddie Barthelmet, a reedy yet muscular man with thinning black hair, whom I figured immediately as the sort who kept his own counsel, said, "It's solid diamond underneath us. Hardest substance in the world."
I shook my head and grinned. I could take being the butt of the joke.
"I'm not joshing you. The whole goddamn mountain is diamond, except for the rock and stone above. And it's all owned by the Old Man, who isn't too willing to share, which is why we're down here, and he's up there." Everyone laughed at that, and Eddie just nodded toward the ceiling, as if some omniscient being were standing right above us. Then after a pause, he asked, "Did you happen to notice if your compass seemed to go wild when you approached the mountain?"
"Yeah," I said. "But I figured it had been knocked out of whack."
"No, the same thing happened to me. None of the others remember anything being wrong with their compasses, so I figure that the Old Man concocted something new. An artificial magnetic field, or something like that."
"Well, if he could change the official maps of the United States, he could screw up our compasses, I suppose," Clarence said. I didn't figure him to be the brightest of the bunch, but I couldn't help but like him. He seemed genuinely concerned, and maybe it was the way he slouched or patted the chair, I don't know, but for some reason I had the feeling that he was really at home here. He turned to me and said, "Don't worry, you'll be meeting the Old Man soon enough. And when you're ready, I'll give you the tour of the place and help you get set up. Now you think you're ready to tell us your name and how you came to be flyin' out here? You _were_ flyin'? -- "
I nodded and told them my name -- Paul Orsatti -- and I told them that I was a mail pilot, which I'd been for a while, until I got myself fired from New York Chicago Air Transport for being self-righteous; and I wasn't going to tell them that I'd been kicking around for the past year as a roustabout stunt flier, working for crummy outfits like Pitkin's Circle-Q Flying Circus. Or that I'd been playing piano in cheapjack speakeasies for nothing more than drinks and whatever change the Doras and ossified lounge lizards could spare. I didn't tell them about Joel, and how he'd heard rumors about there being something strange in the mountain near Hades. I only told them I'd gotten a bit off-course -- next thing I knew I was being shot at.
And as if I'd been caught telling a lie by the Lord God Almighty Himself, I heard a voice calling everyone to attention.
A broadcast from above.
* * * *
"Well, boys," said God. "Don't you want to have a chat? My daughter's accompanying me, so y'all better be on your best behavior, gentlemen. None of your usual filthy street patois. Now shake a leg!"
Everyone started swearing and complaining, but they obediently moved out of my room toward where the voice was probably coming from, and Skip pulled me along, telling me that I might as well know my keeper and get it in my head that I'm here and that's that and how it's not so bad, in fact, probably better than we'd ever have it back home in the _real_ world.
We walked through a seamless corridor made of the same stuff as the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room where I'd awakened. Dim, pervasive light radiated wanly from the ceiling, and doorways were evenly spaced on both sides. I caught glimpses into other rooms, some larger than others, some dark, some brightly lit, and could see rooms that led into other corridors. I was in a polished, many-hued glass warren that could hold many more men than we who were here now. We crowded into an empty room, which was a high tower -- a terminus of sorts.
I looked up at a large, brightly lit opening covered with grating and saw a man looking down at us -- I assumed he was Mr. Randolph Estes Jefferson.
Some sort of lens must have also covered the opening because Mr. Jefferson seemed greatly magnified and also slightly distorted, as though his girth was being pulled toward the edges of the opening. He looked to be about forty-five and had one of those faces that always remind me of a pug dog: jowly and fleshy, yet absolutely intent -- the proverbial dog with a bone. He stood erect, as though he was wearing military gear instead of a straw boater, blue blazer, and white flannel Oxford bags. If it weren't for that face and his bearing, he could have been a fashion plate. He was swinging what I thought was a cane, swinging it back and forth over the opening to the tower of our prison (but which was, in effect, just a grating in the grass from his perspective). A girl of perhaps eighteen stood beside her pug dog father. She wore a thin blue blouse with a pleated tennis skirt and a blue bandeau to keep her hair in place. Her hair was blond, curly, and bobbed, and although I couldn't see the color of her eyes, I imagined they would be blue. Her mouth was crimson, her face tan against the blue bandeau. Even with the slight distortion, I could see that she was perfection -- a pure vision of youth and freshness and beauty.
"Hey, leave the old guy and come on down here."
"Push him through the grate, we'll take care of everything for you."
"They don't call me snugglepup for nottin'," Crocker shouted, and most everyone was laughing -- except Mr. Jefferson. His daughter smiled warmly at all of us and bowed, as though she was being presented at a cotillion in New York or Chicago or Paris.
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Jefferson, "remember your manners. If y'all continue to embarrass me before my daughter, I shall be happy to instruct my slaves to forget to supply you with your daily rations, which I presume are to your expectations?"
"Slaves?" I asked Skip, who was standing beside me and rubbernecking, to get a better look at the girl.
"Yeah," Skip said, "he's got hundreds of 'em, I guess."
"The rations are fine, except we could do without the fish eggs," said Rick Moss, a short unshaven man, who was so muscular that he looked like he might have been a weight lifter.
"So the rations of caviar are not appreciated," Jefferson said. "Well, we'll take that item off the menu." Randolph Estes Jefferson sounded cheerful, as if he were merely a waiter taking an order and listening to customers' complaints. "Now my Phoebe loves caviar," he said, putting his arm around his daughter, "so I, of course, just assumed y'all would too. I figured your generation with all your jazz and Wall Street savvy was more sophisticated than mine."
But Harry Talmadge and Keith Boardman, who were standing beside me and looking quietly bored, were not exactly what you'd call jazz babies -- Harry looked to be in his middle forties, but it would be difficult to guess whether Keith was in his fifties or sixties. He looked well fed and well exercised, as though he were someone who could afford to pamper himself and maintain his youth.
I thought it odd that our jailer Mr. Jefferson used "y'all" like someone from the Deep South, yet he had no accent at all -- which was probably the same thing as having a midwest accent.
"Well, _I_ don't mind the caviar," said fat Snap Geraldson. "I guess that makes me the only sophisticated guy down here." That got a laugh.
"Are you here to bait us like bears, or have you come up with a solution to our problem?" asked Freeburg.
"Ah, Mr. Freeburg, you are always so angry and so ready to argue how many angels might rest on the head of a pin. Aren't you satisfied with the Talmud I provided for your studies?"
"I've simply taken the bait," Freeburg said.
"Well, good for you, then. But we've been over and over my predicament. I -- being a man of conscience -- must bear the burden of keeping y'all in prison because to free you would be harmful to my family and myself and my retainers. You'll soon come to understand that, too, Mr. Orsatti."
I almost took a step back when he addressed me.
"I trust you're getting settled in comfortably," he continued. "The other boys will show you the ropes. If anyone mistreats you, just slip a note into the food slot. It'll reach me in due course. I've developed quite a paternalistic affection for all of you. Quite."
"We'd promise not to peach on you," cried Carl Crocker. "And that's the honest truth. Just let us go. Give us a chance."
"Ah, but you couldn't help yourself, could you, Mr. Crocker," Jefferson said, as he pulled a lawn chair over for Phoebe and then disappeared for a few seconds to return with a chair for himself. "You'd have to tell _some_one. And if you could come back and get past my slaves and my guns, why then _you'd_ be the richest man on Earth. Would you like me to send some more gems down to you? You can have whatever you wish -- diamonds, rubies, sapphires, a birthstone of your own weight."
"Won't do me any good down here," Carl said.
"Ah, you see, value is relative. But once you got away from here, these diamonds and rubies and sapphires would be worth as much as life itself. Surely you can see that?"