"The Two Minute Rule" - читать интересную книгу автора (Crais Robert)

20

PERRY WAS STILL at his desk when Holman let himself into the lobby. The old man’s leathery face twitched and trembled, so Holman read that something was wrong.

Perry said, “Hey, I want to talk to you.”

“You get your car back okay?”

Perry leaned forward, lacing and unlacing his fingers. His eyes were watery and nervous.

“Here’s the money I charged you, the sixty bucks, those three days for the car. Here it is right here.”

As Holman reached his desk, he saw the three twenties laid out face up, waiting for him. Perry unlaced his fingers and pushed the three bills toward him.

Holman said, “What’s this?”

“The sixty you paid for my car. You can have it back.”

Holman wondered what in hell Perry was doing with the money laid out like that, the three Jacksons staring up at him.

“You’re giving back the money?”

“Yeah. Here it is. Take the goddamned money back.”

Holman still didn’t move for the money. He looked at Perry. The old man looked worried, but angry, too.

Holman said, “Why are you giving this back?”

“Those wetbacks said to give it back, so you tell’m I did.”

“The guys who brought back your car?”

“When they come in here to give me the keys, those gangbanging motherfuckers. I was doing you a favor, man, renting out that car, I wasn’t trying to rip you off. Those bastards said I should give back your cash else they’d fuck me up good, so here, you take it.”

Holman stared at the money but didn’t touch it.

“We had a deal, fair and square. You keep it.”

“No, uh-uh, you gotta take it back. I don’t want that kind of trouble in my house.”

“That’s your money, Perry. I’ll straighten it out with those guys.”

He would have to talk to Chee in the morning.

“I don’t appreciate two hoodlums comin’ in here like that.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it. We had a deal, fair and square. I wouldn’t send two goons to shake you down for sixty bucks.”

“Well, I don’t appreciate it, is all. I’m just telling you. If you thought I was ripping you off, you should’ve said so.”

Holman knew the harm had been done. Perry didn’t believe him and probably would always be afraid of him.

“Keep the money, Perry. I’m sorry this happened.”

Holman left the sixty dollars on Perry’s desk and went up to his room. The clunky old window unit had the place like a deep freeze. He looked at Richie’s picture on the bureau, eight years old and smiling. He still had a bad feeling in his stomach that Pollard’s pep talk hadn’t been able to shake.

He turned off the air conditioner, then went downstairs again, hoping to catch Perry still at his desk.

Perry was locking the front door, but stopped when he saw Holman.

Perry said, “That sixty is still on the desk.”

“Then put it in your goddamned pocket. I wouldn’t have you shaken down. My son was a police officer. What would he think if I did something like that?”

“I guess he’d think it was pretty damned low.”

“I guess he would. You keep that sixty. It’s yours.”

Holman went back upstairs and climbed into bed, telling himself that Richie sure as hell would think it was low, shaking an old man for sixty damned dollars.

But saying it didn’t make it so, and sleep did not come.