"Gardner, Lisa - The Other Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Lisa)

Warden Cluck hiked up his gray pants, jerked his head at the priest to join him, and stomped out of the cell.
Russell Lee lay back down on his cot and grinned. Time for a good nap. Nothing more to look forward to today. Nothing more to look forward to period, Trash.
His grin faltered when in the corridor, the four dead men took up the chant.
"How do you like Russell Lee? Baked, crisped, or fried? How do you like Russell Lee? Baked, crisped, or fried?"


three-thirty p.m. Russell Lee got up, his last meal of fried chicken, fried okra, fried sweet potatoes finally arriving. With it came an uninvited guest, reporter Larry Digger--the warden's way of punishing him for his morning display.
For a moment the two men just stared at each other. Larry Digger was thirty years old, his body trim, his face unlined, his dark hair thick. He carried the wind of the outside world with him like a special scent, and all the men stared at him with sullen, resentful eyes. He breezed into Russell Lee's cell and plopped down on the cot.
"You gonna eat all that? You'll burst your intestines before you ever get to the chair."
Russell Lee scowled. Larry Digger had been latched on to him like a leech for seven years now, first following his crimes, then his arrest, his trial, and now his death. In the beginning Russell Lee hadn't minded so much. These days, however, the reporter's questions made him nervous, maybe a little scared, and Russell Lee hated being scared. He fastened his gaze upon the meal cart and inhaled the oily scent of burnt food.
"Whaddya want?" Russell Lee demanded, digging into the pile of fried chicken with his hands.
Digger tipped back his fedora and adjusted his trench coat. "You seem calm enough. No hysterics, no pledges of innocence."
"Nope." Russell Lee ripped off a bite of chicken, chewed noisily, swallowed.
"I was told you'd sworn off the priest. I didn't think you'd take the Jesus route."
"Nope."
"No purging of sins for Russell Lee Holmes?" "Nope."
"Come on, Russell Lee." Digger leaned forward and planted his elbows on his knees. "You know what I want to hear. It's your last day now. You know there

won't be a pardon. This is it. Final chance to set the record straight. From your lips to the front page."
Russell Lee finished the chicken, smacked his greasy lips, and moved on to the charcoaled okra.
"You're gonna die alone, Russell Lee. Maybe that seems okay to you now, but the minute they strap you into Old Sparky, it won't be the same. Give me their names. I can have your wife flown in here for you. And your baby. Give you some support, give you family for your last day here on earth."
Russell Lee finished the okra and plunged three fingers into the middle of the chocolate cake. He collapsed a whole side, excavated it like a tunnel digger, and started sucking the frosting from his palm.
"I'll even pay for it," Digger said, a last-ditch effort from a man who was paid jack shit, and they both knew it. "Come on. We know you're married. I've seen the tattoo and I've heard the rumors. Tell me who she is. Tell me about your kid."
"Why does it matter to you?"
"I'm just trying to help you--"
"You gonna bring 'em here and call 'em freaks, that's what you're gonna do."
"So they exist, you admit it--"
"Maybe they do. Maybe they don't." Russell Lee flashed a mouthful of chocolate-coated teeth. "I ain't telling."
"You're a stubborn fool, Russell Lee. They are going to fry you, and your wife will never have benefits and your kid will get raised by some other junkyard dog who'll claim it as his own. Probably become a loser just like you."
"Oh, it's all taken care of, Digger. It is, it is. Matter of fact, I got me more of a future than you do. That's what they call irony, ain't it. Irony. Good word, goddammit. Good word." Russell Lee turned back to his cake and shut up.
Larry Digger finally left in a rage. Russell Lee tossed his leftover food, including most of the cake, onto the


concrete floor. He was supposed to share his dessert with his fellow death row inmates; that was protocol. Russell Lee ground the cake into the cement floor with the heel of his right foot.
"Let them all share that. Let the motherfuckers share that."
Abruptly a loud crunch rang down the corridor, the noise growing, swelling, into a fierce, angry crescendo. It paused, dipped low, then soared high, going from a whine to a snarl.
The executioner was warming up the chair, testing his equipment at 1800 volts to 500 to 1300 to 300. Suddenly the moment was very real. "How do you like Russell Lee?" the corridor pulsed. "Baked, crisped, or fried? How do you like Russell Lee? Baked, crisped, or fried?"
Russell Lee Holmes sat down quietly on the edge of the cot. He drew in his shoulders, thought of the nastiest things he could think of. Small, soft throats, big blue eyes, shrill little-girl screams.
'I won't say a word, baby. I'll keep it to my grave. 'Cause once there was someone who at least pretended to love Trash.
Boston, Massachusetts
josh sanders trudged down the brightly lit halls. A first-year resident, he was going on hour thirty-seven of a supposed twenty-four-hour ER shift and he functioned purely on autopilot. He wanted sleep. He must find an empty room. He must sleep.
He came to the door of room five. No lights were on. Dimly he recalled that the boards listed five as unoccupied. Slow night in the ER.
Josh entered the room and yanked back the curtain surrounding the bed, ready to collapse. A whimper. A hoarse, strangled wheeze. A moan. The freshman doctor caught himself and snapped
on the overhead light. A fully clothed little girl lay magically sprawled on top of the bed.
And she was clutching her throat as her eyes rolled back into her head and her whole body went limp.
the death team was well trained. Three guards snapped Russell Lee Holmes into leg irons and a belly chain. He informed the warden he could walk out on his own, and everyone fell into position.
The guards flanked Russell Lee. Warden Cluck led. They marched down the forty-five-foot corridor, where the green door that had greeted 361 men now held Russell Lee's number.
At five the barber had shaved his head, sculpting a perfectly bald crown for the electrode plate. Then there'd been one last shower before he'd donned the execution whites. White pants, white shirt, white belt, all made from cotton grown on the prison farms and cut, spun, and sewed by prison inmates. He was going to his death looking like a fucking painter and without a trace of the outside world upon him.
The door swung open. Old Sparky beckoned. Rich burnished wood, over fifty years old and gleaming. High back, solid arms and legs, wide leather straps. Looked almost like Grandma's favorite rocker except for the face mask and electrodes.
The executioner took over and everything happened in a blur. The guards were strapping Russell Lee to the golden oak frame. One thrust a bite stick between his teeth, the other swabbed his left leg, head, and chest with saline solution to help conduct the electricity. The executioner followed up with metal straps around his calves, metal straps around his wrists, two diodes on each side of his heart, and finally a silver bowl on top of his shaved head. In less than sixty seconds Russell Lee Holmes had been crowned king.