"Goodis, David - Black Friday" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goodis David)

Charley smiled. "I've been looking for those cuff links more than a year. I got them out of an estate in Chestnut Hill. Frieda's got breakfast for you."
Mattone raised his head again and looked at Charley.
Hart walked into the kitchen. Frieda was wearing the quilted robe of orchid satin. Myrna was at the sink, wearing a plain dress of checkered blue and yellow cotton.
Frieda put a tall glass of orange juice on the table and smiled at Hart and said, "Look, honey, there's got to be some stipulation about that bathroom."
"Was I in there long?" Hart said. He lifted the glass.
"It depends on what you call long," Frieda said. "What do you do in there?"
"Dream," Hart said. "But I'll cut it out. All I want is toast and coffee.(Black I'll be right back." He went out and came back seconds later with a lighted cigarette in his mouth.
Frieda said, "I fix up a banquet for him and all he wants is toast and coffee."
"I never eat more than that," Hart said. "My usual meal in the morning is six or seven cigarettes and three or four cups of black coffee without sugar. But if you've prepared something I'll eat it."
He finished the orange juice. Frieda was putting hot dishes on the table. He smiled at her. She walked back to the stove. When she came back to the table she poured coffee with her right hand and with her left hand she reached over and put a soft fat palm over Hart's mouth and with her soft fat fingers she gave his face a soft squeeze.
Myrna was placing dishes in a wall cabinet.
Hart lowered his head and began to eat his meal. Frieda put an ashtray in front of him. He balanced the cigarette on the ashtray and the smoke went up in front of his face as he ate slowly. Frieda and Myrna were moving around in the kitchen. Outside it was beginning to snow. The snow came down haphazardly at first, the flakes gradually forming a pattern as they came streaming down from a dismal grey sky, then all at once parading in thick white columns, an army of white, with limitless reserves. Hart asked Frieda for another cup of coffee, and he sat there sipping the coffee and watching the snow. All at once he sensed that Frieda was no longer in the kitchen. He turned and looked at Myrna. She was on her knees, reaching for something in the floor opening of the wall cabinet.
Hart said, "Hello, Myrna."
She turned and stood up and took two steps going backward. Her eyes were focused on the wall behind his head. She said, "Look, you. I don't want you to talk to me."
Hart took another gulp of coffee, got up and walked out of the kitchen. When he came into the living room he asked Rizzio for another cigarette.
"Let's have some radio," Mattone said.
Hart reached over and turned on the radio. A woman was weeping and a gentle elderly man was saying, "Now, now, Emily--"
Hart tried another station. A crisp young man was saying, "And Ladies, if you've never tried it you don't know what you've missed. Really, Ladies--"
Hart turned off the radio.
Rizzio peeled some pages from the section he was reading and handed the pages to Hart, and Hart tried to concentrate on the rapid progress of a young colored welterweight from Scranton and the boy from Pittsburgh this Scranton boy was slated to meet next week, and also on the card was a promising lightweight from Detroit; and Hart felt the quiet of the living room, the essence of something heavier than the quiet. He started to put down the paper so that he could get a look at Charley and Mattone and Rizzio, and when the paper was halfway down he saw that Charley and Mattone and Rizzio were watching him.
He started to read about how Temple had played a game of basketball with Penn State and the game went into several overtime periods. He liked basketball and at Penn he had played on one of the intramural teams, and this writeup should have interested him even if he had other things on his mind, but it didn't interest him.
He started to lower the paper again, bringing it to one side so he could get a look.
Then he looked and he saw them watching him, and he gazed back at them, one at a time, and finally brought his gaze to rest on Charley.
He was waiting for some sort of a break or a sign, and Charley wasn't giving him anything. He knew he was getting angry, and he sat there wondering whether it would be wise to get angry, or wise to try and stay calm in the face of a colder calm.
Finally Charley broke it. Charley said, "We were talking it over a little while ago. We thought maybe you were going to change yourmind."
"Look," Hart said, and he stood up. "If I was going to change my mind I wouldn't let you know about it. I'd just pick myself up and walk out. Even then you wouldn't have anything to worry about, because I wouldn't gain anything by making speeches to the police or anybody. But that's a sideissue. The main issue is your point of view, and it's up to you to decide whether I'm in or I'm out. If I'm in it's got to be all the way in. If I'm out you might as well tell me now and I'll leave the neighborhood."
"Don't get all upset," Charley said.
"I'm not upset. I'm just damned curious, that's all."
"That's understandable," Charley said. "It works both ways, we're curious about you and you're curious about us."
And Hart said, "What was it with Renner?"
Mattone turned to Charley and said, "Now do you see what's happening?"
Charley didn't hear what Mattone said. Charley looked at Hart and said, "We did away with Renner because he became greedy. His share of our last job was twelve hundred. He knew where I had the rest of the money and he did a sneak caper, took the eleven thousand and waited thirty minutes and then told me he wanted to buy something on Germantown Avenue. I already knew he had the money, so I took Paul and we went out and did away with him."
"That makes sense," Hart said.
"Sure it does," Charley murmured. Then he grinned. "What say we stop this talk and play some poker?"
They set up a card table, pulled chairs around it and sat down. Then Rizzio fanned a pack of cards on the table, scooped up the cards, riffled them, fanned them again, caressed them, tossed them up, turned them over, smacked then flat on the table and indicated them for a cut.
Charley cut the cards as he sat down.
"Open," Mattone said. "Quarter, half and seventy-five."
Frieda came in from the kitchen. She sat down at the table.
Rizzio picked up the deck, riffled the cards four times and extended them for another cut.
Charley again cut the cards.
Hart smiled and said, "I'll be a spectator."
"No," Charley said. "You did some work last night in the cellar. You get paid for that work. What do you think it was worth?"
"Around thirty," Hart said.
Charley took out some bills and selected three tens.
"Open," Mattone said. "Quarter, half and--"
"No," Frieda said. "Why should anybody get hurt? Make it closed poker, jacks or better to open the pot, nickel up and dime to open."
Frieda was sitting across from Hart and she smiled at him and he smiled back. Charley asked Rizzio for a cigarette and Rizzio got up from the table, ran upstairs and came down with three packs of cigarettes. He tossed the packs on the table, then eagerly gathered up the cards, riffled them, fanned them in a straight line, riffled them as he watched the others putting their money on the table, fanned the cards in a half-circle, then fanned them in a full circle, a perfect circle, then cut them swiftly three times, held them in front of Hart and told him to take one.
Hart took one, shuffled the deck, cut the deck, and while he was cutting it again Rizzio grinned and said, "All right, your card was a lady, right?"
"So far."
"A black lady."