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

Hart got into the coat. It was a fair fit.
"There's your coat," the salesman said.
Hart ran his fingers along the bright green fleece. He said, "How much?"
"Thirty-nine seventy-five," the salesman said. "And it's a buy. I'm telling you it's a real buy. You can see for yourself, it's a buy' The salesman whirled, and as if he was summoning help for a drowning man he waved an arm and yelled, "Harry, come over here!"
The prematurely bald man came out of the window and walked across the store.
The salesman said, "Harry, come here and take a look at this coat."
Harry put long fingers into his trousers pockets and looked at the overcoat and began to nod solemnly.
"That's what I call an overcoat," the salesman said.
"It's one of the specials, isn't it?" Harry said.
"Why, certainly," the salesman said. "Why, certainly its one of the specials."
"How much did you say it was?" Hart asked.
"Thirty-nine seventy-five," the salesman said. "And if you can get another value like that any place in town, you go ahead. You go right ahead and see if you can find another overcoat like that in town. A genuine Lapama fleece for only thirty-nine seventy-five. I'm telling you I don't know how we stay in business."
Hart frowned dubiously and looked down at the front of the coat. Then, as his head was lowered he brought his gaze up and he saw the salesman winking at Harry.
The salesman said, "Harry, if he doesn't buy this coat you put it in the window with one of the big price tags and five will get you fifty we sell it in ten minutes."
"Do you mean what you're saying?" Hart asked.
"Why, certainly," the salesman said. "Do you realize what fine fleece that is? If you don't take that overcoat you'll never forgive yourself."
"All right," Hart said. "I'll take it." He walked toward the door.
"That'll be thirty-nine seventy-five," the salesman said. He was walking behind Hart, and then he got excited as Hart moved faster, and he said, "Hey, listen--"
Hart opened the door and ran out.


There were three customers in the small taproom on Twelfth Street off Race. As Hart came in the three customers turned and looked at him and the man behind the bar kept on wiping a glass. Hart walked into the lavatory and took off the coat and tore off the size slip and the price ticket. With the coat over his shoulder he came out of the lavatory and went up to the bar and ordered a beer. He was two-thirds finished with the beer when a policeman entered the taproom and stood there in the doorway examining the four faces and then walked slowly toward Hart.
Hart looked up, holding the glass close to his mouth.
The policeman gestured toward the bright green coat. "Where did you get that?"
"In a store," Hart said.
"Where?"
"I think it was Atlantic City. Or it might have been Albuquerque."
"Are you trying to be smart?"
"Yes," Hart said.
"You stole that coat, didn't you?"
"Sure," Hart said, and he tossed the beer into the policeman's eyes, going forward as the policeman let out a yell going backward, and he was past the policeman, hearing the excitement behind him as he ran out.
Holding tightly to the coat over his arm he ran down Twelfth Street and turned east on Race. Then he went up Eleventh and ran down an alley. In the middle of the alley he came to a stop and he got into the overcoat and leaned against a wall of splintered wood and breathed heavily. He was trying to decide where he should go. He couldn't take another risk with the railroads or roads going out of town or boats going down the river. It was at a point where odds on all those things were too big. Now that he was here in Philadelphia he had to stay here. It was a big enough place. What he had to do was find a section of the city where they wouldn't be likely to pick him up, where he could take his time and pull himself together.
He knew Philadelphia because very long ago he had put in a couple of years at the University of Pennsylvania and at that time he had been an impressionable boy who liked to roam around alone and pick up things. In those two years he had covered a lot of Philadelphia, and he found out it was a lot of cities inside of a city. Germantown was complete in itself, and so was Frankford. Across the Schuylkill there was West Philadelphia with its University. And because the city was divided so distinctly he was thinking now that what he had to do was get away from the center and cross a few boundaries. He wondered if there was a lot of crime in Germantown. If things hadn't changed there wouldn't be much police activity up there, because long ago when he was at the University he saw Germantown as a collection oLdignity, Just a bit smug and perhaps unconsciously snobbish against the historical background and the old colonial flavor. It might still be quiet and dignified up there. He wished he had cab fare. The dime for beer left him eighty-three cents, and he knew a cab to Germantown would cost much more.
"God Almighty," he said, because even with the overcoat it was so biting cold, and he smiled remembering that this was why he had left the University, because these Phil adelphia winters were just too much for him. He remembered one day when it was as miserakle as a day can possibly be, no rain or snow but a cold grey day with meanness written all over the sky and the streets, and he decided he didn't have to put up with that sort of weather, even though he liked the atmosphere of the University and the things he was learning there. So he packed his things and took a train, feeling the luxury of walking out on something he didn't care for. But now there was no walking out, there was only running away. There was a vast difference between walking out and running away.
He walked down the alley, then went up Tenth to Spring Garden. The Delaware wind came crashing down the wide street, hitting him hard, almost knocking him flat. He needed food and he needed rest, and he went over to a street lamp and leaned against the pole, wondering if he should take the chance of going into a restaurant. Then all at once there was a policeman standing in front of him.
"Plenty cold," the policeman said.
"What?" Hart said. He had his hands away from the pole of the street lamp and he was wondering if he should run north or west or try his luck across the street and down another alley.
The policeman clapped black leather mitts together and said, "I said it's plenty cold."
"This?" Hart said. "This is nothing. You've never been in northern Canada."
"This is cold enough for me," the policeman said.
"This is summer, compared to where I've been," Hart said. He knew he hadn't lost any of it. It was still good, the way it came out, the way it sounded, with just the right balance between conviction and nonchalance. As long as he could hold on to that way of pitching words, he was all right.
He left the policeman standing there, and he walked west on Spring Garden Street, deciding on Germantown.


He walked up Tulpehocken Street, watching the fronts of houses and hoping to see a room-for-rent sign. He went up two blocks without seeing such a sign, and then he was on Morton Street and he decided to turn there and try two or maybe three blocks east on Morton. He was very careful about it as he walked along Morton Street, watching the doors, the porch posts, the brick walls underneath the porch, any place where there would be a sign. He was finished with one block, startin on the second, when from somewhere back in the blackness he heard the crackling sound that had fire in it, and he started to run.


2

He knew how to run. For one thing he was built for it and for another he had been working at it for a long time. Without extending himself he was covering a lot of ground, and presently he decided to have a look back there. He turned and looked back and all he could see was the street and houses on both sides of the street and the empty pavements.