"Goodis, David - Street of No Return" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goodis David)

"I'm listening," Phillips said. But as he said it the sounds he heard were not coming from the taprooms. These were new and abrupt noises from several blocks away. It was a clamor of shouts and screams, glass breaking and things crashing and footsteps running.
"They're at it again," Bones said.
"The hell with them." Phillips waved wearily in the direction of the violent noises.
"They buried two last week," Bones said.
The sounds were coming in waves, getting higher and higher, and at the top of it there was someone screeching. It was on the order of the noise an animal would make while getting crushed by a steam roller.
"It gets worse every day," Bones said.
Phillips made another weary gesture.
Bones said, "They've been at it for more than a month. You'd think they'd have it stopped by this time."
The screeching noise faded and then for some moments it was quiet down there three blocks away. But all at once there was a crash and more shouting and screaming and a raging flood of curses and then policemen's whistles and running feet.
Bones stood up to have a look. He was looking south along River Street but he couldn't see anything down there. Up here along Skid Row there were a lot of bright lights, varicolored and sprinkling the darkness with the allnight glow from eateries and cut-rate stores and pawnshops. But where Skid Row ended the bright lights ended, and down there south on River Street there were no lights at all, only the hulking shapes of four-story tenements and three-story warehouses, and here and there the masts and funnels of freighters docked in the river. Bones went on trying to see what was happening three blocks south and all he saw was the darkness. Finally he sat down again, and just as he did so there was a very loud scream from down there and then much more noise than before. Now some of it was automobile noise, the roar of engines picking up speed, the whine of tires making sharp turns, then the high-octave scream of brakes performing sudden stops. But the human screams were louder than the automobiles; the yelling and crashing and thudding seemed to stifle the noise of the police cars.
It went on like that and the noise of the police cars was like frustrated growling, confused and fumbling, unable to cope with the louder noise.
Phillips snorted. "Them clowns."
"Who?" Bones asked.
"The cops," Phillips said. "The city's finest. The sturdy enforcers of law and order."
"They sound like they need help."
"They need brains, that's what they need. That's what's wrong with them, they got no brains."
Bones frowned indignantly. He assumed the look of a solid citizen defending the abilities of the police force. He said stiffly, "Quit jabbing needles in them. It ain't easy to be a cop in this district."
Just then there was a very loud crashing sound, as though one of the cars had collided with a brick wall. Or maybe it had run into another police car.
Phillips laughed sourly and disdainfully. "Listen to them," he said. "Now they're running around in circles and getting in each other's way."
"That sounded like a bad accident," Bones said.
Phillips snorted again. "They're always having accidents. They're always making mistakes. They're really brilliant, them policemen."
Bones folded his arms and gave Phillips a glaring look. "It's easy to talk," he said. "Them cops are only doing the best they can."
"Yeah, I know." Phillips pointed toward the area of chaotic sound. "They're sure doing a wonderful job of it."
"I guess you could do better."
"Me?" Phillips looked thoughtful for a moment. "If I was a cop I'd stay the hell out of that neighborhood. They don't want cops down there. All they wanna do is raise hell and hammer away at each other. I'd let them do it to their hearts' content. I wouldn't give a damn if every last one of them wound up on a stretcher."
"It's no use talking to you," Bones said. "Xou just don't make good sense."
Phillips didn't bother to reply. He looked at Whitey to see if Whitey was interested in the conversation. Whitey's face showed no interest at all. He wasn't even listening to the hectic noises coming from three blocks south. Whitey sat there gazing at the empty bottle set between Bones's legs, and Phillips wondered seriously whether the small whitehaired man was completely in touch with the world. He decided to find out, and he tapped Whitey's shoulder and said, "You hear the commotion? You know what's going on?"
Whitey nodded. But aside from that there was no reaction and he went on looking at the empty bottle.
"You know what it's all about?" Phillips persisted.
Whitey shrugged.
"They're fighting," Phillips said. "Can't you hear them fighting?"
Whitey shrugged again. "They're always having trouble down there."
"Not this kind of trouble," Phillips said. "This is different"
Bones nodded emphatically. "You can say that again," he said. "It used to be they'd settle for some black eyes and busted noses, and maybe some teeth knocked out. But now they're really at it. They're out for blood."
"They'll get tired of it," Whitey said. He sounded as though he weren't inclined to discuss the matter further. Again he set his gaze on the empty bottle.
Phillips shrugged inside himself and decided there was no use in trying to get an opinion from Whitey. And anyway, maybe Whitey had the right idea. Like that little country overseas that never got in a jam because it stuck to a policy of minding its own business. Except that Whitey took it a lot further than that. Whitey wouldn't even look, wouldn't even listen. Chances were that Whitey never gave a moment's thought to what was going on around him.
There was another burst of crashing and shouting and screaming from three blocks away and Bones said, "Listen to it. Good God, just listen to it."
Phillips didn't say anything.
"It's getting worse," Bones said. "The Lord only knows what's happening down there. It sounds like a slaughterhouse."
Phillips opened his mouth to utter a comment and then changed his mind and locked his lips tightly to prevent himself from voicing any further opinions. The effort was rather difficult for him because he was a man who gave considerable thought to local issues and felt quite strongly about certain matters. But he realized he couldn't afford to feel too strongly; he suffered from a nervous stomach and at the clinic they'd told him it was important not to get excited. They said it was bad enough that he drank so much cheap wine and he shouldn't make things worse by getting excited.
But the noise from three blocks away was on the order of hammer blows banging at the skull of Phillips and he winced as though he could actually feel the impact. He had come to Skid Row to get away from the memory of hatred and violence in a little mining town where the miners went on strike and he'd scabbed. They had come to talk to him and he'd figured they wanted to do more than just talk, and before it was ended there were three of them shot dead and a smoking rifle in his hand as he made a beeline for the woods. They were still looking for him in that part of the country, but that angle wasn't what bothered him. What bothered him was the memory.
The memory hit him and went in very deeply every time he heard the violence down there three blocks away. It was like a voice telling him that Skid Row wasn't really the hiding place it was supposed to be. It was a locale that constantly got played for a sucker. The Tenderloin tried its best to keep away from contact with the world but somehow or other the world always managed to make contact. The world tossed the bait and tossed it again and again, kept tossing it to get a nibble, and sooner or later the hook was taken and the line reeled in.
Phillips closed his eyes for a moment and listened to the sounds of the fighting in the street three blocks south of Skid Row. With his eyes shut very tightly he wished that Skid Row were soundproof.
He wanted to run down there and beg them to stop it. It was a silly notion and he smiled bitterly, knowing how silly it was. They called that area the Hellhole, and for more than one good reason. Along Skid Row the uninformed were firmly advised, "Don't walk too far south on River Street. Stay away from the Hellhole." In the past month it was more than just a matter of avoiding getting mugged or slugged or dragged into an alley. It was the idea of keeping away from the cobblestone battlefield where the combat was on an all-out basis. They were fighting with the whitehot fury that men display when they forget that they are men. In the Hellhole, these nights, they were having race riots.
Phillips had no idea how it had started. He knew that no one was sure about that. He remembered that around a year ago some Puerto Ricans had moved into the tenements down there and then more had come. And some more. And then they were saying there were too many Puerto Ricans moving in. The talk went on for a while but it was just talk and gradually it died down. Then all at once, five weeks ago, there was a riot. A few nights later there was another riot. Some people were hurt but there was no serious damage and for a week things were quiet and it looked as though the trouble had ended. But then they rioted again and it was mean ugly fighting and three men died. In the fourth riot there were two dead and one blinded with lye and several taken to the hospital, badly cut up. Tonight was the seventh riot and Phillips wasn't sure how many had died altogether but he knew the number was considerable. He told himself it was very bad and getting worse and he wondered how it would end. Or whether it would ever end.
He told himself to stop thinking about it. After all, it was a matter of geography and this was Skid Row and the Hellhole was three blocks away. He was here on Skid Row and the Hellhole was a million miles away. And so was yesterday, and so were all the memories of the little mining town.
The thing to do was play it Whitey's way and not let it touch him, let nothing touch him. He turned his head and looked at Whitey, knowing that Whitey's eyes would be aimed at the empty bottle and the only thought in Whitey's brain would be the need for another drink.
But Whitey wasn't looking at the bottle. Whitey sat there sort of stiffly, his mouth halfway open. He was staring at something on the other side of the street.