"Des & Gordon Lewis - A Man Too Mean To Be Me" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gordon Des & Lewis)

"What are we doing here Rodge?" I asked in a conspiratorial whisper. Though why I was whispering I donТt really know, for in spite of the weather the square was quite a busy place at this time of evening.

"IТm looking for a particular person, Ben, a character who seems to know everything that goes on hereabouts. She is known by the name of Margie, never knew what her surname is. She has her finger on the pulse of the city square and its environs so to speak. Perhaps because of the weather she is in her favourite pub the СCoach and HorsesТ down a side street just off the square."

I was glad I was not alone as I limped along with Roger. I certainly didnТt want to appear to be on the prowl, waiting to be accosted by one of the ladies of the night. I had to go along with RogerТs way of doing things. I had to start somewhere and for the life of me I couldnТt think of any other way to begin my twin investigations.

As I told you before, I am a perfectionist... so understandably, I had become irritated at the number of loose ends that threatened to pile up in this particular investigation. I wished now that I had earlier depended on my own resources, rather than take up with such waifs and strays as Roger Portway and the woman called - what was her name? - Margie. And then there was Carmichael, the one we were meant to be seeking with MargieТs help - not to mention the shadowy figures who ran the Regis conglomerate.

Whilst the interior of the СCoachТand HorsesТ was stuffily warm, its atmosphere was cold and strange, with stern faces rubber-necking in our direction as Roger and I sidled into the bar. Notwithstanding my self-conciousness, I laughed out loud as I heard that the music on the old jukebox happened to be СGotta pebble in my shoeТ by Ella Fitzgerald. Margie herself was found wearing a floral head scarf and poring over a crossword puzzle in the lounge bar; the puzzle was a useful ice-breaker as I proceeded to help her with some of the knottier teasers. One solution, I recall, was Сbounty hunterТ, But I forget the exact nature of the clue.

"WhereТs Carmichael?" Roger suddenly asked, without preamble, amid the otherwise self-perpetuating tussle with words and meanings.

I looked up - startled. I had momentarily felt my mind elsewhere. Why were we here at all? My brain, even at the best of times, was never acute enough to retain a single purpose nor to distinguish between various goals. One moment I was supposed to be chasing tails in the murky world of Insurance claims, the next moment closing in on an aberrant husband whose imputed dabblings with joint bank accounts had never made much sense in the first place.

In any event, I soon quit the disabling claustrophobia of the СCoach and HorsesТ - on my own now, refreshingly controlling my own single-minded - if diffuse - destiny. Roger and Margie themselves seem to have other geese to fry and probably nothing to do with crossword puzzles!

The Square - like a crossword itself the way the lighting worked - now seemed a more restrictive world as if the small hours diminished everything in their path. I forgot whether IТve told you that a City like this one has more than its fair share of coincidences. Whatever the case one gets used to coincidences around here, almost becoming disappointed if one doesnТt duly turn up. As Margie had instinctively pointed me in the general right direction for full exposure to nightТs serendipity, I was not suprised when I found the hunched shape of a threesome near the arches of the vegetable market. One of them was Carmichael. I dodged nearer between the brighter segments of the SquareТs acrostic - but I was soon spotted. It was as if they actually expected me.

They fell silent as I approached; I decided to bluff it out as I thought there was no way Carmichael would recognise me. He couldnТt possibly know that I was employed by both his firm and his wife. I tried not to limp as I staggered towards the three men: pretending that I was a little the worse for drink. I wasnТt ready to confront Carmichael, but the fact that I stumbled upon him and the two murky characters confirmed that he had not left the city.

"Can you tell me where the Coach and Horses is?" I asked in a feigned alcoholic drawl. "Seem to be going round in circles, and I have lost my bearings.

"You are heading in the wrong direction," said one of the men. "ItТs off the other side of the square, in a side street called MasonТs Lane."

I must have played the part of a drunk very well for the one that spoke turned me round and gave me a push in the right direction to start me meandering away from them.

When I thought I was out of sight I dodged down an alley-way, one that would take me back to the three men without being observed.

They had been joined by another man by the time I was near enough to see without being seen. Of course I was interested in the bulkier one of the quartet. Eventually they broke up. Two of them walked North in the direction I had wobbled, whilst Carmichael and the fourth man moved away to the South of the square, with me following at a discreet distance - until they suddenly stopped at the entrance to a car park that providentially was but a few yards away from the building where my office was situated. Carmichael moved off on his own into the car park after saying goodbye to his companion. I hurried to my own car, parked conveniently in a spare bit of ground next to my office building, then waited a few minutes until I saw Carmichael emerge from the exit of the car park in his Mercedes. All ready with my carТs engine warming up, I was able to drive behind him still heading south away from the city centre.

Abruptly, I recalled something I had noticed but not consciously dwelt upon. I drove - interminably it seemed - a drizzly route at which neither vehicle (followed or follower) seemed to be able to make rhyme or reason - and, then it came to me. Carmichael had been limping! This realisation, in turn, caused me to weave backwards in my thoughts. Those human shapes I had automatically assumed to be unknown strangers caught up in a web of deceit with which this city was so rife were probably none other than the half-blind Portway with his latest bit of stuff (Margie?) - and two faced Winnie Carmichael, no doubt. The women were muffled up to look like men... there were pieces of the jigsaw floating towards each other, even as I pondered in automatic free-wheel. It was all to come together with a crash.

Yes, Yes, why had one of the shapes taken off its shoe, taken something out of it and passed this something surreptitiously to another shape - who had scuttled off like a rat. Why this? Why that? Carmichael was just another mean and dirty drug runner. And, yes, all bank accounts were joint ones in this city - leading even to those rubber accounts to which the highest boardroom of Regis turned a blind eye. Money laundering was not a clean business, at the best of times...

I shuddered. It had all come togetherЕ with a crash! My car - due to the inattention of its driver - had collided, almost in slow motion, with the Mercedes it followed. Several shapes had, by now, surrounded my car, pulled me from the driverТs seat - and I was sure it must have been my own face (or a remarkable likeness) that leered at me as a gun barrel was jammed between my teeth with a blood-curdling screech. After all, lies were selfish. After that, any clue was merely duplicitous - no other word for it.