"Himes, Chester - The Real Cool Killers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Himes Chester)

THE REAL COOL KILLERS
by Chester Himes


Copyright 1959 by Chester Himes
Copyright renewed 1987 by Lesley Himes

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in France as _Il pleut des coups dur_ and in the United States in 1958.

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, DECEMBER 1988




1

"I'm gwine down to de river,
Set down on de ground.
If de blues overtake me,
I'll jump overboard and drown..

Big Joe Turner was singing a rock-and-roll adaptation of _Dink's Blues_. The loud licking rhythm blasted from the jukebox with enough heat to melt bones.
A woman leapt from her seat in a booth as though the music had struck her full of tacks. She was a lean black woman clad in a pink jersey dress and red silk stockings. She pulled up her skirt and began doing a shake dance as though trying to throw off the tacks one by one.
Her mood was contagious. Other women jumped down from their high stools and shook themselves into the act. The customers laughed and shouted and began shaking too. The aisle between the bar and the booths became stormy with shaking bodies.
Big Smiley, the giant-sized bartender, began doing a flatfooted locomotive shuffle up and down behind the bar.
The colored patrons of Harlem's Dew Drop Inn on 129th Street and Lenox Avenue were having the time of their lives that crisp October night.
A white man standing near the middle of the bar watched them with cynical amusement. He was the only white person present.
He was a big man, over six feet tall, dressed in a dark gray flannel suit, white shirt and blood-red tie. He had a bigfeatured, sallow face with the blotched skin of dissipation. His thick black hair was shot with gray. He held a dead cigar butt between the first two fingers of his left hand. On the third finger was a signet ring. He looked about forty.
The colored women seemed to be dancing for his exclusive entertainment. A slight flush spread over his sallow face.
The music stopped.
A loud grating voice said dangerously above the panting laughter: "Ah feels like cutting me some white motherraper's throat."
The laughter stopped. The room became suddenly silent.
The man who had spoken was a scrawny little chickennecked bantamweight, twenty years past his fist-fighting days, with gray stubble tinging his rough black skin. He wore a battered black derby green with age, a ragged plaid mackinaw and blue denim overalls.
His small enraged eyes were as red as live coals. He stalked stiff-legged toward the big white man, holding an open spring-blade knife in his right hand, the blade pressed flat against his overalled leg.
The big white man turned to face him, looking as though he didn't know whether to laugh or get angry. His hand strayed casually to the heavy glass ashtray on the bar.
"Take it easy, little man, and no one will get hurt," he said.
The little knifeman stopped two paces in front of him and said, "Efn' Ah finds me some white mother-raper up here on my side of town trying to diddle my little gals Ah'm gonna cut his throat."
"What an idea," the white man said. "I'm a salesman. I sell that fine King Cola you folks like so much up here. I just dropped in here to patronize my customers."
Big Smiley came down and leaned his ham-sized fists on the bar.
"Looka here, big, bad, and burly," he said to the little knifeman. "Don't try to scare my customers just 'cause you're bigger than they is."
"He doesn't want to hurt anyone," the big white man said. "He just wants some King Cola to soothe his mind. Give him a bottle of King Cola."
The little knifeman slashed at his throat and severed his red tie neatly just below the knot.
The big white man juMped back. His elbow struck the edge of the bar and the ashtray he'd been gripping flew from his hand and crashed into the shelf of ornamental wine glasses behind the bar.
The crashing sound caused him to jump back again. His second reflex action followed so closely on the the first that he avoided the second slashing of the knife blade without even seeing it. The knot of his tie that had remained was split through the middle and blossomed like a bloody wound over his white collar.
"... throat cut!" a voice shouted excitedly as though yelling Home Run!
Big Smiley leaned across the bar and grabbed the red-eyed knifeman by the lapels of his mackinaw and lifted him from the floor.
"Gimme that chiv, shorty, 'fore I makes you eat it," he said lazily, smiling as though it were a joke.
The knifeman twisted in his grip and slashed him across the arm. The white fabric of his jacket sleeve parted like a burst balloon and his black-skinned muscles opened like the Red Sea.
Blood spurted.
Big Smiley looked at his cut arm. He was still holding the knifeman off the floor by the mackinaw collar. His eyes had a surprised look. His nostrils flared.