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

"Ed shot at the gangster twice," Grave Digger said. "It must have been then."
"Right."
No one looked at Coffin Ed. Instead, they made a pretense of examining the area.
Anderson shook his head. "It's going to be a hell of a job finding your prisoner in this dense slum," he said.
"There isn't any need," the homicide lieutenant said. "If this was the pistol he had, he's as innocent as you and me. This pistol won't kill anyone." He took the pistol from his 0ocket and unwrapped it. "This is a thirty-seven caliber blank pistol. The only bullets made to fit it are blanks and they can't be tampered with enough to kill a man. And it hasn't been made over into a zip gun."
"Well," Lieutenant Anderson said at last. "That tears it."


4

There was a rusty sheet-iron gate in the concrete wall between the small back courts. The gang leader unlocked it with his own key. The gate opened silently on oiled hinges.
He went ahead.
"March!" the henchman with the knife ordered, prodding Sonny.
Sonny marched.
The other henchman kept the noose around his neck like a dog chain.
When they'd passed through, the leader closed and locked the gate.
One of the henchman said, "You reckon Caleb is bad hurt?"
"Shut up talking in front of the captive," the leader said. "Ain't you got no better sense than that."
The broken concrete paving was strewn with broken glass bottles, rags and diverse objects thrown from the back windows: a rusty bed spring, a cotton mattress with a big hole burnt in the middle, several worn-out automobile tires, the half-dried carcass of a black cat with its left foot missing and its eyes eaten out by rats.
They picked their way through the debris carefully.
Sonny bumped into a loose stack of garbage cans. One fell with a loud clatter. A sudden putrid stink arose.
"God damn it, look out!" the leader said. "Watch where you're going."
"Aw, man, ain't nobody thinking about us back here," Choo-Choo said.
"Don't call me man," the leader said.
"Sheik, then."
"What you jokers gonna do with me?" Sonny asked.
His weed jag was gone; he felt weak-kneed and hungry; his mouth tasted brackish and his stomach was knotted with fear.
"We're going to sell you to the Jews," Choo-Choo said.
"You ain't fooling me, I know you ain't no Arabs," Sonny said.
"We're going to hide you from the police," Sheik said.
"I ain't done nothing," Sonny said.
Sheik halted and they all turned and looked at Sonny. His eyes were white half moons in the dark.
"All right then, if you ain't done nothing we'll turn you back to the cops," Sheik said.
"Naw, wait a minute, I just want to know where you're taking me."
"We're taking you home with us."
"Well, that's all right then."
There was no back door to the hall as in the other tenement. Decayed concrete stairs led down to a basement door. Sheik produced a key on his ring for that one also. They entered a dark passage. Foul water stood on the broken pavement. The air smelled like molded rags and stale sewer pipes. They had to remove their smoked glasses in order to see.
Halfway along, feeble yellow light slanted from an open door. They entered a small, filthy room.
A sick man clad in long cotton drawers lay beneath a ragged horse blanket on a filthy pallet of burlap sacks.
"You got anything for old Bad-eye," he said in a whining voice. -
"We got you a fine black gal," Choo-Choo said.
The old man raised up on his elbows. "Whar she at?"
"Don't tease him," Inky said.
"Lie down and shut," Sheik said. "I told you before we wouldn't have nothing for you tonight." Then to his henchmen, "Come on, you jokers, hurry up."
They began stripping off their disguises. Beneath their white robes they wore sweat shirts and black slacks. The beards were put on with make-up gum.
Without their disguises they looked like three high-school students.
Sheik was a tall yellow boy with strange yellow eyes and reddish kinky hair. He had the broad-shouldered, trimwaisted figure of an athlete. His face was broad, his nose flat with wide, flaring nostrils, and his skin freckled. He looked disagreeable.
Choo-Choo was shorter, thicker and darker, with the egg-shaped head and flat, mobile face of the born joker. He was bowlegged and pigeon-toed but fast on his feet.
Inky was an inconspicuous boy of medium size, with a mild, submissive manner, and black as the ace of spades.
"Where's the gun?" Choo-Choo asked when he didn't see it stuck in Sheik's belt.