"Johnston, Jim - Hot Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Johnston Jim)

Hot Ice
by Jim Johnston
Copyright й 2001


1935, New Orleans
Two hours in the darkened office, and still nothing to show for it. Two hours of having my world reduced to a pool of torchlight no more than four inches across. I'd been through most of Monro's files, searching - for what? I couldn't quite tell. I just knew that when I saw it, I'd say 'Bingo!' and mean it.
I'd stopped for a smoke break, feeding my ash into a twist of paper and making sure the butt didn't go anywhere incriminating. Through the half-opened Venetian blinds I could see Elysian Fields and Victory, where the Marigny Canal ran into the Bayou St. John. New Orleans. Monro was a guy with vision - and he always liked to have the best of views. The humidity of the air made a bead of sweat trickle down my collar. It was hot. The kind of heat you get in New Orleans when the wind is from Lake Pontchartrain and you can practically taste the mangroves on your tongue.
I ground out the cigarette with my ungloved hand and tidied it away. I took off my hat with my gloved hand and used my kerchief to wipe the inside of the band. Gimme all the heat you can, Big Easy. I've had a belly fulla the cold that's gonna last me for a long, long time. Switching on the torch again, I tried a new filing cabinet. I'd hardly gone along more than five or six cards, before I realized I'd hit pay dirt. 'Bingo!' I said, but something deep in my gut said 'uh-unh'.
I took out the card and examined it closely. It was like a million other 5 x 7 cards in filing cabinets all over the world. It was a record of a ship coming in. Monro thought it was his ship, but I could feel the heat building in my belly and the hairs prickle on my nape. Even if this was Monro's ship, I was gonna take it off him. The details read: SS Vidor, registered in Panama, owned by Monro Refrigerated Transport. Point of departure: Eskimo Point. I didn't need to ask to know that Eskimo Point was in the Northwest Territories - I still had the frostbite scars to remind me. Cargo: Refrigerated salmon (unprocessed). Unloading point: Dock 17, West Wharf. Just a block back from Bayou St John. Seems like Monro liked to gloat and rub his hands over his good fortune.
I replaced the card and closed the filing cabinet. True, I'd found what I'd come to look for, but I was half-sorry about it. I checked the office one last time and then closed the door behind me. The glass door had Monro Enterprises painted on it in gold paint. I took off my glove and dragged the heavy claws across the surface of the paint. It broke off in brittle shards that made me think of ice breaking on a frozen lake.
I shivered. Despite the heat, I always get the shivers when I think of ice. I made for the elevator and pulled the diamond-link grid open. The doors slid open easily, if somewhat heavily, and I stepped inside. I'd been thinking of ice a lot lately. Dreaming about it. The kind of ice that opens all kinds of doors. I punched the button for the ground floor. The elevator clanked downwards, metal on metal, rivets grinding, and light flashed in on me as it passed every floor. The building was empty except for cleaners and security. The lights winked at me like diamonds, dazzling me. They filled my eye at intervals, flooding my head with dreams and memories - ice can do that to you. The elevator jerked to a halt at the ground floor and I heaved the doors open.
I thought of ice and the way it can get so cold that it burns you. The burning can become a yearning. But sometimes all it can do is burn you, because it's just some plain ol' everyday hot ice
* * * * *
Outside the empty Monro Building, it took a moment to feel the pressure of the crowds around me. This wasn't exactly the swell end of town, but the mob was out tonight. Society babes on the arms of their beaux. Sailors in white suits, out looking for the all-fired best shore-leave they would ever get. I checked that I'd put my glove back on and took my time about lighting a cigarette. A taxi showed up and I hailed it.
I climbed inside, and the back of the cab was filled with the smell of new leather. Raindrops from a thunderstorm dead an hour ago still vibrated on the windows.
'Take me to Dock 17,' I growled. 'West Wharf.'
Even with the glow of a smoke warming my lungs, I could feel the ice still haunting me. Reckon I never did like ice. Not that I ever got to see much ice in a burg like New Orleans, but I'd been looking for this hot ice for two weeks now. Ice shouldn't melt so quickly away - not even in a town this righteous.
Monro was at the centre of it - he was always at the centre of it. The spider at the centre of the web of greed.
* * * * *
1933, New Orleans
'Hey, Wolf, don't brush it away - a spider's good luck.'
I paused with the spider hanging on its invisible life-line. I was in Moses Pyper's office, on the corner of Milneburg and Gentilly.
'Good luck,' I growled, 'maybe, but not for flies.'
Pyper shrugged. 'So - you have a fetish for flies, do you, my boy? Then next time you're in the fishing tackle shop you should buy yourself some.' I leaned out of Mose's open window and let the spider go. It crawled off my hand onto the window pane and over the curved legend, hand-painted on the glass in red and gold: Moses Pyper, Gems & Metals.
'I hear you got a job for me, Mose.'
'Well, my boy, let me say I've got a job for you if you want it. Otherwise - pfui!'
I put my hat on Mose's bentwood hat stand.
I said: '"Pfui"?'
Mose ran a chubby, heavily-ringed hand through his shock of curly hair. He's a chrome-dome up top, but around his temples, he's wild and woolly. Today, like everyday, he was wearing his waistcoat and a scarlet bow tie, his shirt sleeves up to his elbows.
Mose shrugged vehemently as he rose and rounded his desk. 'You heard. Pfui!'
'Okay, I heard you the first time. "Pfui," it is then.'
Mose had reached his portrait of General Jackson on the wall. He caught the catch without needing to look for it and swivelled it up to reveal the wall safe behind it. I tried not to look as he deftly spun the dial. As he did so, he said over his shoulder, 'Now, before I tell you who it is, Wolf, I gotta let you into a little secret -' 'I already know the combination to that safe.'
Mose turned away from the open wall-safe, with two glasses in his hand and a bottle of bourbon. 'Safe? You call this a safe? This I call a drinks cabinet!'
'So, what's your secret? '
Mose tugged out the cork of the bottle with his teeth: 'Yuu waaa aaa taaa aaa vaa caa shaaa?'
'Gimme a break, Mose, I can't even read your lips when you talk like that!'
Mose splashed a big shot of the bourbon into one of the glasses, set it down and removed the cork with his free hand. 'Okay, Wolf, Mr Big-Time Private Eye. I said, You want to take a vacation?'
'Rio?' I murmured, lifting the glass as Mose poured the second.
'Try a little further north.'
'Acapulco?' I ventured, sipping the heat of the spirit.
Mose replaced the cork in the bottle. 'No, my boy, I was thinking of somewhere a little more bracing.'
'Oh, where?'
'Alaska.'
I spat my drink out. I coughed and hacked as Mose patted me on the back. 'Wolf, my boy, I know what your trouble is -'
Mose turned back to the wall safe and brought out an ice-bucket and tongs. ' - You didn't take any ice in it.'
He dropped some cubes into my drink. 'There - bourbon on ice. The ice I should have put in first. So, what are you going to do about it, shoot me?'
Now that I had my breath back I managed to gasp, 'Okey, Mose. What's this big secret vacation you want me to take?'
'I hear things, Wolf. I hear Monro is planning some sort of vacation in Alaska.'
'Alaska. It's a big state. Lots of fresh air. Lots of fishing. Good for the complexion. Give him roses on his cheeks.'