"Elmore Leonard - pagan babies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leonard Elmore)

This afternoon the prie-dieu was placed beneath a roof of palm
fronds and thatch that extended from the rectory into the yard. A voice
raised against the hissing sound of the rain said, "Bless me, Fatha, for
I have sin," and started right in. "I kill seven people that time I'm still
a boy and we kill the inyeni, the cockroaches. I kill four persons in the
church the time you saying the Mass there and you see it happen. You
know we kill five hundred in Nyundo before we come here and kill I
think one hundred in this village before everybody run away."

Terry continued to stare at the yard that sloped down to the road,
the clay hard pack turned dark in the rain.

"And we kill some more where we have the roadblock and stop all
the drivers and look at the identity cards. The ones we want we take
in the bush and kill them."

The man paused and Terry waited. The guy wasn't confessing his

sins, he was bragging about what he did.

"You hear me, Fatha?"

Terry said, "Keep talking," wondering where the guy was going
with it.

"I can tell you more will die very soon. How do I know this? I am
a visionary, Fatha. I am told in visions of the Blessed Virgin saying to
do it, to kill the inyeni. I tell you this and you don't say nothing, do you?"

Terry didn't answer. The man's voice, at times shrill, sounded
familiar.


"No, you can't," the voice said. "Oh, you can tell me not to do it,
but you can't tell no other person, the RPA, the conseiller, nobody, because
I tell you this in Confession and you have the rule say you
can't talk about what you hear. You listen to me? We going to cut the
feet off before we kill them. You know why we do it? You are here
that time, so you understand. But you have no power, so you don't
stop us. Listen, if we see you when we come, a tall one like you, we
cut your feet off, too."

Terry sat in his wicker chair staring out at the rain, the pale sky,
mist covering the far hills. The thing was, these guys could do it.

They already had, so it wasn't just talk, the guy mouthing off.
He said, "You going to give me my penance to say?"
Terry didn't answer.
"All right, I finished."