"Laird Long - Broken Hearts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Long Laird)

= Broken Hearts
by Laird Long


The house was in the hot part of Hollywood. The part where the sun doesn't shine tourist-bright and pleasant, but rather hot and oppressive; the part where you'd never dream in your wildest scar-dust dreams that there was a great big, cool blue ocean only five miles away. In this part of Hollywood, people were actually punished for their sins.

The house was between a pool hall on the right and a vacant lot on the left. It was a nice house - for a midget. It was bigger than a cardboard box but smaller than a coffin. It was the kind of bread box that real estate agents euphemistically refer to as a 'bungalow'. It had been white before the paint had peeled off, now it was just grey and barely standing. It was the kind of place to go if you wanted to be forgotten, or couldn't afford to be remembered.

I parked my car in the street, followed a trail of ankle-deep potholes that made up the walk, and rapped on the screen door. A voice thundered from within the dingy bowels of the shack: "Come in!"

I was careful to keep the screen door on its hinges while I opened and closed it, and it groaned affectionately as a result. I walked down a short, narrow hall and into a short, narrow living room. The place was carpeted with rotting wood. Malcolm Bull, or what was left of him, was sitting in a broad-backed green chair facing the dirty window. He looked up at me with a pair of beady eyes that could have done business at a hog-calling competition. He didn't get up.

"Sit down," he grunted by way of introduction.

I sat down on a ratty couch across from him. A loose spring fondled my buttock.

Malcolm Bull had once been a big, fat, prosperous business man. That was in the 70's. Now the fat hung on him in grey folds, like a tunic. His head was shrunken and his face was yellow. Hair clung wisply to the sides of his head, waiting to blow off. A fat, green cigar oozed smoke out of the side of his mouth. Appearances aside, he was still worth about two hundred million dollars.

"I'm Charles Sidney, Mr. Bull. I received your letter yesterday."

He stared at me with contempt.

I tried again. "What can I do for you?"

I kneaded my hands together until I had fists.

"You're going to find my daughter!" he bellowed. He seemed upset that he had to uncork the cigar from his mouth to speak.

"Why would I do that?" I asked politely. The dislike was instantaneous. He knew it and was obviously used to it and didn't care.

He slammed a flabby hand down on the arm of his chair. Dust enveloped his arm and glittered in the air like ashes tossed from an urn.

"Because I said so, dammit!"

"I like to know the reasons for doing-"

"Shut up! I'll tell you. I'm going to die soon, Sidney, and I know it. While that may please a great deal of people, it doesn't please me. My daughter ran away from home when she was thirteen. That's ten years ago. Her mother died eleven years ago. I want to see my daughter again before I die. I think I have that right - if I'm to leave her any money."

"You put ads in the paper."

He arched an unkempt eyebrow sarcastically. "So, you can read?"

"I heard it on the news," I replied. The air in the room was stifling.

"That was a month ago, and a fat lot of good it did. Only crackpots and freeloaders responded. My lawyer took care of them quick enough."

"So your daughter doesn't want to be found," I remarked innocently. It was like throwing a lighted match on a festering pile of oily rags.

"You watch your goddamn mouth, boy! I want you to find her, that's all you have to know!"