"Destroyer - 025 - Sweet Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Warren)

When Hooks entered the room, and when he saw who sat on a large couch, he found himself unable to deny guilt. This was because the room spun around him and his legs were not beneath him and he was looking up. If he were looking up, he reasoned, his back must be on the floor. And who was giving him water?

Don Salvatore Massello himself. That's who was pressing a glass of water to his lips and asking if he were all right.

"Oh, Jesus," said Hooks. For now he was sure this was Massello. He had seen pictures in the newspapers and on television when Mr. Massello, surrounded by lawyers, had declined to talk to reporter?.

There was the silver hair, the thin haughty nose, the immaculate dark eyebrows and the black eyes. And they were looking down at him and the lips were asking him if he were all right.

"Yes. Yes. Yes sir," said Hooks.

"Thank you for coming," said Mr. Massello.

"My pleasure and anytime, Mr. Massello, sir. An honor."

"And it is an honor to see you also, Mr. Basumo. May I call you Donald?" said Mr. Massello, helping Hooks to his feet and sitting him in a stuffed velvet chair and personally pouring him a glass of thick, sweet yellow Strega.

"Donald," said Mr. Massello, "we live in dangerous times."

"I didn't do it, sir. On my mother's sacred heart, I didn't do it."

"Do what, Donald?"

"Whatever, sir. I swear it."

Mr. Massello nodded with a tiredness that suggested the wisdom of the world.

"There are things men of respect must do to survive and I respect you for whatever you have done. I am proud to call you a friend, a brother."

Hooks offered to knock off any newsstand in the city for Mr. Massello, owned by a sighted person or not.

Don Salvatore Massello expressed gratitude for the most gracious offer but there was more important business at hand.

And he asked questions about the television set Donald had tried to sell to a fence. Had Donald seen it? Where was it? How did Donald hear of it? And getting an answer, Don Salvatore Massello asked about the girl, Janet Hawley, where she lived, where she worked and all manner of things concerning the girl.

"She don't mean shit to me, sir," said Hooks.

Mr. Massello understood that Donald was too serious a person to let his life be ruined by a skirt. Mr. Massello said this with a knowing smile. Mr. Massello led him to the door, assuring young Donald Basumo his future was secure. He would be a rich man.

And to show his good faith, he provided Donald with a room aboard the yacht that night. And two servants. They followed every instruction Hooks gave them, from bringing in booze and food and a young girl, except one request. Hooks wanted to take a walk in the fresh air. That they could not allow.

"You got everything you want right here. You're not leaving."

During the night, they awakened him and told him he could have his fresh air now. He didn't want it now. They told him he was taking it now.

It was 4:15 a.m. and quite dark. Hooks sat in the back seat of a car again and when they were well down the road headed toward St. Louis, he saw the marina lights come back on. He had left in darkness.

The car left the asphalt road and drove to the yard of a small construction firm. Hooks was surprised to see Janet Hawley waiting for him. She wore a bright yellow print dress covered from the waist up with mud. She was resting. At the bottom of a ditch, with a very big dent in her head.

Hooks started to question the servants about this when one of them interrupted by banging a baseball bat into Donald (Hooks) Basumo's auditory cortex in his temporal lobe. It went crack. And made a very big and final dent in his skull.