"Thompson, Jim - After Dark My Sweet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thompson Jim)

I'd only got down the road a few hundred yards when the station wagon drew up beside me and she swung the door open. "Get in," she said, smiling. "It's all right. Bert isn't going to make any trouble for you."
"Yeah? Well, he's not going to get the chance, lady. I just stopped in there for a minute, and now I'm going on."
"I tell you it's all right. Bert's the last person in the world to holler for the cops. Anyway, we're not going back there. I'm taking you home with me."
"Home with you?" I said.
"It's not far from here." She patted the seat, smiling at me. "Come on, now. That's a good boy."
I got in rather uncertainly, wondering why she was acting so friendly now when she'd been so ornery a little while ago. She answered the question just as I started to ask it.
"I had a couple of reasons," she said. "For one thing, I didn't want Bert to know that I might be interested in you. The less a man like Bert knows about my business the better I like it."
"What else?"
"The other reason . . . well, I wanted to see what you would do; how nervy you were. Whether you were really the kind of guy I thought you might be."
I asked her what kind of guy that was exactly. She shrugged, a little impatiently.
"Oh, I don't know! Maybe.. . probably it doesn't make any difference, anyway."
The highway dipped down through a grove of trees with a narrow lane leading off to the south. She turned the car into the lane, and after about a quarter of a mile, just over the crest of a little hifi, we came to her house.
It was a big white cottage standing in a clearing among several acres of trees. It looked like it might have been a nice place at one time. It still was fairly nice, but nothing like it could have been. The paint was peeling and dingy. Some of the front steps were caved in. Bricks from the chimney were scattered over the roof, and there were big rusted-out holes in some of the screens. The lawn didn't look like it had ever been cut. The grass was so high you could hardly see the sidewalks.
She sat looking out the window for a moment after we'd stopped. Then, she sighed and shook her head, murmuring something about work being the curse of the drinking classes.
"Well, here we are." She opened the door. "By the way, I'm Mrs. Anderson. Fay Anderson."
"I'm very happy to meet you, Mrs. Anderson."
"And I'm very happy to meet you. It's a unique privilege. I don't believe I've ever met a man before who didn't have a name."
"Oh, excuse me," I laughed. "I'm Bill Collins."
"No! Not _the_ Bill Collins."
"Well, uh, I don't know. I guess maybe I am."
"Well, don't you feel bad about it. It's your story so you stick with it."
She was changing again, getting back to the orneriness. She was on and off like that all the time, I found out--nice to you one minute, needling you the next. It all depended upon how she felt, and how she felt depended upon how much booze she had in her. With just the right amount-- and that changed, too, from hour to hour--she was nice. But if she didn't have it, if she had a little too much or not quite enough, she got mean.
"Well, come on!" she snapped. "What are you waiting for, anyway? Do you want me to carry you piggy-back?"
I hesitated, kind of fumbling around for something to say. She swore under her breath.
"Are you worried, Mr. Collins? Are you afraid I'll rob you of your money and valuables?"
I laughed and said, no, of course not. "I was just wondering . .. well, what about your husband? You said you were--"
"He won't rob you either. They only let him out of his grave on national holidays."
She slammed out of the car and flounced away a few steps, then she kind of got control of herself, I guess, and she came back.
"I've got a big steak in the refrigerator. I've got some cold beer and just about everything else in the beverage line. I've got some pretty good suits that belonged to my husband, and-- But let it go. Do whatever you want to. Just say the word and I'll drive you back to the highway."
I said I wasn't in any particular hurry to get back to the highway. "I was just wondering--I mean, what can I do for you?"
"How do I know?" Her voice went brittle again. "Probably nothing. What's the difference? Who are you to do anything for anyone?"
"Well, I guess I will come in for a little while."
We went in through the back door. She got busy in the kitchen fixing drinks, and I went on into the living room. Everything was kind of torn up and messy in there, like it was in the kitchen. The furniture was good--or rather it had been good--but there wasn't a whole lot of it. It looked incomplete, you know, like there might have been more at one time.
I kind of sauntered around, looking things over. I picked up some newspaper clippings from the sideboard and began to turn through them. They were all pictures of the same boy, a little seven-year-old youngster named Charles Vanderventer III. I tossed them back on the sideboard and sat down.
She came in with the drinks, bringing the bottle with her. While I was having one drink she had three.
"Bill Collins," she leaned back and looked at me. "Bifi Collins. You know, I think I'll call you Collie."
"All right. A lot of people do call me Collie."
"That's because you look like one. Stupid and shaggy and with a big long nose to poke into other people's business. Just what was the idea in snooping around those clippings?"
"I wasn't snooping. They were just lying there so I picked them up and looked at them."
"Uh-huh. Oh, sure. Naturally."
"He's, uh, his family are friends of yours?" I was just making conversation; trying to steer her away from the orneriness. "You're related in some way?"
"He's my great-great grandson," she said. "One of the poorer branches of the family. I know you won't believe it, but they only have a paltry forty million dollars."
She poured another drink, filling her glass half full of whiskey. She leaned back again, face flushed, her narrowed black eyes sparkling with meanness.
"You're very fast with your mitts, Collie. Fast and efficient. Did you ever fight professionally?"
"A little. A long time ago I had a few fights."
"What happened? Stop a few too many with your head?"
"There's nothing wrong with my head," I said. "I got out of it before there was anything wrong."
"And when did you get out of jail? The last time, that is."
I tried to keep smiling. I said that, well, as a matter of fact I had had a few brushes with the police. Just like any citizen would. Never anything serious. Just little misunderstandings and traffic tickets and so on.
"Oof!" She rolled her eyes. "Run for the hills, men!"