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

"I guess I don't understand," I said. "You picked me up today. You brought me here to meet Uncle Bud. You do all that, and then, after I'm half-way in, you--"
"It's confusing, isn't it? Why not just say that I'm a cuhrazy, mixed-up neurotic. Or we might say that occasionally--just occasionally now--I feel a twinge of decency." She took a swig straight from the bottle, and the whiskey trickled down over her chin. "Get out, Collie. This little frammis has been cooking for months, and if you leave it'll go right on cooking until it boils away. Nothing will happen without you. No one else would be chump enough to touch it."
"Well," I said. "I guess ..' And then something happened inside my head, and I left the sentence unfinished. It was as though I'd been walking in my sleep and suddenly waked up.
_Kidnaping?_ Me, a _kidnaper?_ Why was I arguing with her? What in hell had come over me? I'd never done anything really bad. Just the things a man like me has to do to stay alive. Yet now, just since this afternoon, I was. . . I pushed myself to my feet, feeling dizzy and sick. Everything was kind of blurred for a minute. "That's my good boy, that's my Collie darling," I heard her say. "Just a minute, honey."
She hurried into her bedroom, and came back with her purse. She took out a small roll of bills, stripped off one of them and squeezed the rest into my hand.
"I'd ask you to stay tonight, Collie, if it wasn't for Uncle Bud. I don't want him talking you into this mess, and if he saw you before you got away--"
"I know. I'd better go now."
"Take the bottle with you. You look lonely, and a bottle can be a lot of company."
She stood on tiptoe and kissed me; and afterwards she leaned against me for a moment, her head against my chest. She made a mighty nice armful, all warmness and fullness and sweet-smelling softness. I brushed her thick black hair with my lips, and she sighed and shivered. And moved out of my arms.
"What about you? What's going to happen to you, Fay?"
"Nothing. The same thing that's been happenmg since my husband died."
"But I thought there was something, some organization or treatment that could help you."
"There is, but not for what ails me. They haven't found that yet. When you've leaned on someone all your life, been completely dependent upon him and never made a decision of your own. And when he's suddenly taken away-- Oh, n-never mind, Collie. Just go and keep going."
She turned on the porchlight for me so I could find my way across the yard. Where the lane entered the trees, I turned around and waved.
The lights went off. If she waved back, I didn't see her. Everything was dark, and she and the house were gone. As though they had never existed. I felt kind of sad in a way, but at the same time I felt good.
I picked my way down the lane, taking a sip from the bottle now and then. A couple of times I stumbled and fell down, but it didn't bother me much. And it didn't seem dark, but light.
I'd been in the dark, a nightmare. I'd almost been trapped in one. But now I'd waked up and got away, and it was light again. I'd seen my last of that place, I thought. It was gone away, vanished into the darkness. I'd never been there, and it had never been there.
But it was there. I hadn't seen the last of it.

4
The truck driver took the bottle out of my hand, and poured a little of it in his coke. He passed it on to the other truck driver and the other one poured some in his coffee, and handed the bottle back to me.
The counterman watched us, frowning a little but not really sore. He'd taken a couple of drinks, too, and he was just worried, not sore.
"Don't flash the jug around so much, huh?" he said. "Some highway patrolman comes by here, he might make trouble."
"Aaah!" One of the truck drivers winked at him. "Why would anyone make trouble for Collie? Collie's just waiting for a streetcar."
"Not a streetcar. I'm waiting for this friend of mine, Jack Billingsley. You see--"
"Sure." The other truck driver grinned. "What kind of plane did you say he was flying?"
"I've told you several times now," I said. "It's an automobile. It--"
"Oh, yeah. A Rolls-Royce, wasn't it?"
"No, he's got a Rolls-Royce--two of them, in fact--but he wasn't driving one today. What he had today was a big Cadillac convertible. Some little thing went wrong with it, so I started walking back to a garage--"
"Maybe he had to stop to feed the horses. . . ."
"Maybe the caboose ran off the track. . . ."
"Maybe," I said, "a couple of wise guys would like to have their faces pushed in:,
The lunchroom went dead silent. The truck drivers stopped grinning, and the counterman glanced uneasily toward the telephone. After a moment I forced a laugh.
"I'm only joking, of course. We're all here joking and drinking together, so I joked a little too. I didn't mean it any more than you meant the things you said to me."
One of the truck drivers laid some change on the counter. He and the other one got up, and kind of edged toward the door. I stood up too.
"How about a ride?" I said. "I've got a little money, and there's still some of the whiskey left."
"Sorry. Company says no riders."
"I can ride in the back. Just let me ride with you until daylight. Maybe not even until daylight. I'll probably see that darned crazy Jack Billingsley on the road."
The screen door slammed, then the truck doors. The motor roared, and they were gone. The counterman stared at me. I stared back at him. Finally his eyes wavered and he spoke sort of whining.
"Please, Mac. Clear out, will you, huh? You ain't never going to get no ride."
"I certainly won't get one out on the highway. No one'll stop for me at night."
"But that ain't my fault! You got no right hanging around here, getting me into trouble. What'll people think, for gosh sake? They come in here, an' you start jabbering away at 'em . . ."
"I'm sorry. I won't say another word to anyone. I'll just wait around quietly until it gets a little lighter."
He groaned and cursed under his breath. "Well, get away from the counter then! If you simply got to hang around, go an' set in that rear booth."
"Why, certainly. I'll be glad to."
I went back to the rear booth. I slid in as dose as I could to the wall and put my head down on my arms. I was worn out, what with all I'd been through and not being in a bed for three days. But I couldn't relax, let alone sleep. My mind kept going back to Fay--how nice she'd been to me, and what was going to happen to her. I couldn't rest or relax.
I sat up and lighted a cigarette. I took a couple more drinks, and put my head down again. Finally I dozed. Or, I guess I should say, I passed out.
I came out of it frightened, not knowing where I was, not remembering how I had got here. I jumped up almost before my eyes were open, and headed for the door.
The bottle slid out of my pocket. I made a grab for it, and it sort of jumped out of my hands. It bounced and rolled along the floor, and I stumbled after it, staggering and bumping into the other booths until I finally fell down in one.
There was a man in it, a customer, sitting on the bench opposite me. A young-oldish looking fellow, or maybe you could call him old-youngish looking. He glanced at the counterman and shook his head. Then he stooped down and picked up the bottle. He handed it to me, picking up the sandwich he'd been eating.