"Thompson, Jim - Criminal, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thompson Jim)

The goddamned rotten stinking little bitch! Laughing at me because I was getting the razz and thinking she could get away with it. Thinking, by God, I'd take it from every goddamned pissant in the plant just because I had to take it from that goddamned dried-up, bastardly, son-of-abitching old Fascist.
I made a fast shuffle through the clips on my desk, those from the opposition papers and those from ours. I couldn't see where we'd missed a thing. We had everything the opposition had, and we had it better and more of it.
"Well," the Captain said, "as long as you're positive, miss. Don, how are you this fine morning?"
How _was_ I? How the hell would I be? "Fine, sir," I said, as the operator went off the wire. "How are you, Captain?"
"Wonderful," he said. "I tell you, Don, there's nothing like this mountain air. You'll have to come up some time."
"Thank you, sir," I said. "I'd like that very much." And I closed my eyes, thinking, _oh, you son-of-a-bitch, you don't know just how much I'd like to_.
I could picture myself up there in that castle, creeping into his room with its big twelve-by-twelve bed. It would be loaded down with teletype ifimsies and probably if you dug deep enough you'd turn up every whore west of the Mississippi. But to hell with them. I'd burn them all up together. I'd say, "I got something hot for you, Captain," and then out with the good old gasoline and a handful of matches, and--
"Don," he said. "I've been very much worried about Teddy. How is she getting along?"
"Wha--" I squeezed my eyes open, and unclenched my teeth. "Why, all right, I hope, Captain. The doctors aren't very committal, but they believe the malignancy was confined to the left breast. It's largely a matter, now, of wait and see."
"Terrible." He clicked his tongue. "So young, so beautiful. A terrible, terrible thing."
_You bastard! Oh, you son-of-a-bitch!_
"Yes, sir," I said. "She's suffered a great deal."
"Terrible," he repeated. "I think those things are always so much harder when one has young children."
_Whoremonger, filth-eater! Go on and turn the screws. Tickle that floozie. But one of these days, powie! A five-alarm fire_ . . .
"Well," he went on, "I suppose the situation could be worse. At least you have the satisfaction of knowing you're doing everything possible. The very best doctors and surgeons, the finest care without stint. That's something to be grateful for, isn't it, Don?"
"Yes, sir," I said. "Teddy and I are very grateful, Captain."
"A lovely girl, Don. Fine and uncomplaining and courageous. The children would be lost without her."
_Monster, bastard, inhuman son-of-a-bitch. Keep it up! I'll reach right through the phone and grab you!_
"Let's see, what are you making now, Don? Twenty-five thousand, isn't it?"
"Twenty-two fifty."
"Not enough," he said. "Oh, that's not nearly enough, Don. Why, if I had someone like Teddy to work for-- someone who depended on me and whose very life depended on. . . Did you say something, Don?"
"N-No, sir," I said. "I--I just coughed, Captain."
"You should be making thirty-five thousand, Don. You're letting Teddy down. Oh, I know you _think_ you're doing everything possible, but you can't know it. You simply haven't had the resources to try everything. if you were getting thirty-five thousand, now, twelve thousand five hundred more, it might make a big difference. It might mean life for Teddy and a mother for those little tots of yours and... Yes, Don? You said something?"
"No, sir," I said. "I didn't say anything, Captain."
He was silent for a moment. I eased my desk drawer open, got the cap off a pint of bourbon and took a big slug.
"Feel better?" he said. "Well, there's something I'd like you to do, Don. I want you to walk over to the window and stick your head out."
"Yes, sir," I said.
It was coming now. We were getting into the main stretch. I walked over to the window and stuck my head out. Oh, yes, yes, indeed. I did exactly as I was told. He'd know if I didn't, just as he'd known when I took that drink. The Captain always knew. Part of it was instinct, the bestial cunning you find in the very lowest of the animals, but he didn't depend entirely on that. Only a very small fraction of the people in the Captain's pay were employed on his newspapers. The rest were spies, _his_ spies, and they knew every goddamned thing.
Once, years before, the Captain had told a managing editor to go out and get a cup of coffee. He was eating the poor bastard out, you see, telling him he was asleep at the switch. Well, the guy went down to a restaurant, but he wasn't a coffee drinker, it seems, so he took a glass of milk instead. And when he came back to the phone, the Captain fired him. He'd had a stool on his tail, and when the guy drank milk, whiz, the old axe.
The rotten, stinking, son-of-a-bi--
I picked up the telephone. "I'm back, Captain," I said.
"Good," he said. "Perhaps you can tell me whether it's raining or not?"
"No, sir," I said. "It's not raining."
"Very good," he said. "That checks with my information. You've taken a great load off my mind, Don. I was beginning to have some doubts as to whether you'd know if it was raining or not."
"Yes, sir," I said.
Goddammit, why couldn't he get on with it? I should have been talking to the news desk, the telegraph editor, the city editor; figuring out the play on the day's stories. I glanced at the clock, and Jesus! it was only twenty minutes until our early-noon went to bed. If it wasn't ready in twenty minutes there'd be overtime in composing, overtime in the press room, overtime in circulation-- overtime! overtime! the lousy, filthy union bastards--and we'd hit the street late, and--
I'd kill him! By God, I _would_ kill him! I'd sneak into that castle at night, and he'd be ass deep in teletype flimsies and whores, and I'd have that good old gasoline and those good old matches--big kitchen matches--and I'd burn him alive! _BURN HIM_--
"You had a story in your late-final yesterday, Don. A paltry eight lines back near the classified pages."
"Yes, sir? Yes, Captain?" He was crazy. If it was a good story we'd have played it.
"A rape-murder out in the Kenton Hills section. Some fourteen-year-old girl. Very badly handled, Don. Should have been right column front page or better still a centerpage spread with banner and lots of art."
"B-But, Captain--" I took the receiver away from my ear and stared into the mouthpiece. He was crazy, by God. "But, sir, there's nothing--nothing at this stage, at any rate--to justify--"
"You don't think so, Don?"
"Well," I said, "of course, I could be wrong. But there doesn't seem to be anything. Our courthouse man talked to the district attorney, and he doesn't feel--"
"Perhaps you could change his mind, Don. Build a fire under him. Throw a few matches his way, if you get my meaning"
"Well, I--"
"What about this boy they're holding? This Talbert?"
"They're letting him go," I said, "for the present at least. He admits intimacy with the girl, but the rape if any would seem to have been the other way around. All the people in that neighborhood--her own parents, for that matter--say she was pretty much of a chaser. She'd take out after anything that wore pants while this boy, on the other hand, did everything he could to keep out of her--"
"But he was intimate with her."
"This one time, yes. But he was miles away at the time she was strangled. Honestly, Captain, I--"
"Can he prove that he was miles away?"