"Thompson, Jim - Wild Town" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thompson Jim)
"I don't know what you're talking about," Bugs repeated. "But I sure don't like the way it sounds. Now, either stop beating around the bush, or throw your stick away. Otherwise, I'm walking out of here, and if I do I'll keep right on going!"
That did it; the return to his normal surliness. Hanlon's eyes searched his face, the haunted look in them giving way to relief.
"Forget it, Bugs," he said. "It's nothing important. Just a foolish idea I had for a moment."
"Well . . ."
"Forget it. And thanks very much for stopping by."
Bugs started to leave. At the doors to the terrace, he paused and turned around. He didn't know why he did it at the moment. He didn't know why he said what he did. It was something instinctive, a long step forward--or downward--taken into the darkness of the future.
"I was just thinking," he said. "I promised I'd pick you up some night and we'd do the rounds together . . ."
"Yes? Oh, yes, I guess you did," said Hanlon. "Well, I didn't really expect you to bother about it."
"No bother. Would you--I don't suppose you'd still like to go, would you?"
Hanlon hesitated for the merest fraction of a second. He seemed to waver a little, to melt and lose form like candy over a hot flame. Then, as though plunged suddenly into cold water, he was himself again. Reassembled into a harder, steadier self than he had been that split second before.
"Yes," he said, "I'd still like to go. Why not, Bugs?"
"I'll do it then," Bugs said. "I'll stop by ... some night."
He returned to his room, and went back to bed. Lying there wakefully, too tired to sleep, rested just sufficiently to keep him from resting more, he struggled with a question. _Why did I invite him, anyway? I didn't have to. He didn't expect me to. So, why? Why?_
The answer finally came to him. Aided by weariness, it weeded its way through the many mental blocks he had set up. Burst forth into his consciousness.
And, yes, you know it. It scared hell out of him.
9
It was three days after Dudley's death that Bugs received the letter. A blackmail letter demanding the five thousand dollars which he had supposedly murdered Dudley to obtain. The writer left no doubt about the fact that he, or rather she--it just about had to be a she--meant business. She made it clear that she had the goods on him--and she did have in a hideously false but irrefutable way--and that, failing to get the five thousand, she would turn the matter over to Lou Ford.
So Bugs was back again in his natural habitat: that vulgarly named creek which he always seemed to wind up in. And this time he was not only without a paddle but also a boat.
Because, naturally, he didn't have and couldn't get the five thousand which he had to have, or else. He couldn't get five hundred. He couldn't have scraped up fifty without seriously straining himself.
That left him with only one alternative. To find out who the blackmailer was. To find her and give her something in place of the five thousand. This presented something of a problem, of course. But he had a good strong lead on the dame, a pretty good idea of who she was--he thought. So it boiled down to a matter of leading her on, concealing his suspicions, and then--
But that was then. All that began on the third day after Dudley's death.
Taking things as they came, the events following his interview with Mike Hanlon:
. . . Bugs had a hard time getting to sleep. In fact, it was almost three in the afternoon before he finally did doze off. Then, around six, he was awakened by a soft but persistent rapping. And his several who-is-its and what-is-its being ignored, he yanked on his trousers and went to the door.
"Hi, Bugs," she said. "Were you asleep?"
"Asleep? Oh, no, nothing like that," he laughed hoarsely. "No, I never sleep in the daytime. I do that at night when I'm walking around the hotel."
"Oh . . . Well, I hope I didn't wake you up."
Bugs let out an angry moan. He tried to control himself, to smirk politely, to say it was all right and that it didn't matter a bit. But--but--
She _hoped_ she hadn't waked him up! Goddammit, he'd just got through telling her that he was asleep, and then she _hoped_ she hadn't waked him up!
How goddamned stupid could you get, anyway? And what did she want, anyway?
The questions growled and snarled through his mind. They rushed out of his mouth before he could stop them.
Her eyes widened, and she took a startled backward step. "_Well!_" she said. "I can't say that I appreciate--"
"Who gives a damn? I just got to sleep, for Christ's sake, and then you--I--all right, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to blow my top, but--"
"Now, that's better," she said primly. "Well, aren't you going to invite me in?"
"Hell, I guess so. I mean, certainly, glad to have you. I-- Aah, to hell with it. Come in or stay out, whatever you damned please."
She marched past him, mouth quirked, cheeks flushed. She sat down on the bed gingerly, and Bugs closed the door with a bang, slouched down in a chair in front of her.
She crossed her legs, brushed at a tiny crease in her skirt. Bugs plucked at an imaginary hangnail. They looked up, and their eyes met. They looked quickly down again, and then slowly up again.
And suddenly she exploded into laughter, flung herself backward on the bed, her heels drumming against its sides, her entire body quivering and quaking with amusement.
"Oh, Bugs--ha, ha--the way you looked, like some old bear just out of its cave! And when I asked you if you'd been asleep--ha, ha, ha--when I asked you--_oooh-whoops, ha, ha, ha, ha_ . . ."
Bugs grinned, chuckled self-consciously, tried to keep his eyes off those long, luciously fleshed legs. He said he guessed he had acted like the king of the grouches, and that she shouldn't let it bother her.
"Now, don't apologize. I'm glad. I feel like I'm finally getting acquainted with you, and I was beginning to think I never would. . . Come here."
"Uh--where? What for?" Bugs said.
"_Here_, silly!" She held up her arms, wiggled her fingers at him. "Here to mama. And what do you think, what for?"
So that was how it came about. That was how Bugs wound up in the hay with Joyce Hanlon, the wife of his employer. By talking ugly, telling her to go jump, to go to hell and like it or lump it. That broke the ice between them, advanced their relationship to a point which might ordinarily have taken months to achieve.
But it was a hay-roll only in the literal sense. Just a petting spree, with plenty of kissing and clinching, and probing and pinching, but without the usual climax. And it was no fault of Bugs's that the climax was missing.
He might be strait-laced, prudish, but a man changes under enough stress. Also, he couldn't feel that he was depriving or injuring Hanlon; the old man would be disappointed in him, perhaps, but he wouldn't care about her. So, such credit as was due for their continence, was due to Joyce. It was she who held off, holding him just far enough, letting him go just far enough, to keep a firm grip on him.
_That_, she said, was a bedtime story. _That_ wasn't nice. _That_ was something she really couldn't bring herself to do--yet.
"But why not, dammit! If you didn't intend to--"
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