"Thompson, Jim - Wild Town" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thompson Jim)

Dammit, every man had an occasional weak moment. Every man played the jerk at least once. That didn't mean, however, that he was a weak man, or that he would continue to be a jerk. On the contrary, he was better off for having got the nonsense out of his system.
Bugs was all right now, he told himself. He was back on the ball again, and he intended to stay there. There'd be no more of this hank-panky. Not only that, but he'd steer clear of any and all situations which might lead to such.
He hung a "Don't Disturb" sign on his door when he turned in. He also warned the telephone operator that he would accept no calls from anyone, except, of course, Mike Hanlon.
Hanlon didn't call. Bugs got a solid ten hours of sound sleep, awakening about six in the evening. He yawned and stretched luxuriously. He squirmed against the pillows, grinning with contentment. And then remembering his resolutions and the dangers they were meant to forefend--he almost flung himself from the bed.
He bathed, shaved, and dressed. By seven o'clock, he had finished his dinner in the coffee shop and was out of the hotel.
And it would be a good four hours before he was due on the job.
He'd already seen the picture playing at the local movie house. He had no money to waste on gambling, even if he had been inclined toward such diversions. And nothing can be more wearisome than simply driving or walking around, with no objective in mind.
So he stepped into a drugstore and called Amy Standish's house. He wanted to see her; he had meant to, he guessed, from the moment he had waked up. He had a feeling that being with her again would do much toward expunging the memory of his session with Joyce Hanlon.
She didn't answer the phone. He hung up with an annoyed sense of having been mistreated. He could be like that, almost childish. Once he decided to do something, he wanted to do it right then. And he was unreasonably affronted if he couldn't.
She'd said he could see her again, hadn't she? Well, why couldn't he then? Why didn't she stay at home like she ought to?
He walked around for a half-hour, and called again. Still no answer. Smoldering and stubborn, he continued to call at thirty-minute intervals. And, finally, a few minutes after ten o'clock, she answered the phone.
By that time, of course, it was too late to see her. To do anything more, that is, than get out to her house before he had to turn around and come back.
"Oh, Mr. McK--Mac," she said, _and was there or was there not a trace of disappointment in her voice?_ "Were you trying to get me a little while ago?"
"Probably. Been trying to get you all evening," Bugs grunted.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'd just stepped in the door, and I got to the phone just as fast as I could, but--"
"It doesn't matter," Bugs cut in gruffly. "I just thought we might have got together for a soda or a drink or something. Ridden around a little while. But I suppose you probably enjoyed yourself a lot more with--doing something else."
The phone went silent. Quiet with rebuke, or indecision. Then, she spoke, not with coolness, perhaps, but something not too distantly akin to it.
"I was working, Mac. At the library."
"The library? I thought you were a teacher."
"I am. The library's in the school, and it's only open in the evenings. We teachers have to take turns serving as librarian."
Bugs waited, not knowing quite what to say. Feeling that it was up to her to go on from that point.
At last, he broke the dragging silence with a gruff. "I see. And I suppose you'll be working there tomorrow night, too."
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I will. I have these two nights together."
"I see," Bugs said again. "Okay, forget it. Sorry I bothered you."
He started to slam up the receiver. Her quick cry stopped him, just before it went down on the hook.
"Wait, Mac . . . _Mac!_"
"Yeah? Yeah?" he said quickly. "I'm still here, Amy."
"I was just going to say that I'll be through by nine, or a few minutes after. Just as soon as I can get the patrons out and lock up. If you'd like to meet me then . . ."
"Swell! Fine," Bugs exclaimed. "I mean, yeah, I can do that. I guess that'll be all right."
She drew a quick breath. She frowned; he could hear the frown in her silence, just as he had heard the rebuke. And then--and he knew it as well as he was standing there--she was smiling. It began with her lips, curving them with lovely tenderness. It spread slowly over the heart-shaped face, dimpling her cheeks, gently indenting the laugh lines. And then it was in her eyes, lighting them up as though the sun had arisen behind them . . .
"Mac," she said. "Mac, you're crazy . . ."
"Huh? Well, yeah," Bugs admitted sheepishly. "I guess I probably sound like it sometimes."
"Fortunately, I like crazy people. Particularly those named McKenna who work as house detectives. Now, isn't that a happy coincidence?"
Bugs swallowed. A warm pleasantly prickly feeling spread over his hulking body. There were a thousand things he wanted to say, and he couldn't cut loose with one of them.
Amy's voice came over the wire, soft and understanding. "I'm glad you called, Mac. And I'll look forward to seeing you.. . And, now, good night."
And very gently, she broke the connection.
Bugs returned to the hotel, walking on the sidewalk, ostensibly, but seemingly treading on air. It was preposterous to feel that way over a girl who--over Lou Ford's exgirlfriend, if she was his ex. But that was the way he did feel, and nuts to whether it was preposterous or not. In fact, with very little effort, he managed to exclude Ford from his thoughts about her. He could cut that tin-starred lunk out of the picture as completely as though he did not exist. Which, to Bugs's way of thinking, would have improved the world by several thousand per cent.
There were two telephone call-slips in his room box. Two requests that he call Mrs. Hanlon. Bugs ripped them into shreds, dropped them into a sand jar, and started on his nightly rounds.
It was an unusually quiet night. A good night, Bugs supposed, to take Mike Hanlon along with him. Still, there wasn't any rush about it, and he didn't feel like carrying on an extended conversation, as he would have to with Hanlon. So he dropped the idea, and went it alone.
There was a little ruckus on the tenth floor--some poker players in a corner suite. Bugs asked them to quiet down, and, replied to with belligerence, he quieted them. He elbowed one guy across the windpipe. He grabbed another by his necktie and slapped him in the chops. He hustled the remaining two--who had been drinking heavily--into the bathroom, and shoved them under the shower. Then, he gathered up the cards and chips, tossed them down the waste chute, and calmly departed.
That was the only trouble he encountered on his whole tour (although Bugs could hardly regard an incident so innocuous as trouble). Well, there was a very small rift in the routine on the sixth floor: A guy was pounding on a door with the butt of his six-shooter, threatening to kill his wife as soon as he got inside. But he was just drunk, and the gun, which Bugs took away from him, proved to be empty. So there was really nothing to get the wind up about.
Nothing else happened. Nothing, that is, that was worth a second thought in Bugs's opinion. By a few minutes after one, he had completed his rounds and was back in the lobby again.
Leslie Eaton was talking on the telephone as he started past the desk. He saw Bugs and gestured to him, silently mouthing a name. Bugs shook his head and went on toward the coffee shop.
Joyce again. Well, let her call all she damned pleased. When she got tired maybe she'd quit. He no longer felt obligated to her. Neither, needless to say, did he feel constrained to be pleasant or polite to her. She was a tramp; she couldn't lose him his job, do anything at all to hurt him with Hanlon. And she was smart enough to know it.
The night wore on uneventfully. Strolling about the hotel, wandering through the always amazing world that was the back-o'-the-house, Bugs wondered about Westbrook: What had happened to the little man? How had he disappeared so suddenly and completely? And yet, there was really nothing much to wonder about, was there?
The manager had been without hope, convinced that he was thoroughly and finally washed up. As an alcoholic, then, he had taken refuge in booze. Abandoning all else before it could be taken from him--as he was sure it would be. Holing up in some dive where he could drink and drink and drink, until . . .?
It was too bad, Bugs thought sadly. It just went to show that a man shouldn't throw in the sponge too quickly. All Westbrook would have had to do was make a clean breast of things to Hanlon. If he had done that he would still be on the job, none the worse except for an A-1 chewing-out.
There was something else that Bugs wondered about. A riddle which, at last, would no longer be ignored. What had become of the five thousand--or whatever the exact sum was--that Dudley had stolen?
Certainly, the auditor must have had it. Specifically, he had had it in his trousers--their zippered money-belt, rather--from which, he assumed, Bugs had stolen it. You just couldn't account for his attitude in any other way. You couldn't, at least, except by a fantastic stretch of the imagination. And that being the case--
Bugs's thoughts reached this point, and could go no further. So he indulged in some of the aforesaid imaginationstretching . . . Hell, Dudley might have stashed the loot somewhere and forgotten that he had. Or, well, maybe he'd lost it. Or maybe it _wasn't_ the dough that he'd gotten so excited about. Maybe he hadn't stolen it, and it had been something else that had made him make that wild lunge at Bugs.