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

"What about _your_ references?" McKenna said. "What did you do before you latched on to all this?"
Hanlon laughed sourly. "Look kind of pale. Wouldn't have been cooped up somewhere, would you?"
"You want a straight answer, you better ask a straight question," McKenna said roughly. "Sure, I've been in the pen--five years for killing a boob. And before that I did six months in jail for beating up my wife. And before that I served two years in an Army stockade for taking a shot at a general. And--well, to hell with it, and you too. I'm not making any apologies or asking any favors, so you can take your two-bit job and--"
"Easy," said Hanlon. "Take it easy, McKenna."
It was a trick, of course. No bona fide applicant for a job would be so brutally frank and deliberately unpleasant. Still, the house dick's job was open, and it would have to be filled. And the next applicant.. . what about him? How could one be sure that he was simply after a job and not a life?
And--and here was a hell of a note--Hanlon liked the guy. Yeah, he actually liked this wife-beater and brig-bird, this man who had killed once, and was doubtless all primed to kill again.
"I don't mean to pry, Mr. McKenna," he said politely, "but where is your wife, now?"
"I don't know . . ." Immediately there was a subtle change in McKenna's manner. "I'm no longer married to her--sir."
"Well, that's good. I mean, the house detective lives in here--he's subject to call at all times--and it doesn't work out very well for a married man."
"But"--McKenna looked at him with a mixture of hope and suspicion. "You mean--I get the job?"
"What else? Any reason why you shouldn't get it?" Hanlon said.
And he laughed quietly to himself, at himself, as only a man can laugh when there is nothing else to do.

2
McKenna's first name was David, but he had been called Bugs for practically as far back as he could remember. It fitted the awkward lummox of a kid who, though only ten years old, was almost as big as his fifth-grade teacher. It fitted the actions of the frightened child, the self-doubting, insecure youth, and the introverted, defensively offensive man. He seemed to have a positive knack for doing the right thing at the wrong time. For distrusting his friends, and trusting his enemies. For being ridiculously uncompromising over the trifling, and seemingly indifferent to the nominally vital.
The guy was just nuts, people said, as bugsy as they came. He couldn't take a joke. He didn't want to be friendly. He'd climb a tree to make trouble when he could stand on the ground and have peace. That's what they said about him, the man he eventually became. And it was reasonably descriptive of that scowling, sullen, short-tempered man. Only his eyes belied the description; angrily bewildered eyes. Eyes that seemed wet with unshed tears, as, perhaps, they were.
When he finished his five-year prison stretch--and he served every minute of it, thanks to the outraged and insulted parole board--Bugs McKenna drifted into Dallas. He got a job as night dishwasher in a greasy spoon. He spent most of his daytime hours in the public library. It was a good way of keeping out of trouble, he thought. Moreover, it didn't cost anything, and there was nothing that he would rather do.
Well, though, there was a "furtive" look about him, in the opinion of the librarian. Also, as she pointed out to the police, he couldn't possibly have any interest in the books he selected, Kafka, Schopenhauer, Addison and Steele-- now, really, officers!
The cops asked Bugs a few questions. Bugs responded with a wholly impossible suggestion involving their nightsticks and a certain part of their anatomy.
Skip the details. Bugs got a rough roust out of Dallas, leaving town with new knots on his head and fresh bruises to his spirit.
Walking through the outskirts of Fort Worth, he saw a little girl fall offher tricycle. He picked her up, and dusted her off. He hunkered down in front of her, joking with her tenderly, getting her to smile. And a patrol car drifted into the curb . . .
Bugs spent two weeks in the Fort Worth jail. At Weatherford, the next town west, he was jugged for three days. In Mineral Wells, he drew another three days of "investigation." He was spitting blood when he emerged from it, but it hadn't softened him a bit. His last words to the cop who escorted him to the city limits were of a type to curl the hair on a brass monkey.
Still, he knew he couldn't take much more; not without a little rest anyway. He had to get the hell away from the cities, the heavily settled areas, and do it fast or he'd damned well be dead. So he left the highways, and took to the freights. He stuck with them, moving inconspicuously from freight to freight, moving steadily westward. And eventually he arrived at the place called Ragtown. That was about as far west as a man could go. As anything but a jack rabbit or a tarantula would have reason for going.
Thirty minutes after his arrival he was in jail.
It was partly his own fault, he admitted reluctantly. Just a little his own fault. Having dropped off the freight, he was in the station rest-room washing up, when a leathery-faced middle-aged man walked in. A silver badge was clipped to his checked shirt. He wore a gunbelt and an ivory-handled forty-five.
As he started to bend over the drinking fountain, Bugs turned from the sink and faced him. He stared at the man, his eyes hard and hateful. Leather-face straightened slowly, a puzzled-polite frown building up on his face.
"Yeah, stranger?" he said. "Something on your mind?"
"What do you mean, what's on _my_ mind?" Bugs said. "I'm not stupid. You saw me drop off that freight. You've got me tagged for a bum. So, all right, let's drop the dumb act and get on with the business. I'm David McKenna, alias 'Bugs' McKenna; last permanent address, Texas State Penitentiary; recent addresses, Dallas city jail, Fort Worth city jail, Weatherford city jail, Mineral Wells city--"
"Now, looky"--the man made a baffled gesture. "I mean, what the hell?"
"Come on! Come off of it! I suppose you just followed me in here to get a drink, huh?"
The man started to nod. Then, his squinted gray eyes turned frosty, and his voice dropped to a chilling purr. "Lookin' for trouble, eh?" he said, the words cold-edged but soft. "Just ain't happy without it. Well, I always like to oblige."
The gun whipped up from his hip. Bugs hesitated; nervous, oddly ashamed, wondering why it was that he always had to be in such a hell of a hurry with the mouth.
"Look," he mumbled. "I-I've been catching it pretty rough. I didn't mean to--"
"You look." The hammer of the gun clicked. "Look real good. Now, you want to move or do you want me to move you?"
Bugs moved.
The jail was in the basement of the ancient brick courthouse. The ventilation and the light were bad, but the bunks were clean, and the chow--brought in from one of the town's restaurants--was really first class. Each prisoner got three good meals a day, as opposed to the twice-a-day slop in most jails. He was also given a sack of makings or, if he preferred, a plug of chewing.
Bugs supposed there was a gimmick somewhere in the deal. Probably you'd have pay off with a road gang at twelve hours a day. But such, according to the other prisoners--no local talent, all floaters like himself--was not the case.
"These folks are different out here," an oilfield worker explained. "They throw you in jail, they figure they got to look after you. They might shoot a guy, but they won't starve him to death."
"What about the rough stuff? Working you over until you clean the slate for them?"
"Uh-uh. You ain't done nothin', they won't try to pin it on you. You won't get roughed unless you cut up rough yourself . . . At least," the man added carefully, "they've always played fair with me. This is my fifth time in for drunk and disorderly, and the boys have treated me real nice every time."
"But? There's more to the story?"
"We-el, no, not exactly. Not as far as the treatment of the prisoners is concerned. But the way this town is run"--he shook his head--"I got an idea that there's at least one of these laws, the chief deputy, Lou Ford, that'd just about as soon kill you as look at you. The place is wide open, see? Gambling houses, bootleg joints, honky-tonks. And some very bad babies runnin' 'em. But they don't give any backtalk to Ford. He rides herd on 'em, as easy as I can ride a walking beam."
"He's the chief deputy, you say. What about the sheriff?"
"Sick and old. Hardly ever see him except at election time. So Ford's the man, and I _do_ mean the man. He's got the town and the county right in his pocket, and it don't do nothing without his say-so. The funny part about it is, he don't look tough at all. Young, good-looking, always smiling--"
"But a good gunhand, huh?"
"Uh-uh. The only law here that doesn't wear a gun. But, well," the man spread his hands helplessly, "I don't know how he does it; I mean, I couldn't explain. You'd have to see him in action yourself."
Bugs had been jailed early in the morning. The following afternoon, the turnkey took him out of the bullpen and up the stairs to the street flOor. He assumed he was being taken into court. Instead, the turnkey handed him a ten-dollar bill and gestured him toward the door.
"That's from Lou Ford," he explained. "Wants to see you, and he figured you might want to spruce up first."
"But--well, what about the charges against me?"
"Ain't any. Lou had 'em dropped. He'll be out to his house when you're ready. Anyone can tell you where it is."