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

Bugs shrugged, waited silently. There was a faint flicker in Ford's eyes, a hint of annoyance which might readily become something else. But he went on level-voiced.
"Well, as I said, perhaps we'd better go back to the beginning. I don't like to. It's not my way to do favors for people and then throw it up to them. Or even to let them know I'm doing them a favor. But in this case . . . You came here with nothing, Bugs. Nothing but a bad record. I got you out of jail. I staked you. I got you linked up with this job. I introduced you to--"
"Better stop there. Leave her out of it."
"All right. We'll stop with the other things I did. You were sore at the world, about as touchy as a man can get. So I tried not to make you feel that you were being favored. I did what I did in a way that you could accept, so that you could possibly feel that you were favoring me. I told you that this place needed a good two-fisted house dick. It would save me and my boys work if you'd take the job."
He paused, puffing at his cigar again. Bugs yawned, making no very great effort to stifle it.
"Maybe you'd better get to the point," he said. "You gave me the world with a ring around it. Now, you want something in return. All right, I don't expect something for nothing. What is it you want."
"Not as much as I gave, Bugs. Not nearly as much. I was established here; I had a lot to lose if I was wrong about you. And judging by your record, I could easily have been wrong. But I took you on trust. Now, I'd like some of that trust back."
"That still doesn't tell me anything. You still--"
"Doesn't tell you anything! Now, goddammit--" Ford's mouth snapped shut. After a moment he went on again. Drawling a little, gradually slipping back into his usual manner of speech. "Let's get to that trouble we was talkin' about. Cut around the frills and get right to the heart of it. You went to Dudley's room for some reason. You scuffled with him, and he got knocked out the window. Now--"
"Uh-uh. I've got an alibi for the time of his death."
"You have, huh? An' what time would that be?"
"Well--uh--what I mean is," Bugs said, "that I've got all my time covered. I went straight from my room to the elevator, and I didn't go upstairs after that until . . ."
"You went straight from your room to the elevator, sure. An' you sure went to a hell of a lot of trouble to be able to prove it. But you got no way of provin' that you didn't leave your room before that. Or"--Ford cocked an eyebrow at him--"have you? You prove it to me, if you can, an' me, I'll vamoose right out of here."
"I don't have to prove it."
"I wouldn't lay no bets on that. No, sir, I sure wouldn't, and that's a fact."
"Now, look," Bugs said doggedly. "Why tab me with this thing, anyway? The fact that there was a man in Dudley's room--if there was one--doesn't necessarily mean that it was me. You've got no--"
"Let's talk about what it does necessarily mean. The guy didn't break in. He didn't sneak in, like with a passkey maybe. A sneak would've just copped and cleared out. He wouldn't've been scufflin' with Dudley or--"
"He would if Dudley had caught him."
"Which"--Ford winked--"Dudley was havin' too much fun to do. Howsome-ever, suppose he did. The guy'd have no right to be there. No matter how no-account Dudley was, he'd've put up a racket about it, let out a yell or called for help. An' we know he didn't do that. Then there's that gal in the bathroom--the one we both know was there. In a case like we're supposin' about, I don't see her livin' but a mite longer than Dudley did. Because this fella'd be a pro. He wouldn't leave nothin' behind that was worth takin', or nothin' that'd put the finger on him. So, he'd check that bathroom just as sure as God made green apples. An' that'd been the end of the gal."
Ford leaned back in his chair, crossed one booted foot over the other. Bugs glowered at him helplessly, wanting nothing so much as to smash his fist into the deputy's bland, saturnine face.
"Ain't hard to figure out at all, is it?" Ford said. "No, sir, they's prob'ly plenty of four-year-old boys that could do it without turnin' a hair. Dudley let this fella into his room. The guy was someone in authority, an' he had to. Who had that much authority--enough to make a man open up his room late at night? Not more'n two people that I can think of. One of 'em was Westbrook, an'--"
"Forget him!" Bugs said curtly. "Westbrook couldn't have had anything to do with it."
Ford nodded. His tone decidedly less edged. "Glad you said that, Bugs. A man that'll stick up for a friend when it hurts has got plenty to him. But o' course you're right. The first thing I done was to check on Westbrook, an' I know he wouldn't've been callin' on Dudley. His hands were tied. He'd insisted that Dudley was absolutely okay so he couldn't . . . But they's no use goin' into that, is there? Or into the set-to of ours over in Westex."
"What is there use in going into?"
"What happened, Bugs? Did Westbrook ask you to help him out with Dudley? Try to get the money back for him?"
"No! Well, all right, he did ask me. But I refused."
"Uh-huh, sure. Just couldn't take a chance on gettin' into trouble." Ford drew on his cigar, exhaled a thin stream of smoke. "And then you changed your mind. An' this trouble you was afraid of happened."
Bugs shrugged. Ford could talk, theorize, until he was blue in the face. But he couldn't prove anything.
The deputy studied him narrow-eyed, spoke as though in rebuttal to a statement.
"Not yet," he said. "But I ain't tried real hard. Ain't really put my mind to it. Ain't decided whether I want to do any provin'. If I do . . ."
"Then you'll have to do some proving against someone else. The woman who gave Dudley the chloral."
"Why?"
"Why?" Bugs frowned. "Why dammit, because you will! You can't--couldn't--"
"Why not? What's to stop me?" Ford spread his hands. Maybe they was a mistake about the chloral. Maybe the gal just saw you comin' out of Dudley's room, and wasn't actually there herself."
"But--but she was there! You've said so a dozen times!"
"Could be I was wrong. Might say somethin' else the thirteenth time. Wouldn't be too unreasonable, y'know. If she was willin' to stand right up and be counted--to do her duty, irregardless, like an upstandin' citizen should--why, a fella'd just about have to figure she was on the level. Yes, sir, it wouldn't be no bother for him at all--even if it wasn't sort o' handy for him to figure that way."
"And even if he wasn't in a position where he could call his shots any way he wanted to."
"Now, you're gettin' the idea," Ford beamed. "Really smartenin' up now. You keep on an' you'll be able to pour sand out of a boot without a book of directions."
Then, he laughed pleasantly, infectiously, stroked his jaw with a slender-fingered hand.
"Now, listen to me, will you? Been carryin' on that way so long that I can't stop even when I want to. Just slide into it without thinkin'. But we all got our little peculiarities, usually got good reasons for 'em, too, the way I see it. And as long as a man don't fault the other fella for his--"
"Look," Bugs cut in. "If you've got something to say--"
"Sure. You're tired, and I ain't exactly the soothingest man in the world to talk to. So we'll wind it up fast. I can't see you as deliberately tyin' into Dudley not for money or anything else. Aside from that--and maybe I got kind of a funny outlook on these things--I figure there wasn't nothing lost when he died. Just saved the law a job it'd have to do sooner or later. So you tell me it was an accident, and I'll believe you. Won't be nothin' more said or done about it."
"Yeah? Well, I'm not telling you that!"
"Well--" Ford hesitated, his lips pursed thoughtfully "Well, okay. We'll still skip it. I gave you a lot of trust in the beginning, and I'll give you that much more. And, now, Bugs"--he lowered his voice, leaned forward in his chair-- "I want a dividend on that trust. You know what's building up here. You know why Mrs. Hanlon was so helpful in getting you a job; you'd just about have to by this time. All right, take it from there. What have you got to say about it?"
He leaned back in his chair again. Bugs squirmed fretfully. He was over a barrel. What was he supposed to say that would take him off of it?
"Listen," he began. "What . . . I mean, dammit, what do you--"
"I can't tell you that. If I had to, it wouldn't mean anything. Wouldn't know for sure whether it jibed with what you had in mind. And if it didn't, I'd be behind the eight ball. I'd fluff somethin' that just better not be fluffed."
"But, hell . . ."
"I'm already way out on a limb, Bugs. A lot further than even a real trustin' fella ought to go. I've saddled a hoss for you an' given you a hand-up, and all I'm doin' now is grippin' the bridle. Just holdin' a little in my finger tips, until I see which way you're headin'."
"And if it isn't the way you're heading, I get set down hard?"