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

By two in the morning, he had completed his rounds of the room floors. He had also worked up enough appetite to want a square meal. He got off the elevator and started for the coffee shop. And, then, as he was passing the front office--the key-rack section--he came to a dead stop.
He stared, incredulously
He moved slowly up to the counter.
Leslie Eaton was gone, and Ted Gusick was tending desk. He reached the letter out of Bugs's box and handed it to him. Bugs looked at the pencil-addressed envelope, at the faint Westex City postmark. He stood tapping it on the counter, dully Wondering what--how--why--
Wondering.
There'd been no mail since that last one, the one that he'd seen the day bellboy bring in. If this letter had been in that mail, it should have been put in his box hours ago.
Slowly Bugs raised his eyes, looked into the smooth poker-face of Ted Gusick.
"Something wrong, Mr. McKenna? Any little thing I can do for you?"
"What?" Bugs blinked, "Oh, no. No, everything's swell. I was just wondering--uh--well, where Eaton was. Nothing that can't wait, but--"
"Well, I've got three bells that can't wait much longer. One of the parties has already called down a second time."
"Uh-huh. Yeah, sure," Bugs murmured vaguely.
"Understand there's a new night engineer. Big muscle man, y'know. Maybe he's got our blushing boy bent over a boiler."
He laughed, winked. Then, misreading Bugs's startled scowl, he retreated swiftly into his usual suavely reserved self. "Not a very good joke was it, Mr. McKenna, sir? Of course, I couldn't really think that about a fine young man like Mr. Eaton."
_Think it? Hell, it was something you'd know if you knew anything at all! It stuck out all over the guy. And . . . and it must be the answer to the puzzle. It hadn't been a woman in Dudley's bathroom. Not a woman literally, but--_
"Now, that I think of it," Ted continued. "I believe you might find Mr. Eaton down in the valet shop. He had some charges to check there, and he probably stopped to get a free pants-press."
"Pants . . . pressed?" Bugs said, not knowing what he said. Or that he said anything. "Pants pressed?"
"Excuse me--_ha, ha_-- I honestly didn't mean that as another joke, Mr. McKenna. But, yes, sir"--Ted nodded seriously. "The valet's always glad to do those things if he isn't busy, so Mr. Eaton could be getting his p--suit pressed."
Bugs turned abruptly and walked away. In the alcove leading to the coffee shop, he paused and took the letter from his pocket.
He hadn't really taken a good look at the first one, its envelope rather. Still, unnoticing he had noticed; certain things about it had registered on his subconscious. And repeated on this envelope, they soared to the surface of his mind, attained glaring significance.
He ran his fingers over the paper where the address was inscribed. He studied the almost indiscernible date of the postmark. Grimly, then, he went on into the coffee shop, returning the letter unopened to his pocket.
Never mind what the thing said. The guy who had said it--written it--was what he was interested in.
He sat down on a stool near one end of the horseshoe counter and gave his order to a waitress. Then, with a grunt of dismay, he hastily got up. "Just remembered a phone call I got to make. Hold that order a few minutes, will you?"
The girl smiled and said she would. Bugs laid his hat on his stool, squeezed through the service slot between counter and wall, and moved swiftly toward the rear of the coffee shop. Back of the coffee shop was the hotel's main kitchen. Bugs entered it through another service slot and hurried down its vast, dimly lit length. It was not in use at this hour, since the dining-room, which it served, was closed. Bugs left it by a door at its far end and emerged onto the back landing.
The out-of-use service elevator was parked there. He entered it, cut off the lights, and piloted it down to the first basement. Quietly, he eased the door open, stood listening in the darkness.
The valet shop was about twenty feet to his right. Eaton's voice drifted down the corridor to him:
"_Oh, don't be so nasty! I guess I had to check these charges, didn't I?_"
"_Charges? Goddammit, you been here long enough to check Fort Knox!_"
Eaton emitted a high-pitched giggle. Bugs squirmed nervously. As busy as the coffee shop was, time would go very quickly for that waitress. He could stay away twenty or thirty minutes and it would seem like only a "few" to her. Longer than that, however, he'd be putting a dangerous strain on his alibi. And at the rate this damned silly Eaton was stalling . . . !
"_I AM going, darn it! I said I was, and I am. How many times do I have to tell you?_"
"_None, by God! Just show me! Just get the hell out, so I can get some work done!_"
Eaton made a pouting sound. The gate to the railed-off valet shop clicked open; swung creaking, to and fro, as his footsteps came hurriedly down the corridor.
Bugs tensed. His hand shot out, suddenly, grasping Eaton, yanking him into the car, flinging him with breathtaking impact against its rear wall. Then, almost before the door had closed, he shot the elevator upward.

17
Between the seventh and eighth floors, he brought the car to a stop. He switched on the lights, and turned slowly around.
Eaton met his gaze, smirking. He was still a little startled, but apparently not at all frightened. His seeming cocksureness infuriated Bugs.
"All right, buster," he growled. "Start talking!"
"Talking?" The clerk tittered nervously. "Juth--just about anything, Mr. McKenna?"
"Don't pull that crap on me! You try crapping me, and I'll scramble every goddamned cell in your skull!
"B-but Mr. McKenna"--Eaton's smirk had frozen. "Mr. McKenna, I juth d-don't--"
"You think I'm stupid? You think I wouldn't ever see through a deal like that? Two weeks ago--about two weeks-- you went over to Westex City. You mailed some letters addressed in pencil to yourself back here. Then, you erased your address and readdressed them to me. And--"
"But I didn't! W-what--why would I do that?"
"To give yourself an alibi, damn you! I'd get a letter, but you wouldn't have been in Westex the day before--the day it would ordinarily have been mailed to me. Might have got away with it, too, if you'd done a little more erasing on these postmarks. Well"--Bugs took him by the lapels-- "that's it. Now--"
"Mr. McKenna," Eaton said evenly. "Why would I write you a letter? What would I write you about?"
"You know what about! You were there in the r--" Bugs stopped abruptly. Eaton might not be positive of his information. Mustn't say anything that would corroborate what he had. "I know those letters didn't come in on the regular mail. Not the one I got tonight, at least. So--"
"The first one didn't either, Mr. McKenna. I mean, I know it didn't now. That's why I--why I got to wondering about them."
"Go on. Keep talking, and make it good."
"I found it lying down on the floor between the counter and the room-boxes. I thought at the time that it must have fallen out of the box, so I just dusted it off and put it back in. But"--the clerk's eyes fell, and his voice went very low--"but-but you never get any letters, and, well, I'm-- I've always been interested in anything that concerns you. So I did notice the date. I saw that it had been postmarked two days before, a day before that day it should have been. And, well, that made me more curious, and--"
"Spifi it out," Bugs said gruffly, unaccountably embarrassed. "Come on!"
"Mr. McKenna. . . I guess you haven't opened the second letter have you? If you had, you'd know that I wouldn't, uh--" He broke off hurriedly, timidly. "Well, anyway, I found the second letter right where I'd found the first. On the floor, between the counter and the room-box rack. And it had the same date as the first one. And, naturally, I really became curious then. I know I had no right to--to be so interested--because I'm sure you haven't the slightest interest in--in--"