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

"Never mind." Bugs flushed. "You found this letter tonight, huh?"
"N-no, sir . . ." The clerk's voice had sunk to a mere whisper. "I found it. . . well, it was the night you looked so tired. I guess you'd been up most of the day . . ."
_The day he'd gone to Westex? It must have been. Eaton had held the letter up since then_.
". . . I opened it, Mr. McKenna. Oh, no, sir! I didn't open the first one. I just wasn't curious enough, you know. But I did this one, the second. And I wanted to h-help--"
"All right," Bugs said uncomfortably, "I think I understand. No sense in breaking up about it."
"I was waiting for payday, Mr. McKenna. That's the reason I held it up. I didn't want to be f-forward or embarrass you, but I hoped you'd know that the money came from me, and--Oh, Mr. McK-Kenna!" Eaton suddenly buried his face in his hands. "I'm s-so ashamed. _So_ ashamed!"
Bugs took the letter from his pocket, and ripped open the envelope. There was a curt message inside:
_I want that money, Mr. McKenna, and I'm not waiting much longer_.
There was also a fifty-dollar bill.
"Will it help any, Mr. McKenna?" Eaton looked at him pleadingly. "I didn't know how much you might need, but--"
"I don't need any," Bugs said flatly. "This is just a gag, see? A bad joke that someone is pulling. I haven't quite figured out who the guy is, but I will. I can handle it, and I want you to let me. Just keep out of it. If there are any more of these letters, just put them in my box and forget them."
"Yes, s-sir. I'll certainly do that, Mr. McKenna. I'll--"
"I don't need any help but you do. So, goddammit, get it!" He took fifty dollars from his wallet, added it to the other fifty, and slapped it into the clerk's hand. "There's bound to be a psychiatrist or a good psychologist in Westex. Go see him and keep seeing him until you straighten out . . . Will you do that, Les? You may have to do some skimping on other things, but--"
"I can manage." Eaton raised his eyes. "I think my father might help. He hasn't had much use for me, but he's quite well-off--"
"Tell him what you're doing, what you're trying to do, and he'll have plenty of use." Bugs gave him a hearty slap on the back. "Meanwhile, we just forget this other. You don't know anything about it. It never happened."
"No, sir, it never happened," Eaton nodded. "But I'm awfully glad it did."
Bugs lowered the car to the first floor. He returned to the coffee shop; and Leslie Eaton, walking very straight, went back to the front offices.
. . . So now Bugs was back to Joyce Hanlon again. Joyce who had been his favorite suspect right from the start. Like Lou Ford, she couldn't openly proposition him. Like Ford, she was forcing him to show his hand before she showed hers.
She was the one person of Bugs's acquaintance who might be willing and able to do him a very substantial favor. In return, of course, he would have to do her one--the nature of which had already been indicated to him. But he must approach her in the matter. She had to be assured, before she would take him off the hook, that he would do what she wanted done.
What if he didn't approach her? If he just ignored the letters?
Well, she wasn't apt to give up that easy. She and Ford were after the old man's millions, and they'd go right on being after them. They wouldn't let a three-time loser--a pushover for a fourth fall--stand in their way. Since he wouldn't play ball, they'd put him out of the game-- permanently. Make room for someone who would play on their terms.
But, hell--this was all theory. The way he thought things stood. And there was still that one big hole in the theory: the fact that Joyce had been in her room at the time Dudley plunged from his window.
If there was some way of explaining that . . .
Bugs finished eating. Leaving the coffee shop, he began his long tour of the back-o'-the-house.
As usual, he wound up at about five-thirty in the morning. Yawning wearily, he sauntered into the telephone room and sank down on one of the long-legged stools.
He lighted a cigarette, stifling another yawn. The operator smiled sympathetically.
"Long night, huh, Mr. McKenna?"
"Yeah, real long. Be glad when it's time to turn in."
A light flashed on the board. She plugged it out, voiced a polite sing-song query, and made the desired connection with another plug. Then, she turned back to Bugs.
"Well, look, Mr. McKenna. If you're tired, why don't you turn in, now?"
"Yeah, why don't I?" Bugs grinned. "Suppose the old man should take a notion to ring me?"
"Suppose he did?"
"Well . . . Oh, I get you," Bugs said. "You mean he wouldn't know that I was there. You could say that you'd ring me down in the coffee shop, or something like that. Wherever I'd be likely to be at this hour of the morning."
"Uh-huh. Of course, I wouldn't do that for everyone, but someone that's all right like I know you are . . ."
Bugs stared at her vacantly. His hand moved his cigarette toward his mouth; paused in mid-air with the journey uncompleted. The operator turned away, plucked the plugs out of the board.
"I hope I didn't say anything wrong, Mr. McKenna," she murmured. "I certainly wouldn't want you to think that I go around deceiving people."
"What? Aw, no, nothing like that," Bugs protested. "No, I appreciate it. Glad to know you could help me out that way."
"Well--I don't really see that it hurts anything. After all, we're all here together, and if we can do each other a harmless little favor now and then, why--"
"Sure, that's the way I see it." Bugs veiled his eyes, fought to keep his voice casual. "But, look, let me ask you this. Suppose we just reverse the deal. I've been working too hard, say, and Hanlon orders me to stay in my room and rest up. But I don't want to do it. So I step out somewhere, and--"
"I know what you mean." The operator bobbed her head. "Well, that's an easy one. You'd just tell me where you were going to be before you left, and when he asked me to ring your room I'd ring the other place instead. I'd get you on the line, you know, and then I'd open the connection."
Bugs frowned interestedly. He remarked that a writer could make a swell plot for a story out of a situation like that. "Let's say, mmm, how could you do it? Let's--Well, how about this? You're just being nice, doing me a favor, but while I'm out of my room I commit a crime. You find out about it, and of course it's your duty to tell the cops. But if you do that, you'll put yourself on the spot. It'll cost you your job, anyway, and--"
"Oh, now, really, Mr. McKenna," the operator laughed. "I'll bet that's your secret ambition, isn't it? To be a writer?"
"Well," Bugs shrugged easily, "why not? Nothing much to it that I can see, once you've got a plot. Just putting words down on paper."
"Now, that's true, isn't it? If you've got a good idea, why, anyone could make a good story out of it. It certainly can't take any brains to do that."
"Well, getting back to this idea of mine, then. What would you do in a case like that? What would a woman do? Me, now, I don't think I'd know which way to jump. Probably figure that I'd better keep my mouth shut."
He waited. He dropped his cigarette to the floor, kept his eyes on it while he tapped it out with his foot. She was studying him, he knew. Comparing him as he was tonight with what he usually was.
For a guy who didn't ordinarily have much to say, he guessed he'd been talking a hell of a lot.
The silence grew heavier. At last he looked up, stretched lazily, and stood up.
"About your story plot, Mr. McKenna. The operator would handle hundreds of calls a night. She couldn't be expected to remember this one--I mean, the one to the place where the crime was committed."
"No? Well, probably not," Bugs agreed. "Anyway, you could hardly blame her if she didn't remember."