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

"Now, wait a minute!" Bugs bristled. "What does he want to see me about? What if I don't want to see him?"
"Easy to find out for yourself, mister. If you do see him or if you don't."
Bugs got a shave and a haircut. He bought a white shirt and a tie, and had his worn suit sponged and pressed. Boomtown prices being what they are, that took practically all of the ten. He used the remainder for a shoeshine and a package of cigarettes, and headed for Lou Ford's house.
There were two "old" residential sections. One was the traditional wrong-side-of-the-tracks settlement of the Mexicans and "white trash." The other was up the hill from, and overlooking the town: a few blocks of tree-lined streets, and roomy two-storied houses. Except for color difference--they were usually light blue, white or brown-- the houses were almost identical, a comfortable combination of Colonial and Spanish-Moorish architecture. Each had a long porch ("gallery") extending across the front. Despite the area's always uncertain water supply, each had a deep shrub- and tree-shaded lawn.
Ford's house was on the corner. A new Cadillac convertible stood in the driveway. McKenna stepped up on the porch and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He punched the doorbell, discovering that it was out of order. He knocked again. Stooping, he studied the age-dulled brass plate affixed to the door:
Dr. Amos Ford
_Enter_
The doctor was Lou's father, Bugs had learned. An improvident, kindly man, he had died several years before, leaving nothing to his son but this house, heavily mortgaged at that. Obviously, the sign no longer meant what it said; for visitors to enter, that is. It had been left on the door out of sentiment or shiftlessness. On the other hand
Well, there it was, wasn't it? And why shouldn't a stranger in town take it at its face value? What was he supposed to do--stand out here and beat the skin off his knuckles? He'd been told--_ordered_--to see Ford. Now this sign told him to enter.
Bugs did so.
He was standing in a narrow foyer, quite dark since the doors to the rooms on either side were closed. The only light streamed down from the stairway; from an open door, apparently, right at the head of the stairs. Muted sounds also drifted down the stairs. Scuffling. The creak of bed springs. A man's sardonically soothing drawl, and a woman's quiet, quickly furious voice:
"_Aw, now, Amy. You know I--_"
"_I know you, that's what I know, Lou Ford!_"
"_But she don't mean a thing to me, Amy! Honest. It's just business_."
"_You're a liar! What kind of business? Well? Go on, I'm listening!_"
"_But I done told you, honey! It's pretty confidential; somethin' I can't talk about. Now, why'n't you just leave it at that, and--_"
There was an outraged sob. The sharp _cra-ack_ of a hardswung palm meeting flesh. Then, the girl came rushing out of the room; weeping in blind anger, clutching a handful of undergarments.
Highlighted by the glare from the door, she began putting on her panties. She got them on, hopping from foot to foot. Then she slumped her shoulders, dropping her breasts into the cups of her brassiere.
That was all that Bugs saw, all that he allowed himself to see. He got quietly back out to the porch, blushing deeply, shamed and embarrassed by what he had seen.
He was like that, oddly. Modest. Excruciatingly oldfashioned, one might say, although he could not regard such things as a matter of fashion. He had killed. He had worked in shabby, disifiusioning jobs. He had been penned up with degenerates for years. That had been his environment; violence, foulness and filth. And yet in all his life, he had looked on no more than three naked women. And of the three, one had been his wife.
He wished the third had not been this girl. He wished, with a kind of gnawing hunger, that he had not seen her in her nakedness.
And he wished, longed to see her again: to cherish her, treat her with love and respect. Because, yes, by God, she deserved it! No matter what she'd done, regardless of how things looked.
He'd noticed more than her nakedness--and off-hand he would have said she was not much different than hundreds he'd seen: just a small, well-rounded young woman with a good-featured face and sandy brown hair pulled back in a bun. But than he had gone on looking. And suddenly he had almost gasped at what he saw.
You know how it is. A three-hundred dollar suit doesn't knock your eye out. A Ming vase doesn't shriek for attention. But the ultimate beauty, the perfection, is there; and you'll always see it if you look long enough, see it and recognize it, regardless of whether you've ever seen it before.
Even if you've caught so much crap in your eyes that you're half-blind in one and can't see out of the other . .
Bugs must have been standing on the porch for ten minutes, kind of dazed and dopey, lost in his own sad thoughts, when he heard the back door close. That snapped him out of it, recalled him to the gray facts of what he was and why he was here. And he knocked again, hastily and loudly.
Ford responded almost immediately with a hail of, "Right with you." A moment later there was the _click-tap_ of boots in the hallway, and he opened the door.
"McKenna? I'm Lou Ford. Come on in an' set."
Bugs followed him down the foyer, and into what apparently had been the doctor's one-time office. Ford looked as out of place among the rows of glass-doored bookcases as a man could look.
He was about thirty, the chief deputy. He wore a pinkishtan shirt, with a black clip-on bowtie, and blue serge pants. The cuffs of the trousers were tucked carelessly into the tops of his boots. In Bugs' book, he stacked up about the same--in appearance--as any county clown.
His black, glossy hair was combed in a straight-back pompadour. His high-arched brows gave his face a droll, impish look. A long thin cigar was clamped between his white even teeth.
He waved Bugs to one of the comfortable leather chairs, then sat himself down behind the desk. He said politely, "Like a drink? Well, how about a cigar, then?" And, then, when Bugs shook his head, "Now, that's right. You're a cigarette smoker, aren't you?"
He said it very carelessly, a man seemingly making conversation. But Bugs was sure that he wasn't. He was saying that he had seen the two cigarette butts which Bugs had flipped onto the sidewalk.
"Just got here, did you?" he went on, subdued amusement in his voice. "Sure hope I didn't keep you waitin'. Nothing I hate worse than a fella that keeps another fella waitin' on him."
"How about crooked cops?" said McKenna. "How do you feel about them?"
"Well. . .which kind you mean? The jailbird kind? The kind that ain't smart enough to stay out of the pen?" Ford grinned at him, narrow-eyed. "Made a little check-back on you, McKenna. You got quite a record."
"There's nothing about grafting in it!"
"Well, now, don't you feel bad about it," Ford said soothingly. "A man can't do everything, and you damned sure done just about everything else."
"Look," Bugs snarled. "What do you--"
"How do you like our fair city, McKenna? Reg'lar little jool of the prairie, ain't it? A city of homes, churches and people. How'd you like to be one with our upstandin', God-fearing citizenry, them homely souls that ain't no more interested in a dollar than I am in my right leg?"
Bugs laughed in spite of himself. He remembered reluctantly that, however he might feel about Ford, he was indebted to him.
The deputy joined in his laughter. "Now, that's better," he said. "You got no use for me, maybe. I got none for you, maybe. And maybe we'd both feel different if we could see the other fellow's side. But I reckon that would kind of put us out of step with the world, and it ain't really necessary. We can still do business together."
"What kind of business?"
"There's a big hotel here in town--you saw it, I guess. They need a house dick. Pretty good payin' job, and you get your meals and room along with it. I think I can land it for you."
"Me? I could land a house dick's job in a place like that?"
"You ain't listening." Ford said reprovingly. "I said I could land it for you. Owner's wife is a good friend of mine. Sorry I can't say the same for him."
Bugs hesitated, chewing his lip. His head jerked in a curt negative. "I guess not. I guess I'd better not. I can't get into any more trouble-- I _can't_, know what I mean? And if I was sneaked over on some guy, pushed down his throat--"
"You won't be. Won't be no deception, a-tall. Fact is, if I got him figured right, he'll hire you because you have got a sorry record. He ain't been exactly no angel himself, see? And he'll think a guy that comes clean with him must be on the level."
"But I wouldn't be, is that it? That's where you come in."
"Do I?" Ford examined the tip of his cigar. "You know what Confucius say, McKenna? Man with bare ass always have big mouth."