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

"Says who? How the hell do you know so much? Give me that key or I'll paste you one!"
Ted stepped into the car. He pulled the door shut, gesturing his brother into silence. "No key," he said. "I got rid of it. I dropped in on Dudley a while ago, and after I made the hit . . ."
He named the figure he had hit for. Ed let out an admiring whistle. "Dudley, for Christ's sake! Must have tapped the till, don't y'suppose? How'd you ever get wise that he was carrying heavy?"
"Didn't." Ted shrugged modestly. "Didn't even know it was his room until I got inside. Well, I knew, sure, but I wasn't even thinking about whose room it was. I heard the shower running as I passed by, and I could tell by the sound that the bathroom door was closed. So naturally I paid him a fast visit."
"Naturally." Ed opened the door at the lobby floor. "A chance like that, you don't get every day . . . Well, what d'you know"--he chuckled dryly. "So Dudley gets cleaned while he's getting clean!"
"I figure that isn't all he got. I wouldn't say for sure but I got a hunch there was someone in the bathroom with him. It kind of figures, see? Otherwise, he'd've had the door open. You have it closed with the shower on, and you practically get drowned in the steam."
Ed nodded wisely. Entertaining a lady guest in the bathroom, with the water running, was one of the very oldest of tricks. It was poor for neatness, as the saying was, but perfect for secrecy.
Ted returned to the front office and went behind the key rack. Seating himself in the open window of the air well, he lighted a cigarette; relaxed, grinning, as he listened to Eaton's high-pitched voice. He was talking to that ruddyfaced guy, apparently, the last one that registered. And the guy obviously--as Ted had advised him--was refusing to take no for an answer.
". . . you listen to me, sir! I do not have any girls! I do NOT! . . . Well, I don't care . . . All I've got to say is that they're just a bunch of nasty old liars, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves and--What? What? Don't you talk to me that way, thir! "--excitement was bringing out Eaton's lisp. "I thimply wifi not lithen one more minute to thith-- thith--"
He banged up the telephone. Chuckling softly, Ted flicked his cigarette out the window. And then, as his eyes followed its course to the bottom of the shaft, he emitted a startled curse.
He sat staring downward for a moment. His stomach churning queasily, a faint chill gripping his hard wiry body. But he had seen suicides before--leapers, like this one. And Dudley, thief and chiseler that he was bound to be, was certainly no great loss to the world.
Ted slid from the window sill and lighted another cigarette. He dropped it to the floor, emerged from behind the key rack, and joined Eaton in the room-desk cage. The clerk was still indignant from his talk with the ruddy-faced man. He told Ted about it, his voice cracking and squeaking, announcing his conviction that the gentleman was plain raving mad.
Ted nodded soberly. "It's this weather," he said. "You take a night like this, if people got any mental weakness at all, they blow their lids like bedbugs."
Eaton giggled cautiously. "Oh, you! What's so different about the weather tonight?"
"You ain't noticed?" Ted shook his head. "Well, I guess you wouldn't. But if you were an old-time hotel man, you'd know this was nut weather. The kind of night when people go sailing out their windows like airplanes."
"Oh, sure!" Eaton giggled again. "Now, what are you up to, you crazy thing?"
"No kid, kid. Why, I'll lay you ten to one we have a suicide tonight."
Eaton laughed ecstatically. Ted took him by the elbow, led him to the air-well window and pointed.
The clerk looked out. He fainted. Leaving him lying on the floor, Ted picked up the telephone.
He called Westbrook's room first. There was no answer, which was as he had expected, since, by this time of night, the manager would be pretty thoroughly anaesthetized with alcohol.
Ted jiggled the receiver hook, and called Bugs McKenna.

6
When Bugs thought about that night later, everything seemed to move in the hazy yet well-defined grooves of a dream. He had committed murder, yet he had not committed it. It was something of the moment, something that would have no meaning once the moment was gone. Similarly, he was in dire danger, yet none at all. The means for extricating himself were ridiculously obvious: as easily and immediately accessible as those in a clumsily constructed story.
Even after Lou Ford came on the scene,--entered the dream, there was no rift in the smooth haziness. Ford, in fact, proved its happy culmination . . . A suicide, huh? Well, now, wasn't that somethin'! Must've been an awful nice fella too, y'know, gettin' hisself all cleaned up before he did it . . .
Ford wasn't at all suspicious. He had no reason to be-- and almost every reason not to be--and Bugs was sure that he wasn't. Later, within a few brief days--But that was later.
Taking things as they happened:
Bugs stared at the still-fluttering curtains of the window, and a black and terrible sickness engulfed him. He had killed Dudley. For the second time in his life, he had killed a man. He hadn't meant to; it was an accident. But he had done it, and for a moment he wanted to die himself.
The moment passed. The blackness and the sickness went away. Fear gripped him, shook him back into his senses. Shattering his regrets before they were fully formed.
Dudley was no good. Dudley had brought about his own death. He had betrayed Westbrook, a man who had befriended him, and indirectly the betrayal had cost him his life.
As to what had happened to the money that Dudley had stolen, and which he apparently believed had been stolen from him, Bugs did no thinking at all about that. Not at the time, he didn't. He simply got out of the room fast, as soon as he had ascertained that the hall was clear. He was out the door almost as soon as Dudley was out the window. Racing up the stairs. Bursting into his own room, and picking up the telephone. Speaking with a yawn in his voice:
"McKenna. Guess I fell asleep again after you called me. What time is it? . . . That late, huh? Well, maybe you better try Mrs. Hanlon for me anyhow."
She had been asleep, she said; and she was a little slow about answering the telephone. Bugs apologized for waking her up, and she said it was okay but she hadn't really wanted to see him about anything important, so why didn't he give her a ring tomorrow? Bugs said he would, and they hung up.
So that took care of that. He hadn't left his room at the time of Dudley's death. Or, at least, he had been in his room at the approximate time of that death. Of course, the body might not be discovered immediately, or even for hours. And if it wasn't, his alibi would be worthless or at least seriously weakened.
But again, before he could feel any real sense of danger, a solution presented itself. Nothing was required but to leave his room immediately and proceed straight to the elevators. That gave him three witnesses instead of two. It proved--in the absence of contrary evidence--that he had gone downstairs within seconds after his second awakening.
Oh, it wasn't perfect, naturally. No alibi ever is. But it would take a finger to upset this one, and a finger was conspicuously absent. No one had seen him go to Dudley's room, no one had seen him leave. And so, necessarily, no one could say that he had been there.
Ed Gusick greeted him unctuously. Bugs responded with his usual monosyllabic grunt, and got out of the car at the mezzanine. It was close to one o'clock now, and Rosalie Vara was absent; having her dinner in the kitchen, Bugs guessed. He walked down the mezz' to its far end, descended the staircase there to the lobby, and, turning to his left, entered the coffee shop.
It was a popular place, the one really good restaurant in town. And even at this hour, many of the tables and most of the counter stools were in use. Looking things over, automatically, Bugs glanced at a table in a far corner of the room, a table occupied by a taffy-haired young woman and a grinning, satanic-looking young man.
Bugs gulped, and his heart did a hop-skip. Ducking his head, he started for his usual stool at the end of the counter. But Lou Ford had already seen him.
"Hey, Bugs. . . McKenna!" He stood up and beckoned insistently. "Come on over!"
Bugs scowled and shook his head. Ford repeated his invitation at a shout. "Come on, fella! Don't be so skitterish. Got a friend here that wants to meet you!"
Bugs joined them; there was nothing else to do. Blushing, he mumbled an acknowledgement of Ford's jovial introduction to Amy Standish. Without raising his eyes, he gave his order to the waitress. He felt like his face was on fire. He felt like he was smothering. Practically all women affected him that way until he got to know them, but none had done so to the extent that Amy Standish did.
He heard an amused chuckle from Ford. Angrily, tossing the menu aside, he forced himself to look up.
Amy was smiling at him gently, her small round chin resting in the palm of her hand. "You mustn't mind him, Mr. McKenna"--she inclined her head toward the deputy. "He's just naturally ornery."
Bugs tried to smile back at her. He said he agreed with her in spades.
"Well, don't you mind, anyhow. We're friends now, so there's nothing to feel shy or awkward about."
"W-well . . . well, thanks," Bugs stammered. "I mean--"
"Heck, he ain't shy," Ford drawled. "He's just embarrassed. That's right, ain't it, Bugs? You're just embarrassed about that day you come up to the house and busted in without knockin'?"
"Shut up!" Bugs snarled. "I--if you don't shut up, I'll--"
"Yeah? What's the matter? I say somethin' wrong?"