"Walsh, Thomas - Nightmare In Manhattan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walsh Thomas)

УYeah, yeah,Ф he said, tougher and curter than ever. WeТre going to find out right now. Got your keys?У

He went away with the man. In two or three minutes he came back alone, carrying a gray overnight bag with a blue handle. There was a zipper on it, closed but unlocked, and he slid that up deftly. Then from inside the bag he took out a boyТs school cap and a boyТs blue overcoat. He felt around in the bag, upended it and shook it. Nothing fell out. He looked at Frances. He looked at her with a rather tight and unpleasant expression.

УNo gun,Ф he said. УNot even a peashooter. Now just what do you suppose happened to it, lady? IТd like to know.Ф

But Frances was looking at the school cap. She could remember one that was just like it.

УI didnТt tell you it was in an overnight bag,Ф Frances said.

УSo you didnТt,Ф Calhoun agreed, beginning to remove various objects from the coat pockets. УNow I bet we got some pretty important stuff here. LetТs see. One clean handkerchief. One mitten Ч one red mitten. Eight cents in cold cash. Probably counterfeit, hah? One Uncle Sam pencil. And Ч Ф

УOne Uncle Sam pencil?Ф Frances said. She remembered one which had been exhibited to her during lunch that afternoon up at North Rhinehill; and she remembered red mittens also.

Calhoun eyed her.

УThatТs right,Ф Calhoun said. УOne Uncle Sam pencil. And initialed, too. I bet thatТs significant. A.T.M.Ф

A.T.M., Frances thought slowly; that could mean Anthony Theodore Murchison. But how, why Ч

She put one hand on the desk to steady herself.

УNo,Ф she whispered. УNolФ

Calhoun, although no more than two or three feet away, seemed now to be at an infinite distance from her.

УWhatТs the matter?Ф he asked. Some of the toughness dropped away from him; concern replaced it. УWhat are you looking like that for?Ф

She made an inarticulate motion at him with the school cap.

УBut itТs Tony,Ф she whispered, her face the color of gray wax. УItТs Tony! DonТt you see? Those men wanted him this afternoon; they thought he was in the car with me and Charles after we drove past the school about three oТclock. ThatТs why they tried to force us off the road. They thought weТd picked him up then. And that they couldЕ Oh, my God!Ф

Calhoun grabbed for her, and barely in time, too. It was just ten minutes of six Friday night.


Afterward, in the cab starterТs office on the taxi platform at Manhattan Depot, Frances endured a kaleidoscopic and only half remembered effect of people, movement and conversation. Probably the first thing that happened, in time order, was when Lieutenant Calhoun attempted to shake some sense into her, and then began to ask question after question as to just what had happened up in North Rhinehill this afternoon. And she must have answered those questions, although she could not remember answering them, because almost at once this Calhoun tried hurriedly and anxiously, his face glistening, to contact Mr. Murchison up in North Rhinehill over the starterТs telephone.

He did not succeed. And Frances knew it was true then, it had to be true then, when Mr. Murchison refused to talk to Calhoun, or to give him any kind of information about Tony; and she broke down suddenly and completely. Everything seemed to stop in her when Calhoun put the phone down slowly, after a last futile attempt to speak to Mr. Murchison, and rubbed the bulldog jaw slowly; and she could only stare at him from the other side of the desk, her mind frozen on the one realization that the men in the gray sedan had wanted Tony. Just before three oТclock, when Charles had driven her to the station, they had been on the lookout around St. HilaryТs School for the Murchison car; they had forced Charles into the snow to stop him; the big fellow with the cold eyes had seen then that Tony was not with them; and so they had waited until Charles had returned from the station, and picked up the boy, and started home with him. The second time there had been no failure. ThenЕ

She closed her eyes. Then the men had driven to Chester Falls, so that they would not be described afterward at the railroad station in North Rhinehill; and the third one in the car, the one who had Tony with himЕ She broke down again. By that time, apparently summoned by Calhoun, there was in the starterТs office a big, shambling man named Inspector Donnelly, who had a flat voice, a firm mouth, a round head and small, oddly unemotional black eyes; another man named Lieutenant Nolan Ч tall, grim, ascetic looking; and many others who came in to talk to Donnelly or Nolan, who went away hurriedly, and who vanished at once into the continuing turmoil of the taxi platform. During most of this period Frances could hear the things that were said around her, the instructions that were being given, the demands that were being made; but only long after she had heard a particular phrase would it come back to her, and add a small or perhaps very important detail to whatever took place in that cab office between six and nine oТclock Friday night.

She held on to TonyТs Uncle Sam pencil, and she would not let anybody take it away from her for some reason; and yet all the time, even when Inspector Donnelly was questioning her, she could feel her mind swinging back in a fixed pendulum stroke to that big man with the red hair, the flat jaws and the harsh mouth.

What could she remember about the car? Donnelly would ask her, time after time, and in the most callous, patient and unexcited manner. What make was it? Could she say? What year? What color? What model? Had she noticed anything at all about the license plates? A letter, perhaps? The first number? The last number? Were there any marks on the car? Were there any details about it, or about the men, which she might have forgotten until now? Had she ever seen the car before? Had she ever seen the men watching her, following her? Could she think of anyone else who might have seen them, and who might know them? Had she ever noticed the car up in North Rhinehill Ч at a gas station, on the road, or parked somewhere near St. HilaryТs Day School?

And she could only shake her head at him mutely; all she could remember was that the car had been a gray two-door sedan Ч and of course the big redheaded man. Inside her, at least on occasion, was a desperate and futile struggle to remember, to describe, to see back and to see clearly. And then, minute after minute, Donnelly pushing her on in the most stolid fashion, Nolan getting impatient with her, Calhoun trying to quiet her; and nothing to tell them, nothing at all to tell them, save that one of the men had red hair, and that another was small and frightened-looking under a gray hat, and that the driver was someone she had never seen, not even a glimpse.

At what might have been eight or half past eight a middle-aged man named Eddie something, whose appearance seemed to excite Calhoun very much, came out to them from the main concourse, was questioned by Donnelly, and was sent off almost immediately in one of the police cars with Lieutenant Nolan and several other men. And then it was Donnelly again, making phone call after phone call; and then it was Donnelly shambling away somewhere, and only Calhoun and a dapper little man with shrewd features and pop eyes who remained with her in the starterТs office.

Calhoun asked her to stand with him at the glass wall looking out toward Locker 572. The lights were all turned off, another inexplicable action to Frances; and Calhoun began to talk to her very steadily and very quietly without ever shifting those gray eyes of his from Locker 572.