"Winter, James - A Walk In The Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Winter James)

She shook her head as she tried to compose herself. "I'll be fine. Just give me a minute."
I sat back and watched as she somehow pulled herself together again. She became that same iron-willed woman who strutted into the bar earlier, seemingly oblivious to her bruises. She smiled. "I did it tonight. I kicked him out. He's gone."
Tom shook his head, frowning. "I don't understand why you didn't throw him out the first time he laid a hand on you."
Angie hugged herself and started looking for a cigarette. "I guess I wanted to believe that this wasn't the real him, that it was just a phase."
I shook my head. "I told you before, Ange, his kind doesn't have phases, especially when they drink as much as he does."
"I know." She relaxed a little. "Tomorrow morning, I'm getting a restraining order and pressing charges against him. That sonofabitch is going to jail." She started to cry again, but she was smiling. "Too bad I can't give him what he really deserves." She put her arms around both of us. "Tom, Nick, thanks."
"For what?" said Tom. "Those cops did all the hard work."
"For being there," she said. "It really means a lot."
We just didn't realize how much.
*
The next night, I was awakened by Margo, my better half for almost three years now. As black as I'm white, she was slender, tall, and, even half asleep with her hair all askew, as graceful and poised as a princess. She shook me awake around midnight. I grumbled something about meeting a client at seven the next morning when I saw her holding the phone.
"It's your friend, Angie. She sounds upset."
I took the phone and listened, not saying much. As soon as Angie hung up, I was out of bed, pulling on a pair of khakis and a T-shirt.
"Bad?' Margo asked.
"Very." I strapped into my shoulder rig, checked my Browning 9mm, and pocketed a fresh clip. "Don't ask."
She smiled at me. "I know the drill. Be careful." Her smile disappeared. "I don't want to lead tomorrow's noon newscast with your death."
I kissed her. "Or my arrest if I'm even more careless." I grabbed an Indians windbreaker and my cell phone. "I'll be back, babe."
She leaned back onto the bed and draped an arm across her eyes. "I'll probably be at work when you get back. I'm covering the anchor desk for Cleveland AM tomorrow."
Great. Another night sleeping alone. I hate television.
I raced out of the lot of our Lakewood apartment and out onto the Shoreway. I headed for Brook Park, just to the south of the city, right next to the airport. My mind raced as I wondered what to expect. I arrived at Angie's place in less than fifteen minutes. The State Patrol must have been ignoring I-71 that night. That, or no one expects a speeding Honda Accord to be a menace to traffic.
I found the door open, Angie sitting on the couch, her head in her hands. She looked up at me. "I shot him. Right before I called you."
*
As I closed in on the Speedway, I could see the lights of a tow truck approaching the station. It had to be Lenny. Sure enough, it was. I could see the emblem for his garage painted on the side, a skull from something that resembled a Klingon, only with horns. I could spot that perverse logo anywhere. My guess was that Lenny had watched Star Trek once or twice while dropping acid.
The rain let up, but I was still soaking. As was typical in Northeast Ohio in late Spring, it was humid as hell. I wanted desperately to lose my windbreaker, but needed to conceal my gun. That would have been a little hard to explain. I wanted to get to the station and dry off. I was miserable, as my shoes squished, my hair dripped, and my pants stuck to my legs. I was going to need a shower before going back to bed.
Not that I'd be able to sleep that night...
*
Joe Kopinski lay on the floor, a large hole in his chest, blood staining his shirt and the rug. I turned around and notice another hole in the wall behind me. "No cops?"
"I didn't call them," said Angie. "I panicked."
"What happened?" I asked. "And why didn't the neighbors call?"
Thunder exploded outside as a storm passed through, the third one since sundown.
"That's why they didn't call," said Angie. "They're mostly yuppie wannabes here. They wouldn't know the difference between a lightning strike and a gunshot unless they took the bullet themselves." She smiled. "Not bad for a New Age peacenik."
I pressed my lips thin, unsure of what to say. "An abused New Age peacenik. What happened?"
She stood up and began pacing, waving her hands as she spoke. "He came in around eleven thirty. Said he wanted to talk. Like an idiot, I opened the door for him."
I sighed, "Ange, after all he's done..."
She put up her hand, silencing me for the moment. "I know, I know. Just listen. He burst in, shoved me to the floor, and pulled out a gun." She indicated a .38 Police Special lying on the coffee table. "He started ranting, waving the gun. I got to my feet just as the idiot accidentally shot at the door."
That explained the bullet hole.
"He came after me," she continued, hugging herself, now just standing and staring into space. "My God, he looked possessed. He chased me around the living room. I couldn't figure out why he didn't just shoot me."
"Probably because he was drunk," I said, "but I wouldn't complain."
She shrugged. "He tried to jump over the sofa to tackle me, but he caught his foot and fell to the floor. I dived after the gun and came up with it," she said. "If I'd have been thinking straight, I'd have forced him out of the house and called the cops."
Uh-oh.
She shook her head, still staring off into space. "But I wanted to end this, once and for all. I wanted to make him pay for all the hell he'd put me through." She looked at me, her face hard. "He saw I had the gun. He stood, put his hands up, and started to back away towards the door. I made him stand in the doorway to the kitchen and put his hands behind his head, then I shot him." She let out a sigh of relief. "God, I feel like a millstone's been lifted from my neck."
I felt like she'd promptly hung it around mine. "Angie, you're battered. You're bruised. You have a bullet hole in your wall. The cops won't question self-defense. Or if they do, the prosecutor most likely will call it Battered Women's Syndrome."
Angie shook her head. "I need your help, Nick. I need you to purge this... this... thing from my life." She looked at me the same way she did when we were kids to get me to do something I didn't want to do. "I want you to make him disappear."
I sat down, rubbing my eyes. Outside, a distant storm rumbled. I looked at Angie again. "If I get caught, we both go to prison. Both of us."
She shook her head. "I go to prison. If you make him disappear, I'm the only suspect. I know you can get rid of him so no one knows. C'mon, Nick. I've seen some of your informers. I know you can do this." She smiled at me. "Please?"
I stood up and looked over Kopinski's body. He lay on a throw rug. How convenient. "The carpet yours?"
She nodded.
I turned and looked at the wall where the first bullet had hit. I didn't see a bullet hole outside, which meant the slug was in the wall. "Can you plaster over that hole and paint over it?"
Again she nodded. "I told the landlord I wanted to repaint anyway."
I picked up Kopinski's gun and unloaded it, pocketing the bullets. I tossed the weapon onto Kopinski's body and began rolling the carpet around him. I looked up at Angie when I was done. "Where's his car?"