"Mr. Clarinet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stone Nick)

"WHAT?!!?"

"This ain't official. It's one of those under-the-radar things you never find out about. And even if it did come out, who'd give a shit? Us? We'd say good riddance. The Haitians? Who they gonna complain to? Us? We're already rulin' their country."

"Do they know what he did?" Max said.

"That ain't the point, as far as they see it. Why waste taxpayers' money keepin' him in prison when you can send him back home?"

"But he's free."

"Yeah, but that's the Haitians' problem now. And now it's yours too-you meet him out there."

Max sat himself back down.

"When did this happen, Joe? When did he get out?"

"March. This year."

"Mother-fucker!"

"There's more to tell-" Joe started and then he broke off to talk to someone. He put the receiver down on his desk. Max heard the conversation get louder. He couldn't make out exactly what was being said, but someone had fucked up. Dialogue turned to monologue, Joe's voice crushing everything in its path. Joe grabbed the phone. "MAX?!!? I'LL SEE YOU TONIGHT! WE'LL TALK SOME MORE THEN!" he roared and slammed the phone down.

Max laughed, imagining the poor subordinate getting the trade end of one of Joe's tirades. He had a way of using every inch of his towering frame to win an argument, leaning his face right over yours and looking down into your eyes like you were a piece of dog shit he'd stepped in on his way to church. And then he'd start talking.

He suddenly stopped laughing when he remembered the first child-sacrifice victim, the way the body had looked on the morgue slab.

Solomon Boukman: child killer. Free.

Solomon Boukman: mass murderer. Free.

Solomon Boukman: cop killer. Free.

Solomon Boukman: gang leader, drug baron, pimp, money-launderer, kidnapper, rapist. Free.

Solomon Boukman: his last case as a cop, his last collar, the one that almost killed him.

Solomon's words to him in court: "You give me reason to live," stage-whispered with a smile that chilled Max to the core. Those words had made the whole thing between them very personal.

Max's words back: "Adнos, motherfucker." How wrong he'd been.

Boukman had headed up a gang called The SNBC-short for Saturday Night Barons Club, adapted from Baron Samedi, the voodoo god of death. Its members swore their leader had supernatural powers, that he could read minds and predict the future, that he could be in two places at once, materializing in rooms just like they did on Star Trek. They said he got his powers through some demon he worshipped, some mйchant loa. Max and Joe had caught him and shut down the gang.

Max was shaking with anger, fists balled up, heat rising up in his face, the vein in his forehead twitching and wriggling like a worm in a frying pan. Solomon Boukman was someone Max had taken great pride in catching-and great joy in working over with his fists and a sap before he'd booked him.

Now Boukman was free. He'd beaten the system. And he'd beaten Max and pissed in his face. It was too much-too much to have to come back to.