King Suckerman
- Автор: Пелеканос Джордж
- Серия: D.C. Quartet #2
- Год: 1997
- Язык: английский
- Год: Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 978-0-316-69590-9
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «King Suckerman». Краткое содержание книги:
“Hey, Mitri,” said Clay. “Didn’t you hear me, man? I said let’s go.”
Both of them turned, but Marchetti, standing out of his seat now, said, “Wait a sec, fellas, I want you to see something here. After all, Karras, you been lookin’ at it the whole time. You might as well stay another minute, have a look at it all.”
Vivian was moving across the room with quick, even steps, the can of beer in her hand. She pulled the ring off the top of the can and tossed it back over her shoulder.
“Aw, look at her,” said Marchetti, “she’s all upset.”
“Let’s do it, boy,” said Clay.
“Karras,” said Marchetti. “You ever see a Chinese broad with such a beautiful set of tits?”
No, thought Karras, I haven’t. But why’d you have to go and disrespect her like that?
Vivian reached the desk, made a quick, sharp jerk of her wrist. The can in her hand shot off a short arc of beer. The beer splashed across Eddie Marchetti’s face.
Clagget flicked his Salem against the cinder-block wall.
Marchetti said, “Bitch.” He backhanded Vivian at the jawline. There was the dull clap of flesh on flesh, and Vivian went down before the desk.
Later, Karras couldn’t remember crossing the room. It was like he was by the door one moment and around Marchetti’s desk the next. With the pound of pot still in his left hand, he punched the fat little Italian in the eye with a short right, followed through with the punch. Marchetti went back over his own chair, did a half somersault to the concrete floor.
Clay had moved with Karras and now he pulled on the back of Karras’s T-shirt. Then he turned at the sound of the shotgun’s pump. The white boy with the fucked-up face was walking toward them, gun up and pointed, now just two feet away. No one else, not the dark-skinned brothers or the slick brother or Clarence Tate, had moved an inch.
It was slow motion from there but quick in its own way, the way heat time had always been for Clay. He straightened his arm, dropped it a little, came up with a snake-strike, knocked the short barrel of the shotgun to the side, grabbed as he did, and pulled the gun free. He had one hand on the pump then and the other on the stock, and the white boy stood in front of him with nothing in his own hands but air. Clay swung the stock of the shotgun sharply, smashed it into the white boy’s mouth. Something cracked, and a couple of thin dice flew away from the kid’s face in one direction while some blood and saliva sailed off in the other. The kid went down. Clay pumped out the shells that had been loaded into the shotgun. He tossed the shotgun across the room.
“Whoooeee,” said Wilton Cooper, one leg crossed over the other, the cigarette still in place.
Clay heard Karras say, “C’mon, you’re coming with us,” and when he turned his head in the direction of the voice he saw Karras helping the Chinese girl to her feet.
Marchetti had gotten to his knees. He reached up toward the desk drawer.
“Don’t, Eddie,” said Tate, who hadn’t gone forward at all, had not even moved his hands. “Just don’t. Let it lie.”
Marchetti sat back.
Clay, adrenalized, picked the stack of money up off the desk. He clumsily folded it into two rolls, put one roll in each pocket of his shorts. He couldn’t have said, at that moment, why he had done a dumb thing like that. He felt it was owed him, and that was all.
“Now you gonna rob us, too,” said Cooper. “That right, Trouble Man?”
“Teach you country motherfuckers a lesson,” said Clay, not believing his own cocky words, regretting them as they came from his mouth.
Clay backed away to the door, past Ronald and Russell Thomas and their hard stares. Karras and the girl were already there.
“I expect we’re gonna see you boys again,” said Cooper.
“I expect you will,” said Clay.
Clay, Karras, and Vivian went through the door. The ones in the office listened to their rapid footsteps echo in the stairwell.
Tate helped Marchetti to his feet.
“Wilton,” said Clagget. He was on his knees, blood seeping through the fingers of the hand covering his mouth, dripping down into a small puddle pooled before him on the floor.
“I know, B.R. We gonna get you somewhere, fix your ass up.”
“My mouth,” said Clagget, working to sound out the word completely. His front teeth were gone.
“Trouble Man took you to school,” said Cooper. “We gonna talk about that later.”
Tate got Marchetti into his chair, then went to the window. He watched the three of them jog across the street, Clay and the girl climbing into the open-air VW while the Greek stashed the bag under the hood, which on that fool car was the trunk. Tate couldn’t make out the number on the D.C. plates. No matter. There couldn’t be many cars like that one in town. Tate watched Karras get behind the wheel and he watched them drive away.
Cooper saw Marchetti rub at his swelling eye. “Might want to put somethin’ on that.”
“What the hell happened?” said Marchetti.
“That’s always the question,” said Cooper, “isn’t it?”
“Gimme one of them double-O’s,” said Russell to his brother. Ronald drew two cigarettes from the torn hole in the bottom of the deck, handed one to Russell. Russell struck a match, lit his smoke, lit his brother’s.
“Tell you one thing,” said Russell. “Trouble Man ever even have a dream about fuckin’ with me, he gonna find somethin’ out. I’d steal that nigger right in the face. I’d double steal that motherfucker.”
Ronald chuckled. “That nigger would fuck you up, boy.”
“Don’t be callin’ me no boy,” said Russell.
“Go ahead, man.”
“You see a boy standin’ here,” said Russell, “suck his dick.”
“Aw, go ahead,” said Ronald.
Cooper dropped the end of his Salem to the floor, crushed it beneath his canvas jazz shoe. He looked at Marchetti, whose left eye had begun to darken.
“Shame about the money,” said Cooper.
Marchetti squinted. “That was your money, Wilton.”
“You’re mistaken,” said Cooper. “I gave it to you, remember? That was your commission for puttin’ me up with that biker friend of yours. What was his name?”
“Larry.”
“Larry, that’s right. Course, I might be interested in gettin’ that money back for you. Say, for a fifty percent finder’s fee. Right after I do my deal with Larry.”
“Fifty points,” mumbled Marchetti. “Real generous of you, Wilton.”
“We friends,” said Cooper, “right?”
“Wilton,” said Clagget, staggering a little, still dazed as he walked toward Cooper sitting in the chair.
“All right, boy,” said Cooper. “We better go see about gettin’ you cleaned up.”
Cooper got up out of his chair. Tate tossed him a rag. Cooper took the rag and went to Clagget.
Clagget said, “I’m gonna kill that motherfucker, Wilton.”
“I know you are,” said Cooper. He blotted the rag on the blood splashed across the blue rayon of Bobby Roy Clagget’s chest.
“I swear for God,” said Clagget.
“Hush,” said Cooper, shaking his head. “Look at you, man. You done gone and fucked up another pretty shirt.”
Six
Dimitri Karras downshifted, took H across North Capitol. He relaxed his shoulders, glad to be out of the warehouse district, glad as hell to be back in Northwest. Marcus Clay sat to his right, staring straight ahead, mumbling occasionally as the recently completed events replayed themselves in his mind. In the rearview Karras watched Vivian, sitting sideways between the front buckets, her long black hair fanning out in the wind, a slight crescent of purple and a small ring dent on the left side of her pronounced jaw where Eddie Marchetti had given her his hand.