Guns
- Автор: Хантер Эван
- Год: 1976
- Язык: английский
- Год: Random House
- ISBN: 978-0-394-40679-4
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «Guns». Краткое содержание книги:
As she cut Colley’s hair, she rambled on about what it was like growing up the daughter of a career soldier. They had showered together fifteen minutes earlier, and now he sat in the chair wearing Jocko’s robe, the sleeves rolled up to accommodate the length of his arms, and she stood behind him wearing a blue smock. Listening to her, hearing the gentle reminiscent tone of her voice over the clicking of the scissors, seeing the steadiness of her hands, you would never guess she had killed a man less than an hour ago.
“I was born in what was supposed to be the worst year of the Depression. Fact is, my father joined the Army because of the Depression, figured he’d get himself three squares a day. Did I tell you how old I am?”
“Fourty-four, you said.”
“Right.” She grinned suddenly. “How does it feel, being involved with an older woman?”
“It feels good,” he said. He was lying. He was afraid of her. He was afraid of the pointed scissors in her hand. He was remembering the way she had butchered Jocko in the kitchen.
“I was still a kid while the Depression was on,” she said. “It wouldn’t have meant anything to me, anyway. We always had plenty to eat, the Army took good care of us. My father was a quartermaster. This was before World War II. We went all over the country, he kept getting transferred from post to post. Wherever there’s an Army post, I’ve lived in the nearest town to it. Fort Benning, Georgia? I lived in Columbus when I was three years old. Fort Dix? I lived in Trenton. Fort Huachuca, I—”
“Fort what?” Colley said.
“Huachuca. That’s in Arizona, outside of Tucson. I’ve been to every Army post there ever was, some of them don’t even exist any more. When the war broke out, World War II, we were living in Louisiana, town named Leesville, have you ever been there?”
“No,” Colley said.
“Fort Polk is down there,” Jeanine said. “My father got shipped overseas in 1942. Instead of staying in Leesville, which is not exactly the biggest city in the world, my mother and I moved to New Orleans for a while, and then down to Florida — Fort Myers. That’s not an Army post, that’s just the name of the town. Fort Myers. That was in 1943, I was eleven years old. I grew up in Fort Myers. I love it down there. Do you know Sanibel Island?”
“No,” Colley said. “I’ve never been down South.”
The scissors stopped just beside his right ear. The silence was complete except for the ticking of the clock. He almost caught his breath. He turned to look up into her face. There was a distant look on it, she was remembering something private and cherished. She sighed then, and without saying another word about Sanibel Island, began cutting his hair again.
“My father got killed in 1944,” she said. “During the Italian campaign. July. We got the telegram near the end of the month. He was killed in Sicily. I was twelve years old at the time. I cried for weeks, I couldn’t seem to stop crying. I still miss him. I loved him a lot.” She sighed again and fell silent. The scissors clicked into the clockwork stillness. Locks of his hair kept falling to the floor.
He had thought maybe they should bleach it, but Jeanine had said she’d never seen a homemade job that looked professional. When she was fifteen or sixteen she’d tried to touch up her own hair, make it look a little blonder and shinier than it naturally was, and all it did was come out cheap and brassy. And she was blond to begin with, don’t forget. Colley had brown hair, and a dark brown at that. For his hair, they’d have to use twenty-volume peroxide and either a powder or a liquid bleach and proteinators, and they’d have had to bleach out the roots first, and then the ends — the whole job would have taken hours and would have come out looking shitty besides; anybody taking even a quick look at him would realize in a minute he’d bleached his hair because he was trying to change his appearance.
A crew cut, on the other hand, really did change a man’s appearance, and looked natural besides. Your average person wouldn’t know you’d cut your hair only this morning, he’d think you’d worn it that way forever. Cutting your hair short or shaving off your mustache didn’t work with friends or relatives, they’d take one look at you and say, “Hi there, Joe, I see you cut your hair short and shaved off your mustache.” But with people who were working from a photograph of you, just a simple crew cut would be enough to throw them off the track.
“Come look in the mirror,” she said.
He got up. His hair was all over the floor. He rubbed his hand across the top of his head and felt the bristles, and then he followed her down the hall to the bedroom. Jocko’s blood was still on the sheets, Jocko’s blood was all over this fuckin apartment, the sooner they got out, the better. There was a mirror over the dresser. He looked into the mirror. He was wearing Jocko’s robe, which was too big for him, the sleeves rolled up, the shoulders far too wide. He would have looked scrawny in the robe even with a full head of hair, but with the crew cut he looked emaciated.
“It’s awful,” he said.
“I think it looks good,” Jeanine said.
“It’s terrible,” he said, turning his head to the side to see what he looked like in profile. “Jesus, it’s really awful.”
“You want to look beautiful, or you want to get where we’re going?”
“I don’t even know where we’re going,” he said.
“We’re going to Fort Myers,” she told him.
It was still dark, he was beginning to think it would stay dark forever; they had done some bad things tonight, and the sun would never come up again, the sun would stay hidden in shame for the things they had done. Killing the cop — but that was self-defense really, the cop had a gun in his hand, he was yelling “Police officer”; you don’t announce yourself as a cop unless you mean business, unless you intend to use the gun. He wondered again if somebody had snitched to the cops about the job. He did not know why it was so important that he know whether the cop had been tipped or not. If he could only call the police department and ask them whether the stakeout had been for just anybody, or did the cops know he and Jocko were going to hit the place. He really wanted to know. Because if they’d been waiting there for just anybody, why then, it made the killing of the cop seem, well, senseless. Because that meant the cop would have come running out of the back room yelling at whoever walked in there with a gun. That meant the cop was yelling not at Colley but at the gun in Colley’s hand.
He wished he could call the police department and find out. Maybe he’d ask Jeanine to call for him. Just to see if the stakeout was planned for him and Jocko. Because if it was planned for them, if the cops were specifically waiting for them, then killing the cop was very definitely self-defense, the way Jeanine killing Jocko in the kitchen had been self-defense. The way, when you came to think of it — though he wouldn’t mention this to Jeanine — the way the German or the Italian who had killed her father in Sicily was also acting in self-defense and trying to save his own skin. The way Colley’d been trying to save his skin in the liquor store. Dumb fuckin cop had nothing to lose, Colley had fifteen years staring him in the face. Police officer, my ass, Colley thought. If my own brother tried to send me back to Sing Sing with that fuckin Kruger grabbing my ass, I’d put a bullet in his head, too, brother or not. Fuck him.
He needed a gun.
She’d cut off all his hair like Samson and Delilah, he’d seen that picture on television with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr, she’d robbed him of his fuckin strength. He needed a gun now. He’d come to this apartment to get a gun, and he wasn’t going to leave here without one.