’Til Death
- Автор: Хантер Эван
- Серия: 87th Precinct #9
- Год: 1959
- Язык: английский
- Год: Simon and Schuster
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «’Til Death». Краткое содержание книги:
O’Brien was already crouched over Sokolin in the corner. Meyer wiped his brow.
“How is he?”
“He’s hurt,” O’Brien answered. “But he isn’t dead.”
“I knew there’d be shooting,” Meyer said simply. He turned to where Cotton Hawes lay on the floor in his rocking-horse position. “Well, well,” he said, “what have we here? Take a look at this, Bob.”
“Get me out of these ropes,” Hawes said.
“It talks, Bob,” Meyer said. “Why, I do believe it’s a talking dog. Now isn’t that a curiosity!”
“Come on, Meyer,” Hawes pleaded, and Meyer saw his battered face for the first time, and quickly stooped to cut the binding ropes. Hawes rose. Massaging his wrists and ankles, he said, “You got here just in the nick.”
“The Marines always arrive on time,” Meyer said.
“And the U.S. Cavalry,” O’Brien answered. He glanced at the blonde. “She’s got crazy legs,” he said.
The men studied her appreciatively for a moment.
“So,” Meyer said at last, “I guess this is it. We’ll need the meat wagon for that joker, won’t we?”
“Yeah,” O’Brien said listlessly.
“You want to make the call, Bob?”
“Yeah, okay.”
He left the room. Meyer walked to the blonde and clamped his handcuffs onto her wrists. With a married man’s dispassionate aloofness, he studied her exposed legs for the last time, and then pulled down her skirt. “There,” he said. “Decency and morality prevail once more. She had a wild look in her eye, that one. I wouldn’t have wanted to mess with her.”
“I did,” Hawes said.
“Mmm.” Meyer looked at his face. “I think maybe we got another passenger for the meat wagon. You don’t look exactly beautiful, dear lad.”
“I don’t feel exactly beautiful,” Hawes said.
Meyer holstered his revolver. “Nothing like a little excitement on a Sunday, is there?”
“What the hell are you kicking about?” Hawes asked. “This is my day off.”
“Lying?” Ben Darcy said. “What do you mean? Why would I...?”
“Come on, Ben. Over to the house,” Carella said.
“What for? What did I...?” A gun magically appeared in Carella’s fist. Darcy studied it for a moment and then said, “Jesus, you’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t you?” Carella asked, and together they walked out of the bushes. The fireworks were exploding behind them, the sighs of the crowd following each new display of pyrotechnic wizardry. Kling met the pair at the house.
“I’ve been looking for you, Steve,” he said. “It’s past eight, and I’m supposed to pick up Claire at nine. So I’d better be taking off.”
“Hang around a few more minutes, would you, Bert?”
“What for?”
“Hang around, can you?”
“Okay, but you don’t know Claire when I’m late.”
“Inside,” Carella said to Darcy. They entered the house. “Upstairs.” They went upstairs to the room that had been Carella’s when he was a boy. School pennants still decorated the walls. Airplane models hung from the ceiling. A Samurai sword he’d sent home from the Pacific was hung to the right of the windows, near the desk. In the room where he’d been a boy, Carella felt no nostalgic wistfulness. He had led Darcy into the privacy of the house because he was about to conduct a police interrogation, and he wanted the psychological advantage of the cloistered silence, the four walls, all the appearance of a trap. At the 87th, he’d have used the small Interrogation Room set close to the Clerical Office, and for the same reasons. There were some cops who used the Interrogation Room as a sparring ring, but Carella had never laid a hand on a prisoner in all the years he’d been a cop, and he did not intend to start now. But he recognized his weapons, and he knew that Darcy was lying, and he wanted to know now why he was lying. He had drawn his gun with the same psychological warfare in mind. He knew he did not need his gun with Darcy. But the gun added official police weight. And, in following through on his line of intent, he had asked Kling to accompany him upstairs because the police weight was doubled with a second cop along; the feeling of inevitable exposure mounted, the lie would root around in the suspect’s mind searching for a rock beneath which to hide, relentlessly exposed to the overwhelming odds against it.
“Sit down,” he said to Darcy.
Darcy sat.
“Why do you want Tommy dead?” Carella asked bluntly.
“What?”
“You heard me.” He stood to the right of Darcy’s chair. Kling, knowing what was happening, immediately assumed a position to the left of the chair.
“Tommy dead?” Darcy said. “Are you kidding me? Why would I...?”
“That’s what I asked you.”
“But I—”
“You said a man slightly taller than you came up behind you in the bushes and circled your neck with his arm, is that right?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s the truth.”
“And then he hit you on the head, right? Once? Right?”
“Yes. That’s what happened. How does that...?”
“I’m six feet tall,” Carella said, “give or take a quarter of an inch. Bert here is about six-two. That’s about the difference in height between you and your alleged attacker, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you said?”
“Yes, that’s what I—”
“Would you mind grabbing me from behind, Bert? Put your arm far enough around me so that I can see what kind of clothes you’re wearing. You did tell me your attacker was wearing a tuxedo, didn’t you?”
“Well, I—”
“Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Darcy said.
“Okay, Bert.”
Kling wrapped his arm around Carella’s neck. Carella stood facing Darcy, the gun in his right hand.
“We’re pretty close, aren’t we, Darcy? I’m practically smack up against him. In fact, it would be impossible for Bert to take a whack at my head unless he shoved me on the head this way. Am I right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Darcy said quickly. “The attacker did shove me away from him. I remember that now. I yelled and then just before he hit me, he shoved me a few feet away from him. So that he could swing. That’s right. That’s just the way it happened.”
“Well, that’s different,” Carella said, smiling. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? So he shoved you away from him, right?”
“Yes.”
“Would you mind demonstrating that, Bert?”
Kling shoved out gently at Carella, and Carella stepped forward a few paces. “About like that?” he asked Darcy.
“Well, with considerably more force. But that’s about where I wound up, yes. A few feet ahead of him.”
“Well, you should have told me that to begin with,” Carella said, still smiling. “He hit you from a few feet behind you, right?”
“Yes.”
“That makes a big difference,” Carella said, smiling pleasantly. “And he didn’t kick you or anything, am I right?”
“That’s right,” Darcy said, nodding. “He pushed me away from him and then he hit me. That was all.”