Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956
- Автор: Дил Борден, Томпсон Джим
- Год: 1956
- Язык: английский
- Год: H.S.D. Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956». Краткое содержание книги:
“Considering the cash you sucked out of the Silver King, you got a lot of crust nicking me for delay,” he said sourly.
“Like you said yesterday — you ordered it and couldn’t take it off my truck. You pay — that’s business. And you’ll deduct it from the cut Uncle Sam takes.”
“Sure, but—”
“Would you have paid my losses if I’d gone to the cleaners, Wirth?”
His jaw muscles tightened. Then he relaxed and reached for his check book. I watched him write, his fingers holding the pen lightly, the words coming out smooth and round and as beautiful as any you’ve ever seen in the movies, when you get a close-up of someone writing a note. I glanced at the etchings on the wall, then back to the check. Jake Wirth had one hell of a pair of hands.
He got up and followed me out to my truck, his bird-dog Joe right behind him. I climbed up.
“Matt, damn if I don’t admire the speed you made picking up the blonde and getting her to throw Akers’ dough your way,” he told me. “It must have been a smooth operation. But don’t try a repeat on that. I’m telling you like a friend, Matt. Bart’s not a bit amused about this. And if some other house was to run into it, the association here would consider you a major menace to the business. You... you get my point, Brady?”
“If that’s meant in kindness, I’m obliged, Jake,” I said. “Don’t worry. I won’t do what I did again.”
Wirth waved. The smile on his face was something I didn’t like. Joe wore one that could have been a carbon copy and I didn’t like it any better. The last time some men looked at me like that I wound up with assorted cuts and bruises and a brief nap on cold steel...
My mind rolled back to my hitch during the war. Our communications outfit was aboard a Navy LST bound west for Saipan. We were bored, I guess. I got into a hassle with one of the white hats in the crew — those little arguments that get bigger and bigger. When it got down to the “let’s settle this” stage and we started for the ring they had roped off down on the tank deck, the gobs in the ship’s, company began giving me that sheep-to-the-slaughter look. But I’d mixed it up a time or two and figured I could get by as well as the next guy. We laced on the mitts and someone rang a bell. A short three rounds later the sailor put me away and it was a kindness, because what was happening to Matt Brady shouldn’t happen to anyone — even to pros getting maybe twenty thousand bucks for their licking. It turned out this gob was runner-up to the light-heavy champ of the Pacific Fleet. After the bloodshed, the boys were downright complimentary about my staying into the third, but I still remember the sad looks they gave me while the white hat and I were getting ready to tangle.
I still remember the lumps I took, too. And now Jake and his right-hand man were wearing the same “too bad, sucker” expression.
4.
Maggie was waiting when I rolled the big job up to the curb and went up to her apartment. She was ready for travel, her long golden hair set off by a ribbon the color of Kelly’s tie on March 17th. She’d passed up slacks in favor of something cool and low-cut. Her luggage wasn’t in sight and there was a hint of hesitation in the smile of greeting on her face. Stacked on the little coffee table in front of the sofa, exactly where I’d left it, was the bundle of twenties weighted down by the small mound of silver dollars. I nodded.
“Pretty generous tip for the maid, isn’t it?”
“Matt, I— You don’t have to be bothered with me on your trip back to L.A.,” she said, her eyes not meeting mine.
“Bothered! I’ve been looking forward all—”
“Matt—” She came toward me, those deep blue eyes slowly searching my face and when she stood next to me I put my arms around her and she leaned back. “Matt, I want to tell you how I feel about us.” Her hands left my shoulders and very gently their palms were placed over my eyes, her interlaced fingers resting on the bridge of my nose. The heels of her hands were cool along the side of my face and she had my vision completely blocked.
“You’ve got to take the money, Matt. Any other way would spoil things, would change me from a girl who happened to like a guy, into a money-grabbing little cheat. Will you take it, Matt?”
“Sure. And now—”
“Wait. There’s something else. I don’t want you to think you have to take me to Los Angeles. If I felt you thought you had to just because of — of last night, I’d feel awful. I mean that would make me something else I don’t want to be, and—”
I stopped the flow of words exactly like any other guy with half an ounce of sense would. It wound up in a first-class clinch. When we broke, the smile on her face was strictly what the gent had in mind when he composed the song about “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”
“All right now?” I asked. “Shall we go?”
She became all business. “Sure, Matt. There’s an overnight bag and a suitcase in the kitchen.” Maggie picked up her little leather-bound portable radio and her purse and we went down the hall. With all the space behind the seat, there wasn’t any point in letting her baggage bounce around back in the van. I boosted the pair back out of the way, then set her little radio on top and helped her up. I hit the starter and we pulled out.
“We’re on our way, Maggie. No more worries?”
She patted my arm. “No, Matt. No worries.”
The first part of the trip I like to remember. Just the first couple of hundred miles from Reno down to Bishops — before I began to notice the tail we were wearing.
North of Bishop everything was wonderful. Empty, the big job cruised smoothly along, her Diesel turning over with the steady consistency of an expensive watch. The blonde was the cutest trick that ever graced the cab — and a great traveling companion besides. No breathless questions followed by obvious inattention while you raved on. No school-girl giggles at every other word. Just two adults who were getting up in their twenties and not trying to impress anyone. If losing her job at the Silver King was important to her, she kept it hidden. The talk was easy and relaxed. In Carson City I pulled off at a trucker’s service station to take on fuel.
“Coffee, Maggie?”
She hesitated and took a careful look around. Then she nodded toward a little cafe, linked an arm through mine, and said, “Sure. Let’s try this one and we can keep an eye on the suitcases.”
We had pie and coffee and went back to the truck refreshed. I rigged the desert air-cooler and hosed it up with water. We were on our way again. The wind over the wasteland was getting set for the heat of the day, but a tug on the cord leading out of the cooler rolled the evaporation drum halfway over and cooled the cab nicely. A mile or two slipped by. I noticed the blonde looking at me with an odd expression.
“Matt. I... I’ll bet your married.”
“Bad guess. But what brought it to mind?”
“There’s something about you — your easy sort of way. You’re used to having a girl around.”
I laughed. “Four sisters, three of them older. I had to get used to it. And you?”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t say a word and I felt my fingers tighten on the wheel. I paid careful attention to rolling the truck down the highway, but suddenly the breeze had spilled out of my sails and I realized I’d been counting a lot on seeing Maggie when she settled in L.A. Great big dreams, but—
“I must have figured wrong,” I said softly. “But you got no ring. Where’s he hiding?”