[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.‘No Al—’ he started, but Albert Reiff raised his hand and slapped Mouse.‘Did I say to fucking talk, Mouse? Hey, did anyone hear me say you should start talking now?’ Albert shook his head.‘No, I didn’t fucking think so.’Mouse blinked furiously, like he was trying to communicate something in morse.He had the wide eyes of a frightened man, a cornered man, and the way he shifted in the chair, shifted without really moving, he looked like maybe he’d pissed himself and it was real uncomfortable.‘So tell me what he said,’ Reiff said.‘Tell me exactly what he said, Mouse.’Reiff was silent for a moment, and then: ‘It’s okay.I’m giving you permission to speak now.’Mouse shook his head.‘Aah fuck, you have to make this all melodramatic and personal.You have to make an issue about this when it really wasn’t fucking necessary.’ Reiff shook his head, sort of turned and looked over his shoulder.‘Ray?’ he called out.‘Ray.come here and listen to what Mouse has got to say for himself.’Mouse made a sound; a sound like he was all full of air and was deflating rapidly.Sounded like everything inside him sort of collapsed.Raymond Dietz appeared in the doorway behind Albert Reiff.He carried something in his hand.‘What?’ he said.Reiff smiled.‘Mouse doesn’t seem to have a great deal to say for himself.’‘Isn’t it always the way.always the way with these guys.And what the fuck kind of name is Mouse.more like fucking Rat!’ Dietz laughed coarsely and came up behind Albert Reiff.He was over Reiff’s left shoulder, looking down at Mouse who sat shivering, both his hands nailed to the arms of the chair, torn duct tape around the lower half of his face and throat, his ankles tied tight, one shoe removed and much of his right foot hammered to a pulp inside his sock.‘So what’s the deal, Mouse?’ Reiff asked.‘What is the deal with the man’s son, eh? What is the deal with this Sonny Bernstein?’Mouse shook his head.He closed his eyes tight and lowered his chin to his chest.‘Nothing to say then?’ Dietz asked.Mouse was silent, motionless but for the muscular twitches caused by so much pain.‘Fuck you,’ Albert Reiff said, and with that he stood up and moved to the right.Dietz was fast, faster than even Reiff expected.He stepped to the left, snatched Mouse around the throat, and with one swift arc he drove a screwdriver through the man’s temple.Mouse’s eyes opened wide and stared back at the pair of them.He blinked once, his hands tugging furiously at the nails that pinned them to the chair, but all of it was involuntary, a simple muscular reaction, for Mouse had been dead the moment the screwdriver punctured his frontal lobe.‘Get someone to fix up this shit would you?’ Reiff said.He glanced at his watch.‘I have to drive over the other side of town and pick my kid up for lunch.’‘Sure thing,’ Dietz replied.‘I’ll get some cleaners down here.’Reiff nodded.‘See you at the thing tonight.’‘Sure, see ya tonight.’Reiff made his way out of the room through a narrow doorway at the end of an unlit corridor.Ray Dietz stood for a moment, hands on his hips, looking down at the dead body in the chair.‘Mouse,’ he said quietly.‘You’re a fucking prick.’*There was silence between them for quite some time.Harper sat on the edge of the bed, his head turned to the window.The curtains were half-drawn, and the light that filtered through cast much of the room in shadow.The impression was one of late afternoon.Cathy Hollander sat on a chair near the door, beside her a small circular table upon which sat an ashtray.She’d lit a cigarette, set it in the tray, and then seemed to have forgotten it.It burned regardless, arabesques of smoke ghosting upward, each subsequent arc of grey following the next as if playing catch-as-catch-can to the ceiling.‘What happened, John?’ she eventually asked.Harper did not respond, neither moved nor spoke.‘John.Tell me what happened.’Cathy leaned forward for a moment, and then leaned back once more.She seemed effortlessly assured, confident in everything she did and said.Harper looked at her for some little while before speaking.A faint smile played around the corners of his mouth.‘I was wondering about something,’ he eventually said.Strange, but his voice did not sound the same.Sounded like some part of him had been left behind somewhere.He figured sometime, soon perhaps, he would have to retrace his steps and find it.‘Wondering?’ Cathy asked.‘Wondering what?’‘Whether everything that Frank Duchaunak has been telling me is true, or if he’s one half-crazy motherfucker.’‘What did he tell you?’‘That my father is involved in New York’s criminal underworld.That Walt Freiberg is his right-hand man.That there’s a guy called Ben Marcus who seems to control some part of New York’s territories, and there’s going to be a war between him and Walt.’ Harper paused for a moment, turned and looked towards the window, turned slowly back and looked at Cathy
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]