"Charles de Lint - Mulengro" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

“You think Wood being a Gypsy had something to do with the way he died?” Will asked suddenly,
surprising Briggs at how close his partner’s thoughts paralleled his own. Maybe some of Will’s intuition
was rubbing off on him. “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense otherwise,” Will continued, answering
himself. “Shit. If we’re going to have a repeat of what went down in Van last year…”


file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/de%20Lint,%20Charles%20-%20Mulengro%20v.1.htm (15 of 319)8-12-2006 23:49:09
 MULENGRO


Briggs nodded. He remembered now. Gypsies were rarely involved with serious crimes of a violent
nature, but last year something had set off a rampage of infighting between two Vancouver families that
had ended in a minor riot in Gastown, leaving three men dead and another half-dozen or so in the
hospital. If he remembered correctly, by the time it all blew over, the Vancouver police never did piece
any of it together. The Gypsies issued dozens of conflicting statements and none of the parties involved
were willing to lay charges against each other. Without one piece of hard evidence, even concerning the
deaths, the police had been helpless to bring anything more serious to court than creating a nuisance and
disorderly public conduct. He could just imagine how the detective in charge of that case must have felt.

“There’s another possibility,” Will said.

“What’s that?”

“Could be these Gypsies are homing in on some of the Syndicate’s rackets. Or maybe the Mob’s
pushing them out of Montreal or Toronto and they’re looking for a new base. We should check into
that.”

Briggs regarded his partner with interest. “Are you just whatifing still,” he asked, “or’ve you heard some
noises in that direction?”

“Whatifing. I’m going to phone Gaston over in Hull. Maybe try a few contacts in T.O.”

“You might try Montreal, too,” Briggs added. “Dan Sullivan’s still working the Main and he owes us
one for the connection we made with Coletti’s people last winter. He built himself a nice little case out
of what we gave him.”

“Will do. You going to give me a hand?”

Briggs indicated the thick stack of unsolved cases that they were still working on. “I’m going to take a
stab at a few of these,” he said. “But call me if you need me.”

He carried the files over to his own desk and sat down. Filling his pipe, he drew out the photograph of
the symbol scratched into the dirt beside Woods’ head and stared at it, troubled. Ritual. Murder. Just
what kind of rituals did Gypsies have? He thought about fog and panthers and a man in black and
frowned. Sighing, he shoved the photo back into its file and tried to concentrate on one of the other
cases.