"David Eddings - Losers, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

"You dirty little son of a bitch!" a harsh voice rasped from the porch of the house directly across the street from Raphael's apartment. A small, wizened man stumbled down the steps from the porch and staggered out to the sidewalk. "You come back here or I'll kick the shit outta ya!"

The boy began to run.

"Goddamn little bastard!" the small man roared in a huge voice. He started to run after the boy, but after a couple dozen steps he staggered again and fell down. Raphael stood grinding his teeth in frustrated anger as he watched the boy disappear around the corner.

The small man lay helplessly on the sidewalk, bellowing drunken obscenities in his huge rasping voice.

After several minutes the wizened little man regained his feet and staggered over to where Raphael stood. "I'm sorry, old buddy," he said in his foghorn voice. "I'da caught the little bastard for ya, but I'm just too goddamn drunk."

"It's all right," Raphael said, still trying to control the helpless fury he felt.

"I seen the little sumbitch around here before," the small man said, weaving back and forth. "He's always creepin' up an' down the alleys, lookin' to steal stuff. I'll lay fer 'im-catch 'im one day an' stomp the piss outta the little shit." The small man's face was brown and wrinkled, and there was dirt ingrained in the wrinkles. He had a large, purplish wen on one cheek and a sparse, straggly mustache, pale red-although his short-cropped hair was brown. His eyes had long since gone beyond bloodshot, and his entire body exuded an almost overpoweringly acrid reek of stale wine. His clothes were filthy, and his fly was unzipped. In many ways he resembled a very dirty, very drunk banty rooster.

"Them was your groceries, wasn't they?" the small man demanded.

Raphael drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He realized that he was trembling, and that angered him even more. "It doesn't matter," he said, even though it did.

"Was that the last of your money?"

"No."

"I got a idea. I'll go get my truck, an' we'll go look fer that little bastard."

Raphael shook his head. "I think it's too late. We'd never catch him now."

The little man swore.

"I'll have to go back to the store, I guess."

"I'll take you in my truck, an' me'n Sam'll take your groceries upstairs for ya."

"You don't have to do that."

"I know I don't hafta." The little man's voice was almost pugnacious. "I wanna do it. You come along with me." He grabbed at Raphael's arm, almost jerking him off balance. "We're neighbors, goddammit, an' neighbors oughta help each other out."

At that moment Raphael would have preferred to have been alone. He felt soiled-even ashamed-as a result of the theft, but there was no withstanding the drunken little man's belligerent hospitality. Almost helplessly he allowed himself to be drawn into the ramshackle house across the street.

"My name's Tobe Benson," the small man said as they went up on the creaking porch.

"Rafe Taylor."

They went inside and were met by a furnace blast of heat. The inside of the house was unbelievably filthy. Battered furniture sat in the small, linoleum-floored living room, and the stale wine reek was overwhelming. They went on through to the dining room, which seemed to be the central living area of the house. An old iron heating stove shimmered off heat that seemed nearly solid. The floor was sticky with spilled wine and food, and a yellow dog lay under the table, gnawing on a raw bone. Other bones lay in the corners of the room, the meat clinging to them black with age.

A large gray-haired man sat at the table with a bottle of wine in front of him. He wore dirty bib overalls and a stupefied expression. He looked up, smiling vaguely through his smudged glasses.

"That there's Sam," Tobe said in his foghorn voice. "Sam, this here's Rafe. Lives across the street. Some little punk bastard just stole all his groceries. It's a goddamn shame when a poor crippled fella like Rafe here ain't safe from all the goddamn little thieves in this town."

The man in the overalls smiled stupidly at Raphael, his eyes unfocused. "Hi, buddy," he said, his voice tiny and squeaking.