"Ellison, Harlan - Objects Of Desire (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

"And anything else?"

"No'mum. I'm sorry."

"That's all. right, Richard. Now I want you to go and get me the big knife, and
bring it right straight back to this room, and give it to me. I'll have one of
the officers go with you."

"Yes'm."

I called for Napoli, and told him to take Richard out to the common room, to
retrieve "the big knife." As they started for the door of the smelly little
room, Richard turned back to me and started to say, "You gonna take..."

And I stopped him. "No, Richard, no I'm not going to take back those nice shiny
new shoes. They look very comfortable, and they're yours. In exchange for the
big knife."

He smiled weakly, like a child who knows he's done wrong, is truly abject about
it, but is grateful for being let off with just a reprimand.

When he came back, Napoli was carrying "the big knife." I'd expected a
grav-knife or a butterfly, something street standard. This was a rusty machete.
A big, wide-bladed, cut-down-the-sugar-cane machete. The blood that was dried on
the blade, all the way up to the handle, was -- for certain -- some of the same
that had been, until recently, billeted in the carotid artery of that old man.

I took the machete gingerly. Napoli had tied a string around the base of the
haft, to preserve Richard's-- and any others' -- prints. I lowered the killing
weapon to the table using only the string noose. Then I went back to questioning
Richard.

He'd thought he could sell it for some sneaky pete. That's all there was to it.
The shoes, because he needed them; and the knife, because it had been left lying
there next to the body.

He tried to tell me the story a dozen different ways, but it was always the
same. Taking a leak, seeing the green light, running away, coming back and
taking the old man's shoes (and socks, as it turned out), swiping the machete
while the three women bawled and screamed. And he went on. For some long while.
I gave him a five dollar bill, and told him to get a good dinner over at The
Pantry. I'm not ready for this line of work. It's only eleven years; I'm not
ready.

DAYS OR WEEKS or millennia later, or maybe it only seemed as quick as that, I
was back at the Precinct. I turned the big knife over to Forensics. My feet
hurt, and there was a patina of Post-Its all over my desk...and faxes...and
memos enough to choke a Coke machine. But the only urgent one was from the M.E.
So I handed all the others off to Napoli, and told him to get them squared away,