"Hansen, Michael - Sleeping Hornet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hansen Michael)

Sleeping Hornet
by Michael Hansen

Joel's rattling on a mile a minute as they walk down the street, his round face as fierce as if he knew what he was talking about. "What you gotta remember is, you need fire power. I mean, when you first come through the door, you gotta show them you mean business right off, you know?" Ray nods without listening, not looking at his be-bopping partner; he's busy continually scanning their surroundings. They're in a run down residential area dominated by dilapidated houses and an endless procession of rusting seventies gas-guzzlers hibernating at the curb. Their own dinosaur of an Impala fits in perfectly, parked half a block behind them.

Guns. Hardware. Joel was good enough when the chips were down, he'd never snitch you off or leave you in the lurch, but he was in love with his own voice. Joel especially loved to talk about weaponry; he could go on for hours. When he ran off at the mouth like this, Ray had learned to just keep his mouth shut and nod occasionally like he was listening. That way Joel thought he had an attentive audience, Ray didn't have to make conversation, and everyone was happy.

"There's the Baron's house," Joel says loudly, pointing with one stubby finger at a chalk-pale green bungalow two houses down. Ray winces inwardly, no expression marring his pale hatchet of a face: anyone tailing them would see what Joel was pointing at, maybe figure out their next move.

The tiny cottage is set back from the street behind a dead yellow lawn; it needs a coat of paint, badly. The warped gate in the low chain link fence squeals as Joel pushes it in and leads the way up the short concrete walk. Ray follows him close as his shadow, deliberately slumping his bulky shoulders in old habit, changing his body outline for potential witnesses. He can hear Lynyrd Skynrd playing softly somewhere inside the house. As they mount the postage stamp sized porch, Ray sees someone twitch back a curtain at a window next to the door; the music switches off. Ray pretends not to notice the unseen scrutiny.
Someone inside quietly pulls the door open a little, and a man stands in the narrow opening blocking Ray's view of what lies inside. His gray, thinning hair is drawn back into a pony tail. He's shirtless, exposing the physique of a tanned gymnast, with no body fat whatsoever to blur his rippling bronzed muscles; he's covered in crude jail house tattoos. From the shoulders up he is a much older man, however: the bones of his skull lie close to the surface, barely concealed by the tight-drawn seamed leather skin of his face, a face that reveals nothing as he stares at them flatly; the whites of his eyes are yellowed.

"I thought you were coming alone," he says, speaking to Joel but looking dead at Ray.

Joel shuffles forward, nodding his head and grinning. Ray is reminded of one of those porcelain dogs nodding their spring loaded empty heads on the dashboard of a car. "It's cool, Baron, my friend's cool," Joel says. "I had to bring him man, -- "

Ray leans past Joel to interrupt. "The money's mine," he says, staring right back at the Baron. "I don't front."

The older man breaks eye contact and looks beyond Ray at the street. He smiles emptily as he steps back out of their way. "Not on the porch, guys. C'mon inside." The Baron's trying to sound friendly.

Joel steps past the Baron, and Ray follows; the Baron shuts the door behind them and bolts it. They're in what passes for a living room: a tiny cubicle littered with Harley parts and filled to overflowing with mismatched furniture. It's dim after the bright sunshine outside, and Ray blinks a few times as he looks around, letting his eyes get used to the gloom. Something stinks, faintly; there's a rancid odor that wasn't apparent out on the porch, as if they'd penetrated an invisible membrane when they crossed the threshold. Ray's no stranger to bad odors, but he can't quite put his finger on this one.

The Baron gestures them to a couch sagging against the far wall and they sit. Ray perches on his haunches at the edge of the couch cushion, Joel squirms to get comfortable on the other end. The Baron sits on a tall bar stool by the front door opposite them. Ray notices a long bundle wrapped in a wool blanket lying on the floor behind the Baron.

"Your friend says you need something automatic," the Baron says, speaking directly to Ray this time.

Ray nods. "Joel told me you maybe got a Thompson." Joel has the sense to say nothing.

"I do." The Baron stoops and reaches down to pick up the bundle. He hefts it a few times, then folds back one corner of the blanket; the end of a gun barrel peeks out, all blue and shiny. Then, like a strip tease, the Baron slowly peels back the blanket and lets it drop to the floor, revealing the bluntly functional shape of a Thompson submachine gun; it's the good kind, with the old-fashioned fat disk drum magazine hanging down from the action like in an old gangster movie.

"You got the money?" the Baron asks. Ray pulls the wad of bills from his pocket and sets it on the end table next to him. Ray doesn't take his eyes off of the Tommy gun; the Baron isn't pointing it at anyone, and his finger isn't even inside the trigger guard, but Ray squats tensely at the edge of his seat, ready to jump if this is a rip-off.

The Baron doesn't try anything, though: he only stands and brings the Tommy gun over for Ray's inspection. Ray takes it with reverent hands and lays it across his lap; it's heavier than he expected. He detaches the drum magazine and inspects the gun thoroughly, trying not to grimace in disgust. The Tommy gun's filthy, and rusted in places, but fortunately the rust is all only on the surface. It'll take him hours with a toothbrush and about a gallon of cleaning solvent, but he can get it clean again.

Joel and the Baron are making chit-chat, small talk, but Ray doesn't listen. He looks down the barrel: the lands and grooves are half worn away. He figures that's no problem: Tommy guns were never known for accuracy, and in the close quarters of the drug houses he'd be working, he couldn't miss if he tried.

Finally, the full automatic sear, the tiny piece of metal that determined if the Thompson was truly a machine gun. Ray breaks the gun down to reveal the firing mechanism. He works the fire selector control on the side while he looks down into the complex mechanical guts of the Thompson. He swivels the selector from 'Safe' to 'Semi' to 'Auto,' watching the sear. Sure enough, it was a full automatic; the Baron wasn't trying to sell him a "machine gun" that could only fire one round at a time.

Ray leans the gun next to him against the couch and picks up the heavy drum magazine.

He looks down into the well opening on top and his eyes open in disbelief: the magazine is loaded, that's why it weighs so much. He glances up at the Baron, still making small talk with Joel. Ray shrugs after a moment, his face not changing expression after his initial surprise. If the Baron is stupid enough to sell a loaded weapon, that's his lookout; he's just lucky Ray is honest.

He continues his inspection of the loaded magazine: the blunt copper tipped .45 rounds lie next to each other like sleeping hornets, disappearing from view beneath the edge of the opening. Ray pushes gently with his thumb, and the rounds slide over, with a creaking metallic sigh; they return when he releases pressure. The magazine spring was good, then.

The Thompson was a beat up old veteran, but there was still some life in it. All it needed was some TLC from an expert. And Ray was just the guy.

He looks at the Baron. "Okay," Ray says, picking up the wad of bills and handing them over to him. Ray picks up the blanket from the floor and wraps up the tommy gun as the Baron counts his cash.

"All there," the Baron grunts in satisfaction. "This calls for a peace pipe." He looks toward a dark doorway on Joel's end of the couch, leading into the further depths of the house, and calls out hoarsely, "Deb!"