"Long, Laird - Good Eats" - читать интересную книгу автора (Long Laird)

= "Good Eats"
by Laird Long


"Open it!"

The little jeweler stared at Morgan, terrified. His eyes poured tears onto the floor. His emaciated body trembled spasmodically with fright. Morgan pointed the big gun at the jeweler's cadaverous head and hissed, "Open the goddamn case."

They stood looking at each other for ten long, torturous seconds - a game of eyeball chicken that had no place in what was supposed to be a jab and grab armed robbery. Suddenly, the jeweler's bony, quivering face settled into place, like concrete. His expression became hard--defiant.

"What the hell's going on?" Annie shouted in a tight voice from her post at the door. She shifted her gaze nervously between the street outside and the men inside. "Why isn't the little bugger opening the display cases!" Her shrill voice quickly sank into the warm sunlight and disappeared.

The gun stayed steady. The jeweler's liquid eyes stayed steady. The jeweler had been robbed three times in the past two years. Brutally beaten, the last time. He had been driven out of his old store in the old neighborhood by the convulsing and darkening inner-city landscape. Two weeks ago, he'd been diagnosed with throat cancer and given six months.

The jeweler shrugged his puny shoulders. His mouth twitched and he gasped, "Sorry." He reached under the counter and pressed the alarm button. Morgan shot him point-blank in the chest. The frail body hit the wall, then fell to the floor and found a final resting place on the dirty carpet. Blood speckled the display cases. The jewels winked seductively under the harsh fluorescent light.

The 'whoop, whoop' of the alarm was deafening. A bolt shot into place on the front door, like a prison cell slamming shut. Annie rattled the door. Locked. "We can't get out!" she screamed.

Morgan smashed the front of the glass display cases with the butt of his gun. He shoveled diamonds onto the floor with a sweep of his arm. "Grab what you can!" he called to Annie.

Annie ran towards him. She lost her footing on the gem-laden floor and pitched forward. She banged her head with a thud, then sat up, groggy. A bullet tore through the store-front window and buried into the plaster just above Annie's head. She giggled stupidly as the dust fell on her like rain.

Morgan yelled: "Cops!"

He fired a shot out the window, spun around, pulled Annie off the floor, and ran for the back door. The window exploded with gunfire behind them. They raced down a narrow, dirty corridor and barreled through the emergency exit door. They charged down a sun-drenched alley and ran free.

* * *

"Why'd you have to kill him?" Annie asked, for the third time.

Morgan groaned. He pushed a thin, pale hand through his greasy black hair. He picked up a paper cup and swallowed the bitter dregs of cold coffee. He didn't bother answering. He knew that there were no answers. And on top of that, the whole robbery had been for nothing.

"We gotta get outta here in the morning," he said.

Annie nodded her head. "I don't like this place, anyway," she said, a frown flowering on her face. She was nineteen and pretty--she wanted excitement and she got it. She slid off the narrow metal bed and tip-toed up behind Morgan. He was sitting in a wooden chair, looking out the window and picking at a scab on the side of his pock-marked face. She wrapped her arms around his scrawny neck and pressed her warm face against his.

"I love you, you know," she whispered.

Morgan felt the cold lump in his guts thaw ever so slightly. He patted her arm reassuringly. "Sure," he said. At forty-five years old, most of that behind bars, he was damn lucky to have anyone say something like that to him.

They had met through a prison pen-pal program. She had written to him as part of her community service. He had written back out of sheer boredom - she was a way to pass the time. They met when he was released. They stuck. Morgan had taken her away from her little town with its little people and shown her the big cities.

Morgan pushed her arms away and stood up. "Here comes Grinder," he said.

They both stared out the dirt-crusted window.

What appeared to be a tub of suet poured into a pair of grease-stained overalls was waddling across the motel parking lot. The fat man sweated hard and heavy under the glaring sun, but he kept a stupid grin pasted to his face. He ambled up to Room Six and knocked loudly on the door.

Morgan split the door open a crack. "Yeah?"