"Beijing Craps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

To his surprise, however, his door was half-an-inch ajar. He hesitated, then pushed it wide. The room appeared to be empty, but you never knew. There were plenty of scumbags who followed gamblers back to their hotel rooms, and forcibly relieved them of their winnings.

'Anybody there?' he called, stepping into the room. The bed was made, and there was no utility cart around, so it couldn't have been the maids. Maybe the door had been left open by accident. He went over to the bureau and tugged open the drawers. His gold cufflinks were still there; so was his Gucci ballpen and five hundred dollars in small bills.

He was just about to turn around and close the door, however, when he heard it softly click shut by itself. A voice said, 'Freeze, buddy. Stay right where you are.'

He stood up straight. In the mirror on top of the bureau, he saw a young man step out from behind the drapes, holding a handgun, .32 by the look of it, although Jack didn't know much about guns.

'Looking for some loose change?' the young man asked him.

'Maybe I should ask you the same question,' Jack replied. The young man came around and faced him. He was pale and thin-faced and haggard, and he was dressed in worn-out denims.

'I'm not looking for trouble,' he told Jack. 'Maybe you should turn around and walk back out of that door and we'll forget the whole thing.'

'I'm not going anyplace,' Jack retorted. 'This is my room.'

'Unh-hunh,' the young man grinned. 'I know whose room this is. This is Mr Druce's room, and you sure as hell aren't Mr Druce.'

'Of course I'm Mr Druce. Who do you think I am?'

'Don't kid me,' the young man told him, raising his pistol higher. 'Mr Druce just happens to be my father; and there's no way that you're my father, buddy.'

Jack stared at him. 'Mr Druce is your father?'

The young man nodded. 'You sound like you know him.'

'Know him? I am him.'

'Are you out of your tree or what?' the young man demanded. 'You're not much older than me. How the hell can you be my father?'

'How the hell can you be my son?' Jack retorted. 'My son is three years old.'

'Oh, yes? Well, that's very interesting. But right now, I think you'd better vamos, don't you, before Mr Druce gets back and finds you here.'

Jack said, 'Listen, I think we've gotten our lines crossed here. You must be looking for the wrong Mr Druce. I'm Jack Druce, this is my room, and there's no way in the world you can be my son, because look -'

Jack reached inside his suit for his wallet, and his Kodak photograph of Roddy by the pool. But the young man instantly cocked his handgun and tensed up, and said, "Freeze! Freeze! Keep your hands where I can see them!'

'But if I showed you -' Jack began.

The young man screamed 'Freeze!' at him, and fired. The bullet hit Jack in the right side of his head, and burst out through the back of his skull. Blood and brains were thrown against the yellow flock wallpaper.

Jack thought, He's killed me. I can't believe it. The punk's gone and killed me. He opened and closed his mouth, and then his knees folded up under him and he collapsed on to the floor.

The hotel dwindled away from him like a lighted television picture falling down an endless elevator shaft. Until it winked out.

Shaking, the young man hunkered down beside him, and reached into his blood-spattered coat for his wallet. He flicked through it. Over ten thousand dollars in thousand-dollar bills. Jesus. This guy must've made some killing.

He found a creased Kodak photograph of a small boy next to a swimming pool. He stared at it for a long time. For some inexplicable reason, he found it disturbingly familiar. Must be the guy's son. It was weird, the way that he'd kept on insisting that his name was Jack Druce.