"Let's All Kill Constance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray Douglas)

CHAPTER FIVE

LATER I moved along the dusty path through the jungle trees and the wild azalea bushes carrying two six-packs. I knocked on Crumley's carved African front door and waited. I knocked again. Silence. I set one six-pack of beer against the door and backed off.

After eight or nine long breaths, the door opened just enough to let a nicotine-stained hand grab the beer and pull it in. The door shut.

"Crumley," I yelled. I ran up to the door.

"Go away," said a voice from inside.

"Crumley, it's the Crazy. Let me in!"

"No way," said Crumley's voice, liquid now, for he had opened the first beer. "Your wife called."

"Damn!" I whispered.

Crumley swallowed. "She said that every time she leaves town, you fall off the pier in deep guano, or karate-chop a team of lesbian midgets."

"She didn't say that!"

"Look, Willie"-for Shakespeare-"I'm an old man and can't take those graveyard carousels and crocodile men snor-keling the canals at midnight. Drop that other six-pack. Thank God for your wife."

"Damn," I murmured.

"She said she'll come home early if you don't cease and desist."

"She would, too," I muttered.

"Nothing like a wife coming home early to spoil the chaos. Wait." He took a swallow. "You're okay, William, but no thanks."

I set the other six-pack down and put the 1900 telephone book and Rattigan's private phone book on top, and backed off.

After a long while that hand emerged again, touched Braille-wise over the books, knocked them off, and grabbed the beer. I waited. Finally the door reopened. The hand, curious, fumbled the books and snatched them in.

"Good!" I cried.

Good! I thought. In one hour, by God… he'll call!