Dead Men's s Boots — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

I just left it there, sprawled on the landing like something huge and unwanted left out for the dustman.

Maynard Todd’s office was on the next turn of the stairs. I knew it when I saw the light already on. I didn’t see anything was particularly to be gained by subtlety: my fight with Scrub had made enough noise to wake the dead, assuming there were any more of them around, so anybody in there knew I was coming. I could always turn and walk away, but that didn’t seem like an option. So I pushed the door wide and went on in.

Todd was sitting at his desk, the chair tilted back slightly so that he could lean on the shelves behind him. The gun in his hand was pointing at my chest, and his posture Ónd atwas completely relaxed.

‘Mister Castor,’ he said, pushing the chair on the client side of the desk out towards me with his foot. ‘How is it that you can never rely on religious cultists even to get a simple murder right? Take away their pentagrams and their mystic sigils, they’re like little kids. I was very disappointed to hear that you’d survived your little trip to Alabama. But I try to treat every setback as an opportunity. Come on in and sit down.’

I walked on into the room, but I didn’t take the chair: so long as I was standing, there was a chance I might get the drop on him at some point. Sitting down I was dead meat.

‘Working late,’ I commented.

Todd’s gaze flicked towards the corner of the room. Looking in that direction myself, I saw a fold-out bed. ‘I sleep here these days,’ he said, sounding a little flat and resigned. ‘Mrs Todd has filed divorce papers. She says I’m not the man she married. And you know what? She has a point. I asked you to sit down, Mister Castor. A bullet through your kneecap would force the issue.’

I sat down. I wondered why he hadn’t killed me already, if that was the plan. Maybe because he was worried about getting blood on the carpet: if that was it, his night was going to be ruined when he saw what was on the first-floor landing.

‘You’ve come a long way in a short while,’ Todd went on. ‘That’s a tribute to your detective skills.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Except that you’re not a detective.’ Todd’s tone hardened, and he gave me a look of actual dislike. ‘You’re just a man who gets rid of unwanted ghosts. One step up from a backstreet abortionist. What they do at the start of the life cycle, you do at the end. And, like them, you’re just doing it for the money. You don’t have either the brains or the motivation to figure us out.’

I didn’t bother to give him an answer, because he didn’t seem to need one. There was a photo of a beautiful if slightly austere-looking brunette on his desk. I picked it up and inspected it thoughtfully.

‘So who did Mrs Todd marry?’ I asked.

‘An ambulance-chaser with a death wish.’

‘Whereas you . . . ?’

‘I’m nobody you’ve heard of. The way I see it, if a criminal gets a name for himself, it’s because he’s stupid enough to get noticed. But this isn’t a conversation we’re having here, Mister Castor. It may look like one, but that’s only because it’s hard to shake off the veneer of civilisation. I’m a bit out of practice when it comes to actually hurting people. That was a conscious decision on our part – switching over to legitimate enterprises as far as possible – but it’s got its drawbacks. You lose the professional edge.’ He leaned forward, putting the front legs of his chair back on the carpet, and stood up. ‘To tell you the truth,’ he said, coming around the desk, ‘back in Mile End I always preferred a knife to a gun. So I’ll probably start with a knife, if that’s all right with you. Just while I’m easing myself back in. You get more control that way, too. It would annoy me if you bled to death or went into shock before you tell me what I need to know.’

Aha. So that was how it was. I tensed as he approached, looking for a window of opportunity into which I could shove a low blow or a kick to the balls. But hÓhe ha.e stayed carefully out of my reach as he rummaged in his pocket. I expected his hand to come out with a knife in it, but it didn’t: he was holding a sturdy, slightly scuffed pair of police handcuffs. That was worse news, in a way.

‘Pass your hands through the bars of the chair back,’ Todd ordered me.

‘Tell me what you need to know,’ I temporised, meeting his cold, stern gaze. ‘Maybe we can do this the easy way.’

Todd shook his head. ‘The hard way is the way I know,’ he said. ‘And I tend to rely on the product more if I’ve squeezed it out myself, so to speak. Last time of asking, Mister Castor.’

I hesitated. There are ways of slipping out of handcuffs, but it helps if the guy who’s putting them on you is a bit of a dim bulb. Play along, or lose a kneecap? I made the call and did as I was told, not liking it much. Unfortunately, Todd was skilled and careful.