Death Trick - Stevenson Richard (читаем книги онлайн бесплатно без регистрации txt) 📗

He thought about it. Then: "No—I can't remember. Actually I was a little high, and I don't think I was noticing much of anything except Steve. I remember we sat in his car in the parking lot and kissed and messed around a little before we left. I suppose there were some people coming and going, but I don't remember who. Nobody hassled us, I know that."

"Then you wouldn't have noticed if another car had followed you?"

"Well, I supposed there wouldn't have been much traffic that time of night, but—no. I didn't. Jesus, do you think one did?"

"Yeah, I do. Do you remember seeing a big, new gold-colored car in the parking lot when you and Kleckner went out?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I just can't remember. Whose car would that have been?"

"Frank Zimka's—a friend of Frank Zimka's car. With Zimka in it."

"Frank? I don't think Frank was out that night. No, he wasn't. I saw him in the morning. I went there—after it

happened. Or did he tell you that? I suppose he did. You seem to have a knack for getting people to tell you things they're not supposed to repeat." I lowered my head contritely. "I owe Frank money," Blount said, "for the plane fare. Chris has part of it. She'll mail it to Frank when she gets back to Albany. So it won't have a Denver postmark."

"Kurt taught you that?"

"That one I figured out for myself."

"What did you and Kleckner talk about during the ride to his apartment? It would have taken fifteen minutes or so. Did Steve mention that he'd been depressed over the past few weeks? His friends say he had been."

"You know, as a matter of fact, he did mention that. He said he'd been down and I'd helped him climb out of it—that made me feel good—and he said he wasn't depressed anymore. Just older and wiser."

"Why? What did he know that he hadn't known before?"

"He didn't say. I might have asked him—I probably did. But he just said something about the ways of the world and then dropped it."

"Was he afraid?"

"Of what?"

"Of what he'd learned. Of the person, or people, it concerned."

"No. Not afraid, I wouldn't say. Just sad. Sad when he talked about it, but not sad after and not before. Steve was just feeling too good that night for anything to keep him down."

"So you arrived at Steve's apartment."

"Yes. We went in, and at first we stood in the living room for a long time kissing and groping around. We were both really hot, I remember, but we couldn't seem to quit long enough to make it to the bedroom. You know how that is, right?"

"Right."

"Pretty soon our clothes were off, and we started back toward the bedroom. I remember Steve turned on the radio when we went by it."

"Disco 101?"

"Sure."

Sex music. The year before I'd gone home with someone who'd put on some old Nat Adderley records, and I was so

disoriented I could hardly remember where I was and what I was supposed to do. Though gradually it came back.

"So you made it to the bed. Were the lights on?"

"In the living room, a lamp, I think. There was some light coming into the bedroom from that. And in the bedroom, a blue light on the ceiling. I remember the blue light—at one point when Steve was groping around beside the bed for the grease, he reached up and pulled the light string with his toes. And then he left the light on. A very dim blue light. It was nice— Steve was nice—the whole thing was—" It hit him. He covered his face with his hands and silently shook.

I waited.

After a time he looked at me and said quietly, "You know, I haven't had sex with anybody since that night. I sleep with Kurt, and sometimes he holds me, but—" He shrugged. Tears slid down his cheeks.

I said, "Look—Billy—we could wait until tomorrow to do this. But it'll be better for you, I think, if we get it done now."

He wiped his face with his bath towel. "I know," he said. "Let's get it over with. I want to get this over with." He tossed the towel away, then sat with his face leaning against his open hand, his palm covering one dark eye.

I said, "There's a ground-level window beside that bed. Do you remember it?"

"Yeah. I do. I remember the breeze on my ass and my shoulders. It was a warm night, but by then I guess it had cooled off. I remember the window."

"There's a shade on the window. Was it up or down?"

"It was—the shade was down, but it was flapping against the windowsill—or the screen, I think there was a screen—and sometime, I'm not sure when, Steve reached over and put the shade up so that it wouldn't flap." His face went white. "Christ! Do you think somebody was—?"

I said, "Yes, I think someone was a few feet away from you and Steve, in the alleyway, watching and listening. And probably waiting."

Blount was breathing heavily now, angry, embarrassed, experiencing the fright and rage he'd have felt that night if he had known.

"After sex, then, you lay together for a time?"

"For a while. I don't know how long. He—Steve's head was on my chest. Yes, and then he fell asleep. I remember I had to move him off me when I went to the bathroom. I can't sleep, see, until I take a shower after sex. It's weird, I know, but—God, somebody was out there! All that time. Jesus!" "How long were you in the shower?" "A long time, probably. I do that. Then I sleep like a rock." "You were planning to stay, to sleep with Steve?" "Sure. I didn't have to work the next day. Of course." "After your shower you came back into the bedroom." He looked away, breathing hard again, and I could see him girding himself.

"Yeah. I came back then. I was starting to get back in bed when I saw it—the blood." There were beads of sweat on his forehead, and he blinked and repeatedly choked back the emotion as he described it.

"The sheet was up over Steve—I'd pulled the sheet over him because of the cool breeze when I'd gone into the bathroom, and it was still there when I got back. But the sheet was wet— soaking wet. All over his chest I could see this wetness, purplish in the blue light. At first I couldn't figure it out—I was dog tired, and I was still a little high. I thought, crap, what'd we spill, what is this stuff?

"Then I touched it, and somehow I knew right away it was blood, and I thought, oh shit, one of us has screwed up his rectum in some dumb way. But I thought it couldn't have been me, I'd just been in the shower and I was fine, and then it hit me all at once.

"I yanked the sheet away, and there it was—all this blood oozing out of Steve's chest. I got dizzy and I thought I was going to pass out. I just kept saying Steve, Steve, Steve, and I leaned down and I touched his face and shook his head, but all the time I was doing it, I could see he wasn't moving or breathing, and I knew he was dead.

"Then I just stood there looking at him. For a minute, maybe, or five, I don't really know how long, I stood there thinking what is this? What happened? I looked around the room, and it was the same as when I left it, except blood was coming out of Steve's chest, and he was dead.

"Then I guess I thought no, he can't be dead, and I started thinking a little, and I felt for his pulse. I felt his wrist, and under his jaw, and I couldn't find a pulse, and I was starting to feel his groin when I smelled it. The shit—Steve had shit himself. I almost passed out again. I sat down on the floor, and then—there was the knife. Whoever had done it had dropped the knife, and it was right there, wet and purplish in the blue light."