Ли Чайлд - Этаж смерти with W_cat

[ 231 231 Постучав, в кабинет вошел Бейкер. Финлей попросил его отвести меня в камеру. Затем кивнул. Этот жест говорил мне: если выяснится, что ты не тот, кого мы ищем, помни, я просто выполнял свою работу. Я кивнул в ответ. Мой жест говорил: пока ты перестраховываешься, убийца разгуливает на свободе. ] Baker knocked and entered. Finlay told him to escort me to the cells. Then he nodded to me. It was a nod which said: if you turn out not to be the guy, remember I was just doing my job. I nodded back. Mine was a nod which said: while you’re covering your ass, there’s a killer running about outside.

[ 232 232 Отделение для содержания под стражей представляло собой лишь отгороженный угол. Оно было разделено на три отдельные камеры вертикальными прутьями. Передняя стена была из решетки. Вход в каждую камеру через отдельную секцию на петлях. Металл тускло блестел. Чем-то напоминал титан. Во всех камерах на полу ковролин. И больше ничего. Ни табурета, ни топчана. Лишь новая высокобюджетная версия загонов в полицейских участках, которые можно увидеть в старых фильмах. ] THE CELL BLOCK WAS REALLY JUST A WIDE ALCOVE OFF THE main open-plan squad room. It was divided into three separate cells with vertical bars. The front wall was all bars. A gate section hinged into each cell. The metalwork had a fabulous dull glitter. Looked like titanium. Each cell was carpeted. But totally empty. No furniture or bed ledge. Just a high-budget version of the old-fashioned holding pens you used to see.

[ 233 233 — На ночь здесь не оставляют? — спросил я у Бейкера. ] “No overnight accommodation here?” I asked Baker.

[ 234 234 — Нет, — ответил тот. — Вечером вас перевезут в тюрьму штата. Автобус приедет в шесть часов. Привезет вас назад в понедельник. ] “No way,” he replied. “You’ll be moved to the state facility later. Bus comes by at six. Bus brings you back Monday.”

[ 235 235 Захлопнув дверцу, он повернул ключ. Я услышал, как по всей высоте секции щелкнули засовы, входящие в гнезда. Электромагниты. Я достал из кармана газету. Снял пальто и свернул его. Растянулся на полу и подложил пальто под голову. ] He clanged the gate shut and turned his key. I heard bolts socket home all around the rim. Electric. I took the newspaper out of my pocket. Took off my coat and rolled it up. Lay flat on the floor and crammed the coat under my head.

[ 236 236 Вот теперь я точно вляпался. Выходные мне предстоит провести в тюрьме. Не в камере предварительного заключения в полицейском участке. И дело вовсе не в том, что у меня были какие-то планы на предстоящий уик-энд. Просто я хорошо знал, что такое обычная тюрьма. Многие дезертиры рано или поздно попадают в обычные тюрьмы. За какое-то преступление. Правоохранительные органы извещают армию. За дезертирами приезжают военные полицейские. Так что я знал, что такое обычная тюрьма. И перспектива провести в ней два дня не вызывала у меня никакого энтузиазма. Я лежал, раздраженно слушая шум полицейского участка. Звонили телефоны. Стучали клавиатуры. То быстрее, то медленнее. Полицейские приходили и уходили, разговаривая вполголоса. ] Now I was truly pissed off. I was going to prison for the weekend. I wasn’t staying in a station house cell. Not that I had any other plans. But I knew about civilian prisons. A lot of army deserters end up in civilian prisons. For one thing or another. The system notifies the army. Military policeman gets sent to bring them back. So I’d seen civilian prisons. They didn’t make me wild with enthusiasm. I lay angrily listening to the hum of the squad room. Phones rang. Keyboards pattered. The tempo rose and fell. Officers moved about, talking low.

[ 237] Then I tried to finish reading the borrowed newspaper. It was full of shit about the president and his campaign to get himself elected again for a second term. The old guy was down in Pensacola on the Gulf Coast. He was aiming to get the budget balanced before his grandchildren’s hair turned white. He was cutting things like a guy with a machete blasting his way through the jungle. Down in Pensacola, he was sticking it to the Coast Guard. They’d been running an initiative for the last twelve months. They’d been out in force like a curved shield off Florida’s coast every day for a year, boarding and searching all the marine traffic they didn’t like the smell of. It had been announced with an enormous fanfare. And it had been successful beyond their wildest dreams. They’d seized all kinds of stuff. Drugs, mostly, but guns as well, illegal migrants from Haiti and Cuba. The interdiction was reducing crime all over the States months later and thousands of miles further down the line. A big success.

So it was being abandoned. It was very expensive to run. The Coast Guard’s budget was into serious deficit. The president said he couldn’t increase it. In fact, he’d have to cut it. The economy was in a mess. Nothing else he could do. So the interdiction initiative would be canceled in seven days’ time. The president was trying to come across like a statesman. Law enforcement big shots were angry, because they figured prevention was better than cure. Washington insiders were happy, because fifty cents spent on beat cops was much more visible than two bucks spent out on the ocean two thousand miles away from the voters. The arguments flew back and forth. And in the smudgy photographs, the president was just beaming away like a statesman saying there was nothing he could do. I stopped reading, because it was just making me angrier.

[ 238] To calm down, I ran music through my head. The chorus in “Smokestack Lightning.” The Howling Wolf version puts a wonderful strangled cry on the end of the first line. They say you need to ride the rails for a while to understand the traveling blues. They’re wrong. To understand the traveling blues you need to be locked down somewhere. In a cell. Or in the army. Someplace where you’re caged. Someplace where smokestack lightning looks like a faraway beacon of impossible freedom. I lay there with my coat as a pillow and listened to the music in my head. At the end of the third chorus, I fell asleep.

[ 239] I WOKE UP AGAIN WHEN BAKER STARTED KICKING THE BARS. They made a dull ringing sound. Like a funeral bell. Baker stood there with Finlay. They looked down at me. I stayed on the floor. I was comfortable down there.