Mystic River / Таинственная река. Деннис ЛихэйнЧитать онлайн книгу.
do you mean? We'll do it. It'll be fun. So cool. Remember?”
“So cool,” Dave said. “Yeah!”
For a moment, Sean had even forgotten Dave was there. That happened a lot with Dave. Sean didn't know why.
“No. Come on.” Sean shook his head.
Jimmy's smile died. He looked at Sean angrily. “Why won't you just do something for fun. Huh?”
Dave looked at Jimmy, then turned and suddenly hit Sean in the shoulder. “Yeah, how come you don't want to do fun things?”
Sean had no idea how this had happened. Later he couldn't even remember what had made Jimmy mad or why Dave had hit him. Sean just couldn't believe Dave had hit him. Dave? He pushed Dave in the chest, and Dave sat down.
At that moment Jimmy pushed Sean. “What the hell[7] are you doing?”
Now they were in the middle of the street and Jimmy was pushing him, his eyes black and small, and Dave was starting to join in.
Jimmy was about to[8] push him again when he stopped and looked past Sean at something coming up the street.
It was a long dark brown car, like the kind police detectives drove. It stopped by their legs, and the two cops looked through the windshield at them. The driver got out. He looked like a cop – blond short hair, red face, white shirt, black-and-gold tie, his big belly hanging over his belt. The other one looked sick. He was skinny and tired-looking and stayed in his seat, staring into the side-view mirror as the three boys came near the driver's door.
The big man beckoned them with his finger until they stood in front of him. “Let me ask you something, okay?” He bent down. “You guys think it's okay to fight in the middle of the street?”
Sean noticed a gold badge on the big man's belt.
“No, sir.”
“You're punks, huh? That's what you are?” He pointed at the man in the passenger seat. “Me and my partner, we've had enough of you punks scaring people off the street. You know?”
Sean and Jimmy didn't say anything.
“We're sorry,” Dave Boyle said, and looked like he was about to cry.
“You kids from this street?” the big cop asked. His eyes scanned the homes on the left side of the street.
“Yes,” Jimmy said, and looked back at Sean's house.
“Yes, sir,” Sean said.
Dave didn't say anything.
The cop looked down at him. “Huh? You say something, kid?”
“What?” Dave looked at Jimmy.
“Don't look at him. Look at me. You live here, kid?”
“No.”
“No?” The cop bent over Dave. “Where you live, son?”
“In the Flats.”
“Your mother's home?”
“Yes, sir.” A tear fell down Dave's cheek and Sean and Jimmy looked away.
“Well, we're going to have a talk with her, tell her what her punk kid has been doing.”
“I don't… I don't…” Dave whispered.
“Get in.” The cop opened the back door of the car, and Sean thought the car interior smelled of apples. An autumn smell.
Dave looked at Jimmy.
“Get in,” the cop said. “Or you want me to put the cuffs on you?”
Dave climbed into the backseat, crying.
The cop pointed a finger at Jimmy and Sean. “And don't let me catch you on my streets again.”
Jimmy and Sean stepped back as the cop got in his car and drove off. They watched the car turn right at the corner, Dave looking back at them. And then the street was empty again.
Jimmy and Sean stood where the car had been, looking at their feet, up and down the street, anywhere, but not at each other.
Then Jimmy said, “You started it.”
“I didn't start it. He started it.”
“You did. Now he's screwed.[9] You know his mom is nuts!”
Jimmy pushed him, and Sean pushed back. This time they were on the ground, rolling around, punching each other.
“Hey!”
Sean got off Jimmy and they both stood up, expecting to see the two cops again but it was Mr. Devine instead, coming toward them.
“What the hell you two are doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Get out of the middle of the street.” Sean's father frowned as he looked up and down the street. “Weren't there three of you? Where's Dave? Wasn't he with you?”
“We were fighting in the street and the cops came…”
“When was this?”
“Like[10] five minutes ago.”
“Okay. So, the cops came and..?”
“And they took Dave.”
Sean's father looked up and down the street again. “They what? They took him away?”
“Took him home. I lied and said I lived here, but Dave said he lived in the Flats, and they…”
“What are you talking about? Sean, what did the cops look like? Were they wearing uniforms?”
“No. No, they…”
“Then how did you know they were cops?”
“One had a gold badge,” Jimmy said. “On his belt.”
“Okay. But what did it say on it?”
“I don't know.”
“Billy?”
They all turned and looked at Sean's mother, standing on the porch, her face curious.
“Hey, honey, call the police station, all right? See if any detectives picked up a kid for fighting on this street.”
“What kid?”
“Dave Boyle.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Let's just see what the police say. Right?”
Sean's mother went back inside. Sean looked at his father. He didn't seem to know where to put his hands. He put them in his pockets, then he pulled them out.
“It was brown,” Jimmy said. “The car was dark brown.”
“Anything else?”
Sean tried to picture it too, but he couldn't.
“It smelled like apples,” he finally said. “The car smelled like apples.”
An hour later, in Sean's kitchen, two other cops asked Sean and Jimmy questions, and then a third guy came and drew sketches of the men in the brown car based on what Jimmy and Sean told them. The big blond cop looked meaner on the picture, his face even bigger, but otherwise it was him. The second guy, the one who'd kept his eyes on the side-view mirror, didn't look like anything at all because Sean and Jimmy couldn't remember him well.
Jimmy's father arrived and stood in the corner of the kitchen looking mad. He didn't speak to Sean's father, and no one spoke to him. He seemed smaller to Sean, less real.
After they'd repeated their story four or five times, everyone left – the cops, Jimmy and his father. Sean's mother went into her bedroom and shut the door, and Sean could hear her crying a few minutes later.
He sat outside on
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