Читать онлайн ""Этаж смерти" with W_cat [Killing Floor-ru]" - Чайлд Ли - RuLit

[500] “Take his watch, Baker,” I said. “He’ll lose it in jail.”

[501] He nodded. He knew what I meant. Guy like Hubble could lose a lot in jail. Baker unlatched the heavy Rolex from Hubble’s wrist. The bracelet wouldn’t slide over the handcuff, so Baker had to fiddle and fuss with taking the handcuff off and putting it back on again. The prison driver cracked the door and glared in. A man with a timetable. Baker dropped Hubble’s watch on the nearest desk. Exactly where my friend Roscoe had put her coffee cup.

[502] “OK, guys, let’s hit the road,” Baker said.

[503] He walked us to the doors. We went out into a dazzling hot bar of sunshine. Handcuffed together. Walking was awkward. Before crossing to the bus, Hubble stopped. He craned his neck and looked around carefully. He was being more vigilant than Baker or the prison driver. Maybe scared of a neighbor seeing him. But there was nobody around. We were three hundred yards north of the town. I could see the church steeple in the distance. We walked over to the bus through the evening warmth. My right cheek tingled in the low sun.

[504] The driver pushed the bus door inward. Hubble shuffled sideways onto the step. I followed him. Made a clumsy turn into the aisle. The bus was empty. The driver directed Hubble into a seat. He slid over the vinyl to the window. I was pulled alongside. The driver knelt on the seat in front and clicked our outer wrists to the chromium hoop which ran across the top. He rattled each of our three cuffs in turn. Wanted to know they were secure. I didn’t blame him. I’ve done that job. Nothing worse than driving with prisoners loose behind you.

[505] The driver walked forward to his seat. He started the engine with a loud diesel clatter. The bus filled with vibration. The air was hot. Stifling. There was no air-conditioning. None of the windows opened. I could smell fuel fumes. The gears clashed and ground and the bus moved off. I glanced out to my right. Nobody waving good-bye.

[506] We drove north out of the police lot, turning our backs on the town, heading up toward the highway. We passed Eno’s diner after a half mile. His lot was empty. Nobody looking for an early dinner. We carried on north for a spell. Then we turned a tight left off the county road and struck out west down a road between fields. The bus settled to a noisy cruise. Endless rows of bushes flicked past. Endless drills of red earth between. Ahead of me the sun was on the way down. It was a giant red ball heading for the fields. The driver had the large sun visor down. On it were printed manufacturer’s instructions about how to operate the bus.

[507] Hubble rocked and bounced beside me. He said nothing. He had slumped down with his face parallel to the floor. His left arm was raised because it was handcuffed to the chrome bar in front of us. His right arm rested inert between us. He still had his expensive sweater draped across his shoulders. Where the Rolex had been was a band of pale skin. The life force had just about drained out of him. He was in the grip of a paralyzing fear.

[508] WE ROCKED AND BOUNCED FOR THE BEST PART OF ANOTHER hour through the huge landscape. A small stand of trees flashed past on my right. Then way in the far distance I saw a structure. It sat alone in a thousand acres of flat farmland. Against the low red sun it looked like a protrusion from hell. Something forced up through the crust of the earth. It was a complex of buildings. Looked like a chemical factory or a nuclear place. Massive concrete bunkers and glittering metal walkways. Tubing running here and there with steam drifting. All surrounded with fencing punctuated by towers. As we drew closer I could see arc lights and razor wire. Searchlights and rifles in the towers. Layers of fences separated with plowed red earth. Hubble didn’t look up. I didn’t nudge him. It wasn’t the Magic Kingdom up ahead.

[509] The bus slowed as we approached. The outermost fence was about a hundred yards out, forming a giant perimeter. It was a substantial fence. Possibly fifteen feet tall, studded along its entire length with pairs of sodium floodlights. One of each pair was trained inward across the hundred-yard breadth of plowed earth. One was trained out over the surrounding farmland. All the floodlights were lit. The whole complex blazed with yellow sodium light. Up close it was very bright. The yellow light turned the red earth to a ghastly tan.

[510] The bus rattled to a halt. The idling engine set up a vibration. What little ventilation there had been ceased. It was stifling. Hubble finally looked up. He peered out through his gold rims. He looked around him and out the window. He groaned. It was a groan of hopeless dejection. He dropped his head.

[511] The driver was waiting for a signal from the first gate guard. The guard was speaking into a radio. The driver blipped the engine and crunched into gear. The guard signaled to him, using his radio as a baton, waving us through. The bus ground forward into a cage. We passed a long low sign at the curb: Warburton Correctional Facility, State of Georgia Department of Corrections. Behind us a gate swung closed. We were sealed in a wire cage. It was roofed with wire. At the far end a gate swung open. The bus ground through.

[512] We drove the hundred yards to the next fence. There was another vehicle cage. The bus went in, waited and drove on out. We drove right into the heart of the prison. We stopped opposite a concrete bunker. The reception area. The engine noise beat against the concrete surrounding us. Then it shut down and the vibration and clatter died away to silence. The driver swung out of his seat and walked up the aisle, stooping, pulling himself like a climber on the seat backs. He pulled out his keys and unlocked the cuffs fixing us to the seat in front.

[513] “OK, boys, let’s go,” he grinned. “Party time.”

[514] We hauled ourselves out of our seat and shuffled down the bus. My left arm was pulled back by Hubble. The driver stopped us at the front. He removed all three sets of handcuffs and dropped them in a bin next to his cab. Hauled on a lever and sprang the door. We got out of the bus. A door opened opposite and a guard stepped out. Called us over. He was eating a donut and spoke with his mouth full. A sugar mustache frosted his lip. He was a pretty casual guy. We went through the door into a small concrete chamber. It was filthy. Deal chairs surrounded a painted table. Another guard sat on the table reading from a battered clipboard.

[515] “Sit down, OK?” he said. We sat. He stood up. His partner with the donut locked the outer door and joined him.

[516] “Here’s the deal,” said the clipboard guy. “You guys are Reacher and Hubble. In from Margrave. Not convicted of any crime. In custody pending investigation. No bail application for either of you. Hear what I say? Not convicted of any crime. That’s the important thing. Excuses you from a lot of shit in here, OK? No uniform, no processing, no big deal, you understand? Nice accommodations on the top floor.”

[517] “Right,” said the donut guy. “Thing is, if you were convicts, we’d be poking and prodding and hitting on you, and you’d get the uniform, and we’d shove you on the convict floors with the other animals and we’d just sit back and watch the fun, right?”

[518] “Right,” his partner said. “So what we’re saying is this. We ain’t here to give you a hard time, so don’t you boys be giving us a hard time neither, you understand? This damn facility ain’t got the manpower. Governor laid off about a half of the staff, OK? Got to meet the budget, right? Got to cut the deficit, right? So we ain’t got the men to do the job the way it ought to be done. Trying to do our job with a half a crew on every shift, right? So what I’m saying is we shove you in there, and we don’t want to see you again until we pull you out on Monday. No hassle, right? We ain’t got the manpower for hassle. We ain’t got the manpower for hassle on the convict floors, let alone hassle on the holding floor, you understand? Yo, Hubble, you understand?”