Читать книгу Tough Cop - John Roeburt - Страница 4

The muscular fellow in the barber chair drew one foot in, then set the other on the shoe-shine box. The shine boy dabbed cream on the toe, then flipped the rag vigorously across the shoe. The closing strains of the “Star-Spangled Banner” emptied into the room, and New York City’s own station went off the air. The shine boy went to the wall radio.

“Off,” the man in the chair ordered. “I can’t hear myself think.”

The barber set his scissors down, and selected a bottle from a shelf.

The patron shook his head. “No tonic, Tony. Just comb it dry.”

Tony worked the comb, pushed an unruly forelock back on the head, completed a few final pats, then held a square mirror to the rear of the patron’s head.

Tony said affectionately, “Like a movie actor, Mr. Devereaux.”

Devereaux grimaced into the large wall mirror. Opaque cheeks and a thin, aquiline nose with a broken bridge grimaced back at him. “Movie actor named Boris Karloff,” he said wryly.

Devereaux got off the chair nimbly, recovered his coat from a wall peg, got into it, and then, before departing, gave the room with the single barber chair a last lingering look.

There were streamers in red, white, and blue strung from the ceiling lights, a mammoth cutout of a face that looked like Mr. Devereaux, and was, and the wall mirrors were soaped with print that said repetitiously, “Good Luck, Johnny Devereaux.”

More than an intimate barbershop, this back room in a celebrated night club was a mirror of the importance of its patrons. Not moneyed importance, but achievement and color, the special and extraordinary color of glamorous people who were actors, columnists, round-the-world fliers, zanies; the famous and the infamous—and topflight detectives. Johnny Devereaux was, or had been, a topflight detective.

“Reads like an epitaph.” Devereaux smiled regretfully. “Hey, I’m not dead. Just retired.”

Tony’s face creased seriously. “Excuse me, Mr. Devereaux. But why you retire?” His eyes shone admiration. “So young. Like a boy yet.”

“A gray-bearded boy,” Devereaux said. “I’m tired of knocking heads together, Tony. Tired of being a tough cop in a world of shills, con men, killers, and plain crooks.” His face clouded slightly. “I used to read good books, improve my mind, a long time ago, Tony. I want to pick up where I left off twenty years ago. I want to pick myself up and start traveling before I run out of time. Understand?”

Tony nodded doubtfully, opened a drawer, then came over with a book and a fountain pen. He uncorked the pen. “You autograph the book, Mr. Devereaux?” he said.

The dust jacket showed a newsreel montage of Manhattan scenes, and the type across it read: Twenty Years a Cop, by Johnny Devereaux.

Devereaux scribbled inside the cover, restored the pen and the book to the barber, then placed a ten-dollar bill on the wall ledge. “Buy a drink on me,” he said fondly. At the door, he gestured at the soaped mirrors. “And hire yourselves a window washer.”

The shine boy’s face shone, and the barber blew a kiss.