Читать книгу Dead on Arrival - Mike Lawson - Страница 13

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He couldn’t find a position where he was comfortable. Before the woman had sat down next to him, he’d been able to stretch his right leg out, but with her sitting there he was forced to sit with both knees pressed against the seat in front of him. The woman, a heavyset Hispanic, nodded and smiled at him before she sat down, but at the same time it was clear she expected him to move his leg and make room for her. In his country, she would have stood in the aisle of the bus until he permitted her to sit.

And she wasn’t even a real American, yet like all women in this country – all women exposed to this country – she had an air of confidence about her that infuriated him. The men here were weak and undeservedly arrogant, and the culture as a whole was decadent and wasteful, but the women were the worst. They went about with their heads uncovered and their faces unveiled, the young ones dressing like painted whores, but their lack of modesty was not as infuriating as their presumption – no, not a presumption, their conviction – that they were equal to men. And it wasn’t even the rich highborn ones who acted this way. This woman, who probably cleaned toilets for a living, had no doubt that she had a right to speak to him, to sit next to him, to intrude into his space and his thoughts as if she were his equal.

He had crossed into the United States from Mexico, and on his way to the East Coast he had stopped at a restaurant in Texas. He ordered coffee and the waitress brought him a cup that was tepid and weak, as if it had been made with yesterday’s grounds. He told her this and said, ‘Bring me another cup,’ and she had said, ‘You mean, Bring me another cup please, now, don’t you, honey?’ She was smiling when she said this, but at the same time she was serious, correcting his manners. He looked at her and said, ‘I meant what I said. Make me a decent cup of hot coffee.’ And she had said, ‘You know what, sugar? You can just go fuck yourself.’ And then she’d walked away and started talking to another waitress, laughing as she gestured at him with her head. He’d left the restaurant a few minutes later, his face burning with embarrassment. He’d thought about waiting until she left work and cutting off her lips, but of course he didn’t. He was too disciplined to permit himself such an indulgence.

He saw a sign on the highway. The bus was still a hundred miles from Cleveland, a hundred more miles of sitting in this cramped seat next to this woman, his right leg on fire. It would have been so much better if he could have flown from Philadelphia to Cleveland, but he could no longer take the risk. So now he traveled by bus and by train and by car, but usually by bus. Security on trains had become tighter since London and Madrid, and he was always worried that in a car he would be pulled over by some country sheriff because of his race.

And the problem with air travel wasn’t just that he was an Arab, it was his right leg. Below the knee it was made of metal and plastic and it set off the detectors in airports. Thanks to the two fools in Baltimore, the American security forces knew about his leg, and any foreigner with an artificial leg would be detained until his identity could be confirmed. It wouldn’t matter if he shaved his head or put padding in his cheeks or wore a wig and contact lenses; it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t look anything like the poor picture they had of him in which he wore a beard. They would detain him until the FBI examined him, and the FBI would confirm his identity.

So now he traveled on buses with cleaning women, taking seven hours to make a journey that should have taken an hour and a half. But that was all right. He had a lifetime in which to complete his mission.