The Stray. Alessio Chiadini Beuri

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ refuse to talk to you, no one is forcing me to tell you anything about my business and my company. You are nobody to me, Mr Stone, and you have nothing to bargain with to persuade me to do so. But I want to give you my help: if you have to scare one of my taxi drivers to death to get some information, you must obviously be desperate."

      "I thought it was a rather pleasant conversation instead."

      "Tim almost had a nervous breakdown."

      "A rather sensitive big boy."

      "By coming to you, I'm convinced you won't bring any more confusion into my company. I'll be in the next office if you need me."

      "You take bad news well, Mrs. Darden."

      "I assess situations and adapt. If I didn't know better, I'd have been bankrupt long ago."

      "A woman with that kind of cunning, I wonder where she'd go if she wanted to."

      "In the other room, for the moment."

      "Don't treat me like the big bad wolf, Mrs. Darden. I'm on the shepherd's side."

      "That may be. And I know you believe that, but your actions tell of your nature, I'm afraid. Tell me if I'm wrong. You are not a man who is easily discouraged. You're used to pushing, pushing and pushing. You insist, you're not capable of giving up. There are no boundaries that cannot be crossed. Maybe you don't see them or maybe you choose to ignore them," he didn't wait for her to respond and left.

      A small smile had grown on Stone's face, which he still turned to the portion of the corridor he could see from his chair. It had been a long time since he had felt so attracted to a woman.

      It took him no less than forty minutes to go through the copies of Samuel Perkins' records. The originals were in the hands of Matthews' team, of course. In any case, the whole thing proved almost useless. There were addresses, times and payments. Next to the tables filled out in an undoubtedly masculine handwriting, someone had written mileage notes.

      Probably a Sunshine secretary in charge of monitoring that the prices corresponded to the route and the time taken to reach the destination. From what could be gleaned, Samuel Perkins was a dedicated and almost indefatigable driver: copious night shifts, at least four a week, and almost constant double shifts of around sixteen hours. However, he did not find recurring destinations that caught his eye. The records stopped four days before Elizabeth's death. Before he got up, he jotted down an address, perhaps the only one that had appeared three times in the previous two months. It was nothing to shout about, but it was still something in a city that had more taxis than private cars. It was an address in New Jersey. He turned off the lamp on the desk and left the room, taking the file with him. He knocked on Mrs. Darden's door and when she invited him in, he said thank you and stood in the doorway, his back against the doorframe and his hand on the half-open-door handle.

      "Ask away, Detective," Mrs. Darden said, filing the records in a huge cabinet in front of her desk. It was a cramped, makeshift office. She could hardly move, even the thin Mrs. Darden.

      "A few more things, if you'll indulge me."

      "Until now, I have given you everything you wanted." Mrs. Darden sat down on the edge of the desk. She slid the small reading glasses down to the tip of her nose.

      "Then let's see how far I can go: the records are missing the last four days."

      « I'm afraid I don't have them either, and neither do the police. You see, Detective, here at the Sunshine Cab we ask our drivers for trip reports every week. That's the best we can ask for. Some of them are out there so much that if we asked for it daily, the furthest areas would go uncovered for too long. As you will understand, I can't afford to give up even one street corner to other companies."

      "Where are the service records kept?"

      "Each employee is free to keep them wherever he wishes. It goes without saying, however, that they should always be at hand, so most keep them on the dashboard."

      "Suppose, Mrs. Darden, that someone wanted to keep these records safe. Where would he hide them?"

      "If there was anything in them that had the potential to get me into trouble, I would burn them."

      Mason instinctively thought back to the ashes in the Perkins' stove.

      "What if I didn't want to destroy it because, for some reason, it might come in handy?"

      "In every man's castle, then: the house."

      "But they should always be at hand, don't forget that."

      "The taxi."

      "Entrust it to one of the family?"

      "For as long as Samuel Perkins worked for me he never mentioned anything that reminded him of her. The only leave he ever requested was for his wife."

      "I see. But a man with a taxi can go anywhere without having to explain himself."

      "Not quite, Detective. A company that gave its employees that much freedom would go bankrupt in less than a week. We periodically check the mileage against the mileage on the books."

      "How do you know that a driver has not stopped somewhere to take a break?"

      "We calculate the distance of the last run with that of the area where drivers stop. Generally their home."

      "But there's still a margin of error. A mile today, another half tomorrow, and in no time you create a fairly large grey area."

      "Every week the kilometres, approximated by excess, which do not turn out and which cannot exceed a certain limit, are marked. "'Frozen', if you will."

      "You've thought of everything."

      "I am pleased with your admiration. Is there anything else?"

      "I bet he wants to get his car back."

      "Samuel was a freelancer. The car was his. We just provided him with the equipment and signs. In such cases Sunshine Cab 'leases' the vehicle to the owner, who becomes our employee. Obviously, the cars have to be above certain standards to work with us. It's a question of image."

      "A free hitter, then."

      "Within certain limits."

      "Did he have an area of expertise?"

      "All our drivers must have it or areas would form with an overabundance of service and others totally abandoned. You understand it would be chaos. Samuel was assigned Grand Central."

      "What kind of vehicle are we talking about?"

      "A Checker T."

      "What kind of man is Samuel Perkins?"

      "Tim didn't tell you enough?"

      "I like to have a choice."

      "If you want to hear that Sam was capable of doing everything that is being attributed to him I am forced to disappoint you. He was no saint, that must be clear: he had his good temper tantrums too, and frequent ones, but that's part of the job, especially in a city like this. He was a hard worker with all the strengths and weaknesses of all of us. No more, no less. no more, СКАЧАТЬ