JК
The Colorado Kid :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 35 из 81‘That’s your cause of death right there, Vince,’ Cathcart said,and the cerebral embolism (which he discovered long after I’d left to catch the ferry back to Moosie) never changed his mind. He said that if the guy had had someone there to perform the Heimlich Maneuver—or if he’d performed it on himself—he might never have wound up on the steel table with the gutters running down the sides.
“Next, Contents of the Stomach Number One, and by that I mean the stuff on top, the midnight snack that had barely had a chance to start digesting when our man died and everything shut down. Just steak. Maybe six or seven bites in all, wellchewed. Cathcart thought maybe as much as four ounces.
“Finally, Contents of the Stomach Number Two, and here I’m talking about our man’s supper. This stuff was pretty much—well, I don’t want to go into details here; let’s just say that the digestive process had gone on long enough so that all Dr. Cathcart could tell for sure without extensive testing was that the guy had had some sort of fish dinner, probably with a salad and french fries, around six or seven hours before he died.
“ ‘I’m no Sherlock Holmes, Doc,’ I says, ‘but I can go you one better than that.’
“ ‘Really?’ he says, kinda skeptical.
“ ‘Ayuh,’ I says. ‘I think he had his supper either at Curly’s or Jan’s Wharfside over here, or Yanko’s on MooseLook.’
“ ‘Why one of those, when there’s got to be fifty restaurants within a twentymile radius of where we’re standin that sell fish dinners, even in April?’ he asks. ‘Why not the Grey Gull, for that matter?’
“ ‘Because the Grey Gull would not stoop to selling fish and chips,’ I says, ‘and that’s what this guy had.’
“Now Steffi—I’d done okay through most of the autopsy, but right about then I started feeling decidedly chuckupsy. ‘Those three places I mentioned sell fish and chips,’ I says, ‘and I could smell the vinegar as soon as you cut his stomach open.’ Then I had to rush into his little bathroom and throw up.
“But I was right. I developed my ‘sleeping ID’ pictures that night and showed em around at the places that sold fish and chips the very next day. No one at Yanko’s recognized him, but the takeout girl at Jan’s Wharfside knew him right away. She said she served him a fishandchips basket, plus a Coke or a Diet Coke, she couldn’t remember which, late on the afternoon before he was found. He took it to one of the tables and sat eating and looking out at the water. I asked if he said anything, and she said not really, just please and thank you.
“Next, Contents of the Stomach Number One, and by that I mean the stuff on top, the midnight snack that had barely had a chance to start digesting when our man died and everything shut down. Just steak. Maybe six or seven bites in all, wellchewed. Cathcart thought maybe as much as four ounces.
“Finally, Contents of the Stomach Number Two, and here I’m talking about our man’s supper. This stuff was pretty much—well, I don’t want to go into details here; let’s just say that the digestive process had gone on long enough so that all Dr. Cathcart could tell for sure without extensive testing was that the guy had had some sort of fish dinner, probably with a salad and french fries, around six or seven hours before he died.
“ ‘I’m no Sherlock Holmes, Doc,’ I says, ‘but I can go you one better than that.’
“ ‘Really?’ he says, kinda skeptical.
“ ‘Ayuh,’ I says. ‘I think he had his supper either at Curly’s or Jan’s Wharfside over here, or Yanko’s on MooseLook.’
“ ‘Why one of those, when there’s got to be fifty restaurants within a twentymile radius of where we’re standin that sell fish dinners, even in April?’ he asks. ‘Why not the Grey Gull, for that matter?’
“ ‘Because the Grey Gull would not stoop to selling fish and chips,’ I says, ‘and that’s what this guy had.’
“Now Steffi—I’d done okay through most of the autopsy, but right about then I started feeling decidedly chuckupsy. ‘Those three places I mentioned sell fish and chips,’ I says, ‘and I could smell the vinegar as soon as you cut his stomach open.’ Then I had to rush into his little bathroom and throw up.
“But I was right. I developed my ‘sleeping ID’ pictures that night and showed em around at the places that sold fish and chips the very next day. No one at Yanko’s recognized him, but the takeout girl at Jan’s Wharfside knew him right away. She said she served him a fishandchips basket, plus a Coke or a Diet Coke, she couldn’t remember which, late on the afternoon before he was found. He took it to one of the tables and sat eating and looking out at the water. I asked if he said anything, and she said not really, just please and thank you.