《钱在哪儿》(Where the Money Was)翻译第21

现在，副巡长要考虑如何保护自己了。"他们拿枪对着我，你这个混蛋！任何一个白痴都知道要怎么办。"守卫一样只考虑保护自己了。"当他们在墙上的时候，没有拿枪对着你，为什么你不说点什么？"肯定发生了类似这样的事情。当我们出去的时候，我原以为这些狱警会爬上梯子，从塔楼守卫中拿过枪支，在雪地中追赶我们。如果他们这样做的话，他们能抓到我们。当我们越过两个街区，到达预定地点时，小车并不在那。

我们站在那里，雪深过膝。路上没有任何移动的东西。如果我们认为有必要步行离开那里的话，我们还是会在一个小时内被抓。当事情变得顺利的时候，就会一直顺利。在远处，我们分辨不出是否有辆小车开过来。当它到达我们身边时，喇叭响了。在这么早的清晨，在暴风雪中行驶还会是什么？是牛奶运输车。路上的雪太高了，我们不得不爬上车，拿枪对着他，告诉他必须搭载我们进入城区。

虽然雪好像在变小，我们在整个过程没有看到另外一辆车。路面上的雪维持原状。除了我们身后留下的，没有见到任何路迹。

我们出发后不久，我们将制服和帽子扔到雪地里。斯宾斯拿了一瓶牛奶立即大喝了一口，我们都意识到我们太渴了。我不得不做点样子并告诉斯宾斯要给钱。"他帮了我们大忙，"我说到，大吸了口气。"你不想他认为我们是贼吧？"斯宾斯只有一张5元纸币。我有几百元，但是它们被紧紧的叠在火柴盒底部，上面铺满了火柴。在牢房的几个星期里那些钱都是这样放的。我从斯宾斯那拿过那个五美元，交给那个牛奶车司机，大大方方地告诉他不用找钱了。

弗雷迪（Freddie）的兄弟在城市的附近，弗兰克福德大街上开了家餐馆，那就是我们碰头的地方。当我们足够靠近的时候，我们让牛奶车司机停下来，威胁他不能告诉任何人，否则后果严重，并且告诉他回去按照原路回到原来接上我们的地方，再按照他平时的路线出发。他被吓坏了，我肯定如果他没有碰巧遇到几个街区外的警车的话，一定会按照我说的去做。

我们呆的地方，没有人没有车。但是曾经有汽车来过，因为我们可以看到轮胎的痕迹。为了避免在雪地上留下足迹，我们尽可能沿着轮胎痕迹行走，当痕迹被覆盖时，我们沿着路边排水沟走。弗雷迪的兄弟住在和他的酒店后面相连的房子里。沿着房子和酒店，从后街到弗兰克福德大街整个街区，是一个大大的空地，另外三面被八英尺高的篱笆围闭。只有通过空地拐角的一个大门才能到达房子的后门。房子里是黑的。弗雷迪按响了门铃，不一会他的兄弟穿着浴袍出来了。我的第一印象是，他对我们在这样的暴风雪中逃跑出来半信半疑。某种程度上看，看到我们他并不高兴，这个很好理解，因为我们待在这里也不高兴。当通告发布后，费城的警察做的第一件事就是派警察当特努托所有的亲戚家中。没有浪费时间寒暄，弗雷迪问他要些衣服和钱。

"在这等着，"他兄弟说。"我准备好马上回来。"

当我们站在走廊里，冻僵了，斯宾斯拿出一根香烟，问我要火柴。我不假思索给他火柴盒。他点着了郭，就在这时，两个警察冲进空地，举着他们的手枪，大叫"不许动！不许动！"

在他们大叫"不许动！"的时候-我们确实冻僵了动不了，该死的-下一秒钟我们全部穿过空地冲向富兰克福德大街，子弹在身边乱飞。天啦，我们像五个杂技演员一样翻过篱笆，向5个不同方向分散而逃。篱笆一定非常老旧，久经风雨，当我跑开几个街区，能够重新清醒思考的时候，发现手里紧紧抓着一块篱笆。又破又旧，只有底部一颗子弹穿过时留下了一个光滑的圆圆的缺口。我丢掉篱笆继续穿越不同的街道，按照无法追踪的随机路线远离那个餐馆。

原文：
215-216页

Now, the captain is thinking of protecting his ass. “They had a gun on me, you donkey! Any idiot should have been able to figure that out.” The guard is just as interested in protecting his ass. “Not when they were up on the wall they didn’t. Why didn’t you say something then?” It had to be something like that. Once we were out, I had expected that the officers would be climbing up the ladder, grabbing the rifles from the tower guards, and charging through the snow after us themselves. If they had, they would have got us. Because when we got to the designated spot, two blocks from the tracks, the car wasn’t there.

We were standing there with the snow halfway up to our knees. On the road, nothing was moving. We still would have been picked up within the hour if we had found it necessary to walk out of there. But when things are breaking right, they keep breaking right. Off in the distance we could barely make out a car coming toward us. Just as it was reaching us the sirens began to go. What would be the only thing out in a driving snowstorm that early in the morning? A milk-delivery truck. The snow was so high on the road that all we had to do was step aboard, show him the gun, and tell him how much we would appreciate a ride into the city.

Even though the snow seemed to be tapering off somewhat, we didn’t see another vehicle during the whole drive in. It was all virgin snow. There was not a track anywhere except those that we left behind.

Shortly after we started out, we threw the uniform coats and hats out into the snow. Spence reached back for a bottle of milk and as soon as he took a swig we all realized how thirsty we were. So I had to get cute and tell Spence to pay the man. “He’s doing us this big favor,” I said between gulps. “You wouldn’t want him to think we were thieves?” All Spence had was a fivedollar bill. I had a couple of hundred dollars on me, but the bills were folded tightly at the bottom of a matchbox and covered over with the matches. It had been sitting like that in my cell for weeks. I took the five-dollar bill from Spence, passed it over to the milkwagon driver, and told him grandly to keep the change.

Freddie’s brother owned a restaurant on Frankford Avenue, on the near side of the city, and that’s where we were headed. As soon as we were close enough we had the milkwagon driver stop, threatened him with dire consequences if he said a word to anybody, and told him to turn around and go all the way back to where he had picked us up before he set out again on his route. He was so frightened that I’m sure he would have done exactly as he was told if he hadn’t happened to run right into a police cruiser a few blocks away.

Where we were, nobody was out and not a car was moving. There had been a little traffic during the morning, though, because we could see the tire tracks. To keep from leaving footprints in the snow, we walked along the tire tracks for as long as we could, and when they began to be covered over we stayed close to the gutter. Freddie’s brother lived in a house that was connected to the back of his restaurant. Alongside the house and the restaurant, running the full block from the back street to Frankford Avenue, was a rather large empty lot which was enclosed on the other three sides by an eight-foot wooden fence. The only way to get to the rear entrance of the house was through a gate at the corner of the lot. The house was dark. Freddie rang the bell, and after a little delay his brother came out in a bathrobe. My impression was that he had only half suspected that we would be trying to break out in that kind of a storm. At any rate, he wasn’t overjoyed to see us, which I could understand, because we weren’t overjoyed to be there. The first thing the Philadelphia police were going to do when the bulletin came through was send some cops to the homes of all of Tenuto’s relatives. Without wasting time on any preliminaries, Freddie asked him for some clothes and some money.

“Wait here,” his brother said. “I’ll get it together and be right back.”

While we were standing there on the porch, freezing, Spence Waldron took out a cigarette and asked me for a match. Without thinking, I handed him the matchbox. He struck a flame and, just then, two cops came bursting into the lot with their pistols drawn, shouting, “Freeze! Freeze!”

One second they were yelling “Freeze!”—we were already freezing, dammit—and the next second we were all diving across the open lot toward Frankford Avenue with bullets flying all around us. Boy, we vaulted the fence like five acrobats and scattered in five different directions. It must have been a very old, weatherbeaten fence, because when I got a few blocks away and was able to think straight again I found that I was clutching a hunk of it in my hand. Old and weatherbeaten, like I said, except for a smooth round indentation at the bottom where a bullet had gone through. I threw it away from me and kept cutting through different streets, putting distance between myself and the restaurant while following a random course that would be impossible to track.