"satandanced" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barton Gary)

cloth and cotton around the hole. Suicide, Ryan had said. Weren't Haley and Ryan
going to be surprised. I wondered what Haley would say when--

I stopped wondering. A footstep in back of me made me swing my head around. I
shouldn't have done that; it smashed into something that wasn't soft! A red curtain
blazed in front of my eyes and my knees didn't seem to be there any more. I went
for the .38 in my shoulder sling. I didn't reach it. The sap came down again; it
parted my hair and almost parted my scalp! I made a grab for the blur moving above
me; then the red curtain went up and left a black one hanging there.

I sailed out of this world with no more care than that.

There was something cold against my face, and there was an acrid odor in my nos-
trils. For a time I wondered where I was. Then I opened my eyes and the first
thing I thought of was the pillow. I looked about the room. I wasn't surprised.
It was gone!

The acrid stench persisted in my nostrils, and I found that I was leaning over the
grating of a hot-air system. The grating covers the conduit that brings the heat
from the furnace in the cellar.

I took a knife from my pocket and pried the metal grating from the floor. Then I
rayed the light of my pencil flash down the pipe.

Suddenly, I had the answers to a lot of questions that were pounding in my head.

I raced out of the room and down the hall toward where Penny was keeping the
little blonde. On the way, I stepped into a tiny office and used the phone. I
called Haley at headquarters. He had just reached there. I talked low; there
were people around this club who wouldn't have liked me to talk too much If they
heard me, I knew I wouldn't be around long enough to repeat what I had to say.

I got a kick out of telling Haley that his suicide had turned into a sweet case
of murder. After I told him what I'd found, he was probably on his way up here
before I could hang up the receiver.

Back in the rest room at the end of the hall, I found Penny--but not the blonde.
Penny was smoking a cigarette and scribbling in her note book. Probably some sob
stuff on June Eiden, I thought.

I said: "Where's the blonde?"

"She's out doing her act," Penny said. "She was feeling better and Jaegar made her
go on." She kept writing in her note book. "I got a good lead on the babe."

"What did she spill?" I asked her. I thought maybe Penny had pulled some fresh
angles from the blonde. If anyone can pump answers, Penny can.

"Not a thing," Penny said. "The kid wouldn't open her mouth with Jaegar and that
import from Cuba hanging around."