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

SEARCHLIGHTS ON THE RIVER
by Gary Barton


Ricky Sloane had vowed to break Lewiston Penitentiary just long enough to kill
Detective Johnny Renn. And now Sloane was out‹-and Johnny was waiting for him!



"Johnny," she said to me, "what's the matter?" She moved across the room, and I could feel
her body trembling as she pressed close to me, her hand grasping my shoulder. Her voice was
very tense and frightened. "What is it, Johnny?" she said again; but I wasn't listening to
her.

I was standing at the window, searching through the side of the curtains at the dark
street. The rain was coming down in thick gray sheets against the glow of the street light
and filling the gutters. I stood there quite a while watching it, and watching the cars
that went by the house and the many shadows that blended into the night. Then I turned back
into the living room. I didn't think I'd been followed.

Norma still stood close to me, but she wasn't saying anything, now. She just stood there,
her face pale and wan, her wet lips trembling and her eyes wide. She worried a small silk
handkerchief in her fingers.

I tossed my trench coat on the floor in the hall and went over and sat down in the big
chair near the radio. I wiped the wet from my hair and from my neck where the rain had run
down around my collar. The radio was blaring.

Then, through the night, came the weird cry of the sirens, low at first, then rising
shrillingly -- a mournful wail, smothered by the wet night.

I went back to the window. Far up the river, I could see the searchlights cutting through
the heavy mist, playing over the water. The sirens kept moaning: Escape! Prison break.

Norma asked me, "Johnny, is it--" She stopped. But the question was mirrored in her eyes,
and she was searching my face for the answer.

"Yes," I told her. "Ricky. It was on the grapevine tonight. It was tagged right."

She brushed the tears away, and suddenly there was a burning hate in her eyes. She
squeezed the hand kerchief in her hand till her fingers were white.

"So that's why you came here, Johnny," she said. "To grab him as soon as he comes to
the only place he has to come."

"Maybe I can help Ricky."

Her laugh was bitter; it frightened me. "Help him? The way you helped him into prison.
You framed my brother just as everyone else framed him."