"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 328 - Shadow Beware" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

2 SHADOW
BEWARE

SHADOW BEWARE
by Maxwell Grant


A BELMONT BOOK-January 1965.


The alley was dark. A long tunnel of darkness opening onto the dim and narrow slum street in
a thin cold rain.
Inside the alley tiny claws scraped the ancient cobblestones, and beady little eyes alertly
watched an indistinct figure that stood hidden on the jar side of the street. The rats were wary.
Only a solitary street lamp cast its thin feeble glow on the dim street, and the careful rats could
not tell whether the figure across the street was male or female.
The figure wore a dark voluminous coat and hat. Rats scurried for safety to their hidden lairs
as a dog sidled into the alley to root among the garbage cans. The figure waited.
A black Cadillac appeared at the corner of the street to the right of the dark alley mouth. The
Cadillac's lights blinked on and oft once. The waiting figure moved across the narrow street and
entered the alley and stood just behind a door that opened into the alley halfway to the blank
rear wall.
Five minutes passed.
The door into the alley opened.
Along path of light from the opened door slanted like a sudden gash across the dark of the
alley.
A tall man stood in the light of the opened door. He wore a buttoned and belted trenchcoat,
and carried a small suitcase. His face was deeply tanned, and his alert eyes looked right and left.
He walked jour slow steps out into the alley along the path of light from the doorway behind him.
The door closed and the path of light suddenly vanished. The tall man turned toward the waiting
figure who had just closed the door.
"Have you got it?" the waiting figure said.
"Safe and sound," the tall man said.
The figure who had been waiting stepped toward the tall man with his hand extended in
greeting. The two indistinct shapes came together, both arms extended to shake hands.
For an instant they blended into a single dark shape. Then there was a low, muffled
explosion.
The tall man fell silently.
The figure that had been waiting, the killer, bent down over the fallen tall man. The killer
pulled open the trench--coat and the suit coat beneath, hastily, without unbuttoning either coat.
Then he straightened, took a flask from his coat pocket, and poured an amber liquid over the
fallen man. He returned the flask to his pocket and continued his hasty search. He removed the
fallen man's shoes. He dropped them in the rain. He began to swear. Still swearing softly, the
killer turned to the small suitcase.
The door into the alley once again began to open slowly. As the light slashed the alley the
killer grabbed the suitcase and faded into the night.
A small man came cautiously into the alley from the opened door. He glided to the fallen man,
sniffed the air, and looked oft into the dark of the alley listening. Then he bent over the fallen
SHADOW