"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 038 - Men Who Smiled No More" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

For the famous smile of Smiling Tony had suddenly become a grin. It was a fixed and frozen expression. It
gave him suddenly the appearance of a death's-head. Then it became a horrible, vacant leer.

The expert hands of Smiling Tony slowed in their task. He did not speak. He did not look up. He finished the
shining of the bronze man's shoes mechanically. It was as if he had abruptly become the subject for a slow
motion picture.

Doc Savage's eyes roved swiftly. He sought for some logical cause for the sudden, sinister change in Smiling
Tony. There seemed to be no reasonable explanation. Of the shoe shiners in the row along the park, those
not busy were watching only the bronze man himself.

No person had paused. None had spoken. The evening stream of pedestrians flowed unbroken toward the
elevated stairways near by, or toward the subway entrances.

Yet the bronze man lingered a moment after he had left a quarter in Smiling Tony's hand. The leering grin was
still fixed on the face of the shoe shiner. Always before this, an expansive smile had accompanied the
completion of Smiling Tony's task.

Now he only mumbled, "T'anks, Mr. Savage," and stared into the springtime park with his black eyes as cold
as ice.

Doc Savage was due in a few minutes at an important meeting of directors of a shipping line.

Before the bronze man there had been other customers. One had been a multi-millionaire. He had handed
Smiling Tony a gilt-banded cigar from the half dozen in his pocket. This had been his almost daily habit.

The man of wealth would have been amazed to know these were not the same cigars he had purchased at
his favorite stand. In a subway crush, adroit fingers had removed the original cigars. These were substitutes.

This man was due at the same directors' meeting Doc Savage was on his way to attend. Smiling Tony had
immediately stuck the cigar between his white teeth. He was smiling then.

The man of bronze made a note mentally. His interest in humanity was broad. Tomorrow he would drop by
and discover if the shoe shiner he had known for years had recovered the smile that had given him his name.



BUT Doc Savage was to see Smiling Tony again only after a thousand witnesses had seen the sudden
murder on the elevated tracks.

More than ten thousand windows around the park square took on a pinkish, sunset glow. The air was mellow
with the new season. The pockets of Smiling Tony jingled with an unusual amount of silver.

Smiling Tony should have been happy. But a well-dressed customer paused and glanced at him. This
customer was an old one. He was about to take the seat on the white stone. Suddenly he seemed to have
changed his mind.

"Never mind," he mumbled quickly. "There's a fella I gotta see."