"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 137 - The Man Who Was Scared" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

“Huh?”

“Where can I get a gun?” the man demanded.

The pedestrian looked more disgusted with himself than startled. He was a native New Yorker. When
you are a New Yorker for a few months, you learn to adopt an attitude toward strange incidents and
unusual people. You ignore them. Usually it is a gag, and never is it any of your business. So you walk
away with dignity, but you don't lose any time. The pedestrian left hurriedly.

The man who looked like the ideal insurance policy holder stood there. His nervousness crawled out of
his nerves into his muscles, and he trembled uncontrollably.

New York sidewalk traffic flowed about him. Across the street were forty-odd stories of an office
building. Twenty yards away was a street corner and a lamp post carrying a Fifth Avenue and
Forty-Third Street sign. The Fifth Avenue shop windows were gay, even if the merchandise displayed
was sparse and dated and a little wartime-shoddy.

The man thought: Everything looks the same, so like a normal June afternoon on Fifth Avenue. The idea
made his mouth strangely dry. Death was so horribly close to him.

A policeman came by. A big cop in blue with a shining shield on his left breast and another shining shield
on his uniform cap, with the telltale thickness around the hips where he carried his handcuffs and gun and
sap under his coat.

“Oh, officer!”

“Yes?”

“How many blocks to that building yonder?”

The officer glanced in the direction of the building at which the man was pointing. His glance was brief.
The building was a famous one, with its picture in all the encyclopedias and all the books about New
York, simply because it was one of the tallest in the city.

“About eleven blocks,” the cop said.

“Would you—would you—” The words seemed to dry to dust in the man's throat. He wanted to ask the
officer to walk that far with him.

“Would I what?”

“Walk that far with me!” The man got it out.



THE policeman was reasonably surprised, and his next emotion was suspicion. It was part of his business
to be suspicious.

“Why?” he demanded.