"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 141 - Satan Black" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

inside a housing, and anyway, if they broke, they broke. There wasn't such a thing as a bad break or a
minor break. They just broke.

Joe put the flashlight beam into the pipe-truck cab. He put it under the truck, under the pipe, over the
ground, around the wheels, in front of the truck, behind it, and he rammed the rod of light from the flash
down each one of the load of twenty-four-inch river-weight pipes.

“Okay,” he said. “We got the place to ourselves.”

“That's why I put out the word for you to meet me here,” Pack said. “Nobody around. Nobody got any
reason to come around. Anyhow, this won't take long.”

“Let's get it over with,” Joe said. “This is the night I'd set aside to catch up on my sleep.”

“Hell of a lot of sleep you'll get tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

Pack was chairman of the meeting. Pack was sharper, more suave than the others. Possibly he was a
little smarter. But none of them were dumb; they weren't honest, and they weren't stupid.

Pack said, “Go take another look around, Joe. Here's the flashlight.”

“Dammit, we took a look around,” Joe complained, but he moved off with the flashlight.

Pack said, “You guys keep listening and watching that light of Joe's. You might see or hear something
Joe would miss.”

“Say!” said the man called Dave. “What you trying to do, scare the hell out of us?”

Pack said, “I wouldn't want anybody to overhear this. Neither would you.”

“Why not?”

“Wait until Joe takes another look around.”

Joe had his look. He came back. He said, “Nobody around. Why so careful?”

“We got to kill a man,” Pack said. “And we've got to do it quick.”



NO one said anything, not a word. The heat lightning winked redly in the distance, and an owl hooted in
the slough. Far away, somebody began beating a pipe with a sledge, making a dull bell-like rhythm. Joe
coughed. He said, “Here, Pack, is your flashlight.” He wasn't casual. He wasn't even trying to be casual.
He sounded about like any man would sound who had been told he was going to participate in a murder
tonight. Startled, frightened, sick.

Pack said, “I don't like it either. But there's no other way out.”