"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 160 - Colors For Murder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

She could run, he discovered, with astonishing speed. She was going, moreover, in a direction opposite
where Buck and Ed were waiting. They would be no help.

“Police!” he cried loudly. “Stop, thief!” He did not want any cop, but it was a good idea, if one
appeared, to have laid a groundwork of innocence.

God, how she could run! The sidewalk came up and hit his feet madly. He was a soft man, disliking
exercise, and he specially detested running. But he was gaining. She twisted her head, wild-eyed,
gaping-mouthed, to glance at him. She hadn't thrown away her purse. That, he thought, is a silly woman
for you. Hang on to her purse, when she could throw it away, and outrun me. Close now, he threw out a
hand to seize her.

He had the penknife out and it was open. There was a small button which caused the blade to fly open
when pressed, and the blade was very sharp. He could shave with it.

His hand fastened, claw-like, in the cloth of her sleeve. Her throat, he decided. Her throat, one stroke
across it, so the blood won't get on my hand; he knew how blood spouted out of a throat.

But she used the purse on him. She hit him in the face with it. As hard, no doubt, as she could. Which
was awfully hard, and made pain explode all over his face. He was momentarily blinded and, still
traveling at headlong speed, was tilted off balance, and smashed headfirst into the high steel-mesh fence
beside the sidewalk.

His face hit the fence slantwise, and scraped along it. The agony, shock, was horrible. He did not stand
pain well anyway. All his weight, all his plunging momentum, drove his face into the fence, scraping,
tearing, lacerating. He fell to the ground.

God! I've got no face left, he thought. He made mewings and whimperings of pain. He wiped, using his
fingers, at his eyes and got the torn lids apart.

The girl had gone on.

A policeman, the uniformed cop on the beat probably, was coming toward the scene, was now not quite
half a block distant.

South wheeled dizzily, both hands over his face, crimson leaking in strings through his fingers, and
stumbled between parked cars. The parking system at the airport was conventional, rows of cars with
lanes between. He turned left, not entirely because the policeman was coming from the other direction,
but because Buck and Ed were approaching in their rented machine. They had the door open for him, so
that he could fall inside.



He said, “Get us away from here!” hoarsely.

“But the girl—”

“Let Andy take her,” South whimpered. Andy was the blue-jowled young man, the other member of
their party. He leaned forward on the seat, letting his face leak its scarlet on the floor. “This doesn't seem