"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 176 - Terror Wears No Shoes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

She frowned sharply. “You're cold-blooded.”

“Me?” He feigned astonishment. “Matter of fact, I don't even know the gentleman, do I?”

She smiled at that. Deliberately, and with intent to stir him, one way or another. He had no intention of
really being stirred, but he wanted to act as if he was, and he put on a show of being so. Such a good
show that it was too good, and he wondered which was acting and which was actuality.

She was lovely. No question about that. Her smile was an electric light or a warm bath, whichever you
wished. And just looking at her was about the same thing. He made the latter discovery, and promptly
unhooked from the business at hand, stared into space, and gave himself six or seven warnings in quick
succession.

A waiter brought rare Burmese wine in which the candied eyes of larks floated and glistened, together
with an array of early dynasty crockery that made him have visions of what it would cost him if she
dropped a cup. Museum stuff, strictly.

“Do you like hamburgers?” he asked.

“You've been to the States?”

“On and off.”

“What do you mean?”

“On the lam, and off again when it got warmish.”

She laughed a sound of bells tinkling, and he began telling her a whale of a lie about an episode in San
Francisco of which he was the hero. He followed that with another adventure in Cairo of which he was
an even greater hero. She was not impressed.
“I don't understand you,” she said.

“That's what I'm taking care of now. I'm explaining myself. I'm quite a guy, in case you're missing the
point.”

She shook her head. “I had a check run on you by some friends of mine,” she said. “You're a cheap
crook.”

He blinked at her. “Is that nice?”

“You're not even a good crook, either,” she continued. “You smuggled in two Java political refugees, and
they both got caught by the police, so you won't get any more business from that source. You hi-jacked
a shipment of opium from a ring, and the police got it away from you and nearly got you, and you're in
bad all around. The hi-jack victims love you not, and neither do the police, who strongly suspect you.
You've been rushing around organizing a gang of crooks. If you're going to organize, that's no way to do
it—by rushing around. You're a big sap with tinhorn ideas.”

“By God!” he said. “Is that any way to talk to the saviour of your life?”