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

“My leg is not reliable. If it should collapse during the proceedings, it would be embarrassing.”

“I will warn the four men about your leg. Not to kick or strike it. But I would like more than this as a
down payment.”

“It's enough. I'm no fool.”

“She is quite a woman. Such a one as few have ever known. To tinker with her is worth more money in
advance.”

“That's the bottom cent now.”

“I would like more advance money.”

“You won't get it.”

“All right, you are plainly a fine man, and I will trust you more than my custom,” said the Honest Pole, at
the same time wondering in the back of his head who this big man had killed, robbed or swindled in the
past and how profitable it had been.

She was called Canta. If she had another name it was not public property.

The Honest Pole went to her at once. He told her about it.

“A great bumbling fool,” he said. “He paid me ten times what was needed, and half that in advance.”

“He sounds like a fool.”

“He is.”

“And you are going to take what he paid you, deliver no services, and be seen by him no more?”

“That will be as you say,” said the Honest Pole, grinning.

He'd had some trouble getting to see her. He was surprised he had. She was rather legendary, and he'd
wanted to meet her for a long time, and better still, do her a service. He'd like to be one of those who
worked for her. She was generous. She was always finding the means that enabled her to be generous.
She was clever. Not yet twenty-five, certainly, the Honest Pole thought, looking at her but not staring,
and already a legend.

She had sat at a teak desk while listening to him. The desk was a masterpiece of femininity, inlaid with
ivory and tufted with pastel silk. Some of the stuff on the desk was gold and her cigarette holder was
platinum.

She arose now and went to the window, the great expanse of window, a whole wall of glass, that
overlooked the packed matted thickness of the city. From this height and magnificence, the city seemed
colorful and beautiful and the sampans on the river and the steamers lying in the stream or at the docks
made an intriguing combination of the stuff that looks well on travel folders. It was the height and the
magnificence that did it.