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

The Honest Pole thought: I wish I had for income what she pays for this hotel penthouse. That I do wish.

She said, “Do what he wishes.”

The Honest Pole jumped a little, not having expected this.

“Indeed?” he gasped.

She nodded. “Things are a little dull with me. This is simple-minded diversion, and if it isn't entertaining, I
can do something about that.”

“You wish me to proceed as agreed with him?”

“Yes. . . . With slight alterations.”

“Alterations?”

“Yes. Have the four men you hired rough him up a little.”

The Honest Pole hesitated. He thought of the things he had heard of this unusual woman. He preferred to
do his murdering with a little more discretion. “How much do you wish him roughed?” he asked.

“Enough so he'll earn it.”

“That would be very rough indeed, to pay for the privilege of meeting you,” said the Pole gallantly.

“Don't overdo it. Not a hospital case. Just teach him a little lesson.”

“I see. A payment for folly?”

“A payment,” she said, “for thinking up an asinine, childish, soft-headed gag like the one he's trying to
pull.”

So he was roughed. It took place that evening, while she walked alone in the Crown Regal garden, one
of the few places in the city where it was ten percent safe for a woman to walk alone at that time of night.
Not, however, that she wasn't an exception and could have gone alone and untouched, unspoken to, in
any part of the city at any hour, excepting the rare chance that she might meet some dunce who hadn't
heard of her. Somebody who wouldn't have heard of Stalin, or Chiang, or Truman or Clark Gable.

The four men came at her. He was soon to the rescue. He bounded from the spot where he had been
waiting, a great figure of a man who hop-skipped favoring his right leg and who waved his cane. That
was the idea.

Not a new idea. Just about as new with mankind as the act of breathing. He had hired them to molest
her, and he was going to save her from them. Be a hero. Lady in distress; gallantry to the rescue.
Whiskers down to here.

He didn't know, of course, that the four men had orders to whale the tar out of him. But his ignorance
didn't long persist. They tied into him. The Honest Pole had been choosy, and he had hired men who