"George O. Smith - Stop Look and Dig" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith George O)

interesting enough to occupy my attention--and maybe theirs as well--they could not identify me.

So I went back into the lobby of my apartment and dug into the mailbox of another party, thus identifying
myself as the man in three eight four. Then I punched the elevator button for the Fourth and leaned back
against the elevator and let my mind wander up through the apartments above.


I violated all the laws against Esping Toms as the elevator oozed upwards. Eventually my sense of
perception wandered through my own apartment and I located her lying on the bed, fully dressed. She'd
probably been freed lest some esper cop get to wondering why there was a woman taped to a chair in a
bachelor's kitchen. I shut my mind like a clam, but I couldn't withdraw my perception too fast. I let it
ooze back there like the eyes of a lecherous old man at a burleycue.

I left the elevator at the Fourth and walked up the stairs by reflex, while my mind was positively radiating
waves of vulgarity.

My mind managed to identify her as "The girl on the bed" without thinking any name. She was a good
looking strawberry blonde with a slender waist and a high bosom and long, slender legs. She was
wearing a pair of Dornier shoes with three inch heels that did things to her ankles. Her nylons were size
eight and one half, medium length, in that dark shade that[pg 063] always gives me ideas. Her dress was
a simple thing that did not have a store label on it, and so I dug the stitches for a bit and decided that it
had been hand made. Someone was a fine dress-maker because it fitted her slender body perfectly. Her
petticoat was store type. It was simple and fitted, too, but it had a label from Forresters in the hem. Her
bra was a Graceform, size thirty two, medium cup, but the girl on the bed did not have much need for
molding, shaping, uplifting, padding or pretense. She was all her and she filled it right to the brim. I let my
perception dawdle on the slender ankles, the lissome waist, and the rounded hips.

My door key came out by habit-reflex and entered the keyhole while my sense of perception let them
have one last vicarious thrill. The girl on the bed was an honest allover strawberry blonde. She....


Then the door swung open and hell went out for breakfast.

My forty-five bellowed at the light as I slid in and sloped to one side. The room went dark as I dropped
to the floor in front of my bookcase. From across the room a hitburner seared the door and slashed
sidewise, cutting a smoking swathe across my encyclopedia from A-AUD to CAN-DAN and then came
down as I squirmed aside. It took King Lear right out of Shakespeare before the beam winked out. It
went off just in time to keep me from sporting a cooked stripe down my face.

I triggered the automatic again to make a flash in their faces while I dug the room to locate them in the
dark. The needle beam flared out again and drilled a hole in the bookcase behind me. The other guy
made a slashing motion with his beam to pin me down, but he made a mistake by standing up to do it.

I put a slug in his middle that slammed him back against the wall. He hung there for a moment before he
fell to the floor with a dull, limp sound. His needle beam slashed upward and burned the ceiling before his
hand went limp and let the weapon drop.

I whirled to dig the other guy in the room just as the throb of a stun-gun beam moaned over my head. I
wondered where they'd got the arsenal, dug the serial number, and realized that it was mine. It gave me a
chuckle. I'm a pistol man, so the stun-gun that old gorilla-man was toting couldn't have had more than