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

"I've been paying Rambaugh blackmail for about four years. This morning I decided to stop it, and
looked your name up in the telephone book. Rambaugh must have read me do it."

"Ever think of the police?" I suggested.

"Of course. But that is just as bad as not paying off. You end up all over the front pages anyway. You
know that."

"There's a lot of argument on both sides," I supposed. "But let's finish this one over a bar. We're
crowding our luck here. In the eyes of the law we're just a couple of nasty break-ins."

"Yes," she said simply.


We left Rambaugh's apartment together and I handed Martha into my car and took off.

It struck me as we were driving that mental sensitivity was a good thing in spite of its limitations. A
woman without mental training might have every right to object to visiting a bachelor apartment at two
o'clock in the morning. But I had no firm plans for playing up to Martha Franklin; I really wanted to talk
this mess out and get it squared away. This she could read, so I was saved the almost-impossible task of
trying to convince an attractive woman that I really had no designs upon her beautiful white body. I was
not at all cold to the idea, but Martha did not seem to be the pushover type.

"Thank you, Steve," she said.

"Thanks for nothing," I told her with a short laugh. "Them's my sentiments."

"I like your sentiments. That's why I'm here, and maybe we can get our heads together and figure
something out."

I nodded and went back to my driving, feeling pretty good now.

[pg 058]
A man does not dig his own apartment. He expects to find it the way he left it. He digs in the mailbox on
his way towards it, and he may dig in his refrigerator to see whether he should stop for beer or whatever
else, because these things save steps. But nobody really expects to find trouble in his own home,
especially when he is coming in at three o'clock in the morning with a good looking woman.

They were smart enough to come with nothing deadly in their hands. So I had no warning until they
stepped out from either side of my front door and lifted me into my living room by the elbows. They
hurled me into an easy chair with a crash. When I stopped bouncing, one of the gorillas was standing in
front of me, about as tall as Washington Monument as seen from the sidewalk in front. He was looking at
my forty-five with careful curiosity.

"What gives?" I demanded.

The crumb in front of me leaned down and gave me a back-and-forth that yanked my head around. I
didn't say anything, but I thought how I'd like to meet the buzzard in a dark alley with my gun in my fist.