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

again with my aching fingers.

Martha pleaded again: "Stop it! Let us know what you want and we'll do it."

"Anything," I promised rashly.


Even if I managed to hold that deadly fuse tight, it would eventually burn down to the bitter end. Then
there would be a flash, and I'd probably never hold my hand around a gun butt again. I'd have to go
looking for this pair of lice with my gun in my left. If they didn't try the same trick on my other hand. I
tried to shut my mind on that notion but it was no use. It slipped. But the chances were that this pair of
close-mouthed[pg 060] hotboys had considered that idea before.

"Can you dig 'em Martha?"

"Yes, but not deep enough. They're both concentrating on that cigarette and making mental bets when it
will--"


Her voice trailed off. A wisp of ash had dropped and my mental howl must have been loud enough to
scorch their minds. It was enough to stop Martha, at any rate. But the wisp of ash was cold and nothing
happened except my spine got coldly wet and sweat ran down my face and into my mouth. The palm of
my hand was sweating too, but not enough to wet the little pile of powder.

"Look," I said in a voice that sounded like a nutmeg grater, "Rambaugh was a louse and he tried to kill
me first. If it's revenge you want--why not let's talk it over?"

"They don't care what you did to Rambaugh," said Martha.

"They didn't come here to practice torture," I snapped. "They want something big. And the only guy I
know mixed up with Peter Rambaugh is Scarmann, himself."

"Scarmann?" blurted Martha.
Scarmann was a big shot who lived in a palace about as lush as the Taj Mahal, in the middle of a
fenced-in property big enough to keep him out of the mental range of most peepers. Scarmann was
about as big a louse as they came but nobody could put a finger on him because he managed to keep
himself as clean as a raygunned needle. I was expecting a clip on the skull for thinking the things I was
thinking about Scarmann, but it did not come. These guys were used to having people think violence at
their boss. I thought a little harder. Maybe if I made 'em mad enough one of them would belt me on the
noggin and put me out, and then I'd be cold when that cigarette fell into the gunpowder and ruined my
hand.

I made myself a firm, solid promise that if, as, and when I got out of this fix I would find Scarmann, shove
the nose of my automatic down his throat through his front teeth and empty the clip out through the top of
his head.

Then the hotboy behind me lifted the cigarette from my fingers very gently and squibbed it out in the
ashtray, and I got the pitch.