"Treat, Lawrence - Murder With Mud - (Avenger 4001)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Treat Lawrence)

"Tony," said Rentner, "this has to stop!"

"What has?"

"Don't try to kid me. This business with Sam. One of these days, something serious is going to
happen and it'll jam up the whole works.

"That all you're worried about, Rentner?"

"Maybe yes, and maybe no. But what I want to know is, what have you got against Sam, anyhow?"

The lights in Tony's gray eyes flickered and deep fires seemed to flare up. "Nothing personal,"
he said. "But he's Cawthorn's man."

Rentner scowled. "What in hell do you mean by that?"

Tony laughed and blew the collar off his beer. "Maybe you don't know it, Rentner, but you're a
marked man. Cawthorn's held this town in the palm of his hand for twenty years, and he knows his
stuff. He knows you'll turn on him the first time you figure you can get away with it. He's got
peculiar ways of doing things, and right now he's giving you enough rope to hang yourself. Sam gives
him a report on you every morning."

Rentner slapped his hand on the table. "Who the hell are you, and what are you telling me this
for?"

"I'm working out of the D. A.'s office," said Tony casually, and his gray eyes were steady and
warm and friendly, as if he were saying the beer was pretty good instead of telling a stranger
things that could mean a fusillade of bullets any one of these evenings. "I'm out to bust Cawthorn
and his whole lousy, crooked organization. I want a case so tight he can't wiggle a big toe and so
hot it'll burn the eyebrows off the people that read about it, and I hear you're the man that can do
it."

Bill Rentner took a long time answering. His eyes were brown and somber--not scared, but dark
with the consequence of Tony's words.

"I don't know how you found out," he said finally. "I've been keeping figures on construction
jobs for years. What the city bought and what it got. The difference is straight graft, and I've got
all the names and a couple of canceled checks. You seem to know, Tony, but why should I hand any of
it over to you?"

Tony's laugh was gay. "Not a reason in the world, except that you didn't collect all that just
for the fun."

"You got me there," answered Rentner softly. "You see, it's on account of a girl. The girl I
want to marry. She'll have me if I'm a hero and bust Cawthorn's machine, but sometimes I think of
all the money I could get out of Cawthorn if I went to him instead."

"Money or lead," remarked Tony. "But you're not that kind of a rat, so let's have your
evidence."