"Destroyer 004 - Mafia Fix.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

Magrudder laughed into his bottle of champagne as he lifted it and some spilled over his ruddy face and down his thick neck.

"You're full of crap, Mr. Magrudder. If you had all this information, you'd have more than three envelopes."

The man who called himself Magrudder raised a finger. "No way, my boy, no way. What if one should get out by accident? No. I needed enough to deter you people, but not so many as to precipitate an accident. Two would have been safer against accidents, but maybe you would have discovered one, leaving me only one envelope as a margin against death. That would be too thin. Four, however, would have been asking for trouble. So I picked three."

"Let's see," said Remo. "Your aunt Harriet in Cheyenne has one and you've got another and . . , the third. Who's got the third?"

The grin disappeared momentarily from the fat red face but then returned.

"One is as good as a hundred, my boy, and I'll extend that margin of safety when I get back to the hotel."

"You're so confident because you have four or five or ten of those envelopes stashed around," Remo said. "You don't have the kind of guts, Hopkins, to live one envelope away from death."

Harry Hopkins, the man called Magrudder, blinked. "So. You know my name. Well, well. Congratulations. But you don't know me, sonny boy. You skinny young punk. You've got to live one way if you're going to make it big. There are only three envelopes. Now row me back to the frigging hotel and call your boss. I want the down payment by tomorrow afternoon."

He swilled the champagne deeply and snorted his contempt. "Get a move on, skinny," he said. "The only reason I'm keeping you alive is you're my only contact with that organization."

Remo rubbed his hands together and sighed. "That's where you're wrong. I'm your second contact with the organization."

"Yeah? Who's the first?"

"The man who has the third envelope," Remo said and he smiled.

"Horseshit," Harry Hopkins said.

"Nope," said Remo sweetly. "Let me describe him to you. He's tight-lipped, obnoxious, vicious, ruthless and totally without human compassion for anything but his golf game. And at that he cheats. I beat him once even with his fourteen-pencil handicap and as much as he hated that, he hated my losing a golf ball more. He is cheap beyond belief. I mean cheap. I think that's why he was chosen."

"You're lying," screamed Harry Hopkins, "You're lying. The -man is absolutely trustworthy. We even wondered how he got into the business, he was so honest."

"I rang the bell with cheap, didn't I?" Remo asked.

"You're not getting any more information from me." Hopkins moved his foot to the gray plug, but stopped suddenly and his mouth dropped open. "No," he said.

"Yes," said Remo slipping the last clinging strap of the lead weighted life preserver off his arm. It had been a good set of locks but he could have cracked them if he wanted to. He didn't have to. The chain fasteners had been attached to a nylon band guaranteed to hold three hundred pounds of pressure. It was better than that. It had held close to four hundred.

"Want to pull the plug, sweetheart?" Rerno said. "I rang the bell with cheap, huh?"

"I've known the man who has had the envelope for years. Years. He'd never betray a friend," Hopkins said. "He got out of the business because it was too dirty. He retired from it. He's been in on this from the beginning, giving me counsel and advice. And I trust him."

"Make believe you're the President, Hopkins. Who else would you put in charge of such an operation?"

Remo stood up in the bow of the boat and went to the seat near the gray plug. He looked down at the perspiring red-faced man beneath him.

Hopkins looked up, in panic, then slowly shrugged. "Mind if I have another drink?"

"Sure," Remo said. "Your being an alcoholic is going to be the cover for your death anyway."

"I'm not an alcoholic and you'll kill me if I take another drink or not. So. Bottoms up." Remo saw the bottom of the bottle come up; the reddish eyelids close and air-bubbles rise from within the neck of the bottle.