"Destroyer 012 - Slave Safari.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"Lippincott," the man said. "No one finds Mr. Lippincott. You see him by appointment only, if you're lucky."

Remo decided to rephrase the question and there must have been something in the manner of his voice because he got an immediate response. Laurence Butler Lippincott was at the headquarters of the International Bank of New York City, 88th floor, the Lippincott Suite.

He appeared promptly each morning at 11:30 A.M. and worked through till 4:30 P.M. Non-stop. He was the (?)ible Lippincott. Remo released the man's neck(?).

No one gives Mr. Lippincott orders," said the briefcase man. "Maybe you stopped me, but there'll be more. No one can stand up against vast-money. No one. Not governments. Not you. No one. All you can do is serve and hope you'll be rewarded."

"You will personally see your vast money in little soggy lumps," Remo said.

"Have you learned nothing?" shrieked Chiun. "Boasting? A boast is more fatal than a rushed stroke. A boast is a gift to an enemy. Have you learned nothing?"

"We'll see," said Remo. "Do you want to come along?"

"No," said Chiun. "A boast is bad enough but a successful boast is worse because it encourages other boasts, and they surely will cost in price. Nothing in this world is without payment."

Payment was a good word and Remo thought about it as the briefcase man drove him to New York City. Every so often, the two bodyguards would wake up and Remo would put them back to sleep. This went on until the Taconic Parkway when the two men finally got the general idea that they were no longer expected to overpower Remo.

Laurence Butler Lippincott did not have his offices in the huge tower his banks were famous for financing. They were instead in a tall, aluminum, looming building just off Wall Street, a narrow side street made wider by a large open entranceway with modern sculpture, which the briefcase man told Remo cost the Lippincotts more than two million in lost office space. Most people were amazed that Lippincott had spent $70,000 for the sculpt are, but never considered that it cost so much more just to give it space. If Remo would think about reality, he too would appreciate what working for Lippincott meant. Remo did not appreciate reality.

He pushed the two bodyguards and the briefcase man ahead of him and managed to compress them all hi a revolving door with the breaking of only one bone, the briefcase man's left arm which didn't quite fit. He screamed appropriately.

They had to take two elevators to the Lippincott floor. The first went only up to the 60th floor where three guards and a manager questioned Remo and his party.

Remo was polite and he was honest. He told the three guards and the manager that he was going to see Mr. Lippincott and would be delighted if they would accompany him. This, three of them did, with happy hearts. They were happy because they were not the fourth man who lay on the carpeting of the sixtieth floor foyer with his ribs and nose broken. The happy throng burst out into the 88th floor with exuberance, two guards going across the magnificent mahogany desk of Lippincott's private secretary, driving her back into a Picasso original. The office was like an art gallery, except that few galleries could afford this collection of Picassos, Matisses, Renoirs and Chagalls. Remo grabbed a blue picture with many dots off die wall and led his group to see Mr. Lippincott himself. A guard protested, so Remo left him behind-with his head in a bookcase.

The office of Laurence Butler Lippincott had no door. None was needed, Remo realized. The door was really back down at the 60th floor.

Lippincott looked up from a typewritten page he was reading. He was a graying elderly man, with taut skin and the placid confidence of the very rich in his face.

"Yes?" he said, apparently undisturbed by the com-" motion.

"My name is Remo and I say no."

"Mr. Lippincott," the briefcase man tried to explain while clinging to a splintered arm, but he did not have a chance to finish because he was flying over his. employer's head. Lippincott scarcely noticed.

"Really, Mr. Mueller, must you? The man is injured."

So Remo threw the sixtieth-floor manager at Lippincott.

"If something is on your mind, say it," said Lippincott. "No need to hurt innocent people."

Remo placed one of the bodyguards on Lippincott's desk, which surprisingly looked very ordinary, right down to the pictures of family. Remo knocked the air out of the bodyguard. Lippincott merely removed the typewritten sheet from beneath him.

Remo placed the second bodyguard, who had suddenly tried to break for the door, on top of the first. He too suddenly lost his breath.

"You're trying to tell me something," Lippincott suggested.

"Yes," said Remo.