"Дон Пендлтон. California Hit ("Палач" #11) " - читать интересную книгу автора

serviced the Chinatown residents.
The girl halted between a pair of almost identical restaurants, threw a
quick look over her shoulder, and abruptly disappeared through a darkened
doorway.
Bolan passed on by to the next street intersection, crossed over, and
reversed the route in a careful recon of the neighborhood, prowling the area
for several minutes to get the lie of the land and scouting for possible
shadows on his backtrack.
He found the China Doll waiting for him in an unlighted foyer, a tiny
cubicle which barely accommodated the opening of the door from the street.
He had a quick impression of pleased oriental eyes, and then she was moving
through the musky darkness of the stairway and along the second-floor hall.
She went to a door at the end and fussed about with a key while Bolan
quietly scouted that level, counting doors and mentally overlaying the floor
plan on his larger picture of the neighborhood.
The girl had the door cracked open and she was standing outlined in a
faint light from the other side, waiting for Bolan to join her. Instead he
went on up the stairway to scout the third level, and she was waiting
patiently in the same position when he completed his recon and joined her at
the doorway.
"Are you always so careful?" she asked him in a voice that was quietly
sober and exultantly tense all at once.
He said. "I try to be. Do you know why?"
She gave her head a quick little jerk and replied, "Yes, I know who you
are. And I am Mary Ching. We are allies, believe that. Will you wait for me
here while I bring my friends to talk with you?"
His eyes coldly swept that perfect face and he asked her, "Why should
I?"
"You will be safe here," she assured him, matching the coldness of his
voice. "And you may find my friends intensely interesting. For intelligence
purposes if nothing else."
"How long do I wait?"
"One hour, no more."
"Too long," he told her.
She showed him the tiny automatic and hissed, "I could have shot you a
dozen times if I had hostile intentions. Trust me for one hour."
He grinned suddenly and said, "Okay. But look - don't go yelling my
name around. It attracts crowds."
"I know." She pushed the door full open, smiled and said, "Welcome to
my humble pad. See you soon."
Bolan growled, "Yeah," and the girl whisked herself softly along the
hallway and disappeared down the stairway.
And then Bolan walked into the most pleasant surprise of the night.
He closed the door and leaned against it, surveying the "humble pad"
with a quiet appreciation.
It wasn't exactly luxury - it was just damned good taste - and the
little flat above the Chinese restaurant was about as appealing to the
senses as any place Bolan had been lately.
There was a lot of red and black, soft lights and softer silks and
satins, delicate tapestries and fragile little figurines - nothing overdone