"Дон Пендлтон. California Hit ("Палач" #11) " - читать интересную книгу автораbut all of it beautifully balanced and blended - a place of quiet dignity
and beauty. It was a one-room affair but there was plenty of walking space, even with abundant furnishings and a cozy corner-kitchenette. A closet-sized bath with a folding silk screen for a door completed the accommodations. Bolan advanced to the center of the room and placed the machine-pistol on a small table... and then he received a second surprise, this one a bit more jolting. A sectional couch had been split and cornered against the far wall... and each section was occupied by a sleeping girl. Both were Caucasians, blonde, apparently young, and huddled beneath light blankets. Bolan would have been more comfortable with a discovery of a wide-awake crew of Mafia head-hunters. His inner debate was resolved at about the second heartbeat and he was spinning about to quit that place when a tousled blonde head lifted itself from a pillow and a pair of cool blue eyes raked him from stem to stern. A pleasantly modulated, but sleepy voice declared, "Far out." Soothingly he said, "Relax, wrong door, I guess. I'm leaving." The voice was wide awake now and teasing as it warned, "Keep on leaving and I'll start screaming." "I thought this was Mary Ching's place," he explained. "It is. What are you made up for? That is really far out." He said, "Mary didn't say anything about roommates. I'll wait for her outside." "Don't be square." The girl flung back the blanket and sat up, swinging that quite beautifully. Bolan could have been a life-sized poster, for all the feminine awareness she was according his presence. "We don't live here," she told him. "We're just crashing for the night. So don't leave on our account." She shivered and drew the blanket over the bare shoulders. "Make some tea or something, huh?" she suggested lazily. Bolan said, "I guess that's your department." She told him, "Monkeyshit," in a quietly disgusted voice and lunged across to slap the other girl's upraised behind. That one whimpered and burrowed deeper into her blanket. The live one struggled to her feet and crossed to the bathroom, her blanket draped carelessly from the waist and trailing along behind. She left the folding screen ajar and straddled the toilet seat, staring curiously out at Bolan as she noisily disturbed the waters of the porcelain bowl. He turned away and decided, hell, to make the tea after all. He put a kettle of water on the burner and rummaged through the cupboard, finding and deciding upon a jar of instant coffee. "No tea, just coffee," he called in to the blonde. She was bent over the wash basin, now, splashing water on her face and gasping with the coldness of it. "Is it organic?" she called back. Bolan muttered to himself, "How the hell would I know?" She strode into the room, sans blanket and patting at her face with a small handtowel. |
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