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

arrival of daylight as an unwelcome intrusion into this highly stimulating
game of suspense.
He had been hoping that Bolan would come on in and make a grab for the
old man. Nothing in Rivoli's secret fantasies would have provided more
entertainment than to have Mack Bolan at his mercy.
Tony Rivoli, of course, did not know the meaning of mercy. It was a
nonexistent quality of human relations that strong men grovelled for and
ended up screaming for. But it was something which Tony Rivoli had never in
his entire lifetime actually dispensed - neither in fact nor in fantasy. In
the tiger brain of Tony Rivoli, mercy was simply a fantasy of the weak, and
nothing would give him more real pleasure than to reduce Mack Bolan to one
of those screaming pulpy lumps of whimpering flesh.
He would take him alive, of course. All of his gunners had been
solemnly informed that the man who killed Mack Bolan would get a bullet in
each knee. Rivoli wanted the bastard alive - alive and whole and sweating
and dreaming of mercy, yet knowing all the while that there would be no
mercy.
The defenses had been set up with that very idea in mind. Nothing
obvious. Hell no, don't scare the bastard away. Let him think it would be
easy - as easy as that hit on Dum-Dum Fasco at the China Gardens. Let him
think it would be waltz job, a quick in and a quick out like he'd always
had. He would find it a quick in, sure. That's exactly where they wanted
him, in. But the only way out would be through Tony's playroom on the third
floor - and he would find that a worse way than none at all. Yeah, they'd
take the bastard alive, all right.
Had Bolan ever heard of the Tiger of Russian Hill?
Probably not.
Tony Rivoli was a family secret. He had never been in jail, never been
questioned by any of those crime commissions or any of that jazz, never been
mentioned in the press or "exposed" by those jerk magazines.
No. Bolan the Quick would be expecting the routine, run of the mill
sort of palace defense. Like old man DiGeorge had down at Palm Springs. A
bunch of punk-ass lads who'd never shot anything but the bull's-eye out of a
target, and some tired old men who should've stepped aside years ago.
Bolan the Jerk had never run in on a real Tiger defense.
And the tiger of this hill wasn't tipping his hand to the jerk. He just
wished the guy had come on in that night, while everybody was up for the
job, while his boys were primed and trembling with the anticipation of
bagging the biggest game that ever hit this town. Yeah.
So what the hell. The guy would show. Rivoli was positive that the guy
would show. This was the palace, wasn't it? There was no secret about that.
The guy would come. He was just being cagey, cautious, keeping them waiting;
thinking that maybe the defenses would get too uptight, maybe over-anxious
and careless.
Tonight, probably, would be the night. The guy could even try a
daylight hit. But in San Francisco? Right here at the top of the town? With
two damned cops per square foot all over the place?
Probably not.
Rivoli checked the time. It was a little past eight o'clock. It was
daylight. The old man had gone back to bed. How could he go to bed at a time