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

One of the guys in there was a fucking spade. In plain clothes, at
that. He showed Tony an ivory smile and told him, "Routine patrol, Mr.
Rivoli. Don't you be concerned - we have the entire neighborhood under
surveillance."
Where the hell did these guys get off, dropping his name around that
way? How did that black bastard know what his name was?
Rivoli muttered, "Why the hell should I be concerned about anything?"
He whirled around and crossed back to the other side of the street.
The delivery jerk was standing there, arms crossed over his chest,
grinning at him with that fuckin' paisano mustache curling down over his
upper lip and into his mouth. He probably sucked on it, he probably liked
the taste of hair in his teeth.
Rivoli snarled, "What the hell are you smiling at, guy?"
The smile froze and the jerk just stood there. He mumbled something
about just trying to do his job, then he turned back to Jerry the Lover and
said, "Hey, take the package, eh?"
"What is this great big worry you got there, guy?" the Tiger growled.
"I got a delivery for a Tony Rivoli, in care of Roman A. DeMarco. It's
this address, I got the right address, but this guy won't get serious. He
keeps telling me LaManchas don't live here, just because I..."
"Okay okay, whatta you mean you got a delivery? What kind of a
delivery?"
"This little package here, that's all."
The jerk was holding it in the palm of his hand. It was square, like
maybe a ring box or something done up in brown wrapping paper.
Rivoli saw the police cruiser in the edge of his vision, moving slowly
on along the street.
"Who the hell sent it?"
"Well why don't you just take it and maybe you'll know who sent it.
Hell I just run the things around, I just drive the damned..."
Tony the Tiger snatched the package out of the guy's hand and moved on
inside the fence.
The guy moaned, "Hey I gotta have somebody sign."
"Sign it and give the jerk a buck," the Tiger instructed Jerry the
Lover. Then he went on to the front entrance to the house, fuming inwardly
over spade cops who dropped his name around like they had a right to or
something.
A package?
Who the hell would be sending the Tiger of the Hill a goddamned
package? A package of what? In all his thirty-three years, no one had ever
sent Tony Rivoli a package of anything. Not even on his birthdays. Not even,
by God, on Christmas. It couldn't be a damn bomb, it was too small.
It couldn't be a...
Something froze around Rivoli's heart and his fingers trembled slightly
as he tore at the wrapping. Too late he had an impulse to yell back to Jerry
the Lover to stop that jerk, to hold him there a minute... the van was
already moving along and cornering onto the street at the side of the house.
Yeah. Yeah, it could be, and it was.
It was a marksman's medal, done up real fancy in a jewelry box with a
velvet cushion under it.