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

The nerve! The nerve of that cocky bastard to send it to him to give
to... The coldness pressed harder upon the Tiger's heart as he realized that
no, no, it wasn't addressed to the old man at all, it was addressed in care
of the old man... the goddam thing was meant for Tony Rivoli himself!
Where did the wise bastard get his name? Where was everybody suddenly
coming up with the Tiger's name, Christ's sake!
Rivoli whirled about to shout an instruction to the two gatemen, but
the words stuck in his throat. Heavy black smoke was billowing up over
there, totally obscuring that area of the yard, and he could not even see
the damned gate or Jerry the Lover or the other boy or anything but the
damned smoke.
In just one fucking second?
Shit, he was hitting! In broad daylight and with cops prowling all
around, the nervy bastard was hitting.
Rivoli raced into the yard to give the signal to the upstairs boy, the
signal which would be relayed to all the outside boys, to bring them in
quietly into a ring of steel around that house, around the whole
neighborhood, to seal the smart bastard inside, to cut away all of his
running room and even his walking room, to grind him surely and securely
within the confines of that house on the hill, and to begin his education
into the fantasies of mercy.
And then the Tiger ran on into the smokescreen, to see what the hell
had become of the boys at the gate, and to continue wondering why the
bastard had sent the mark of death to him - why him? - why the Tiger instead
of the Capo?
Despite smarting eyes and bursting lungs, Rivoli found the smoke bomb
and hurled it across the street. He also found the two boys lying in their
own blood, great gaping holes between their eyes, and he found the electric
gate standing wide open.
The Tiger staggered clear of the suffocating chemicals and made a run
for the front porch. Then he saw the same crap coming up all along that
fence, saw it billowing and drifting in a solid cover toward the house
itself, saw the new bombs erupting in close sequence and in the exact
pattern the goddam Bay Messengers van had taken - and Tony Rivoli began
right then and there to re-examine his own fantasies.
The mark of death had come to him.
The guy had delivered it personally, and had stood there smiling at
him, laughing at him inside - that guy with the paisano mustache in the
Levi's was Mack Bolan!
That heavy coldness at the top of Tony Rivoli's heart was the hand of
death. He knew it. The guy was there, and he'd come to kill the defender,
not the lord of the manse, and the Tiger of the Hill was not at all certain
now that he'd set the proper defenses for a hit like that.
Hell no, he wasn't sure at all.
"Shoot to kill!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Forget the other
stuff! God damn you, all of you, shoot to kill!"
It was to be a sad lesson in fantasies for Tony the Tiger Rivoli.

8
A Meeting of the Tigers