"Дон Пендлтон. The Violent Streets ("Палач" #41) " - читать интересную книгу автора

"I recommend you don't for now," said Bolan. "See if anybody acts
surprised. I'll direct Lieutenant Fawcett to your visitors when I see him."
And with that he left her, passing back into the early-morning darkness
that was already tinged with fault traces of gray on the eastern horizon. He
had spent more time with the lady cop than he had planned - but he felt that
the time had been well spent.
Even so, he had damned little to work with and, possibly, even less
time to seek his handle on the situation. If Fran Traynor's theory proved
out... and if there was a smoke-screen being laid downtown...
Too damned many if's, yeah.
Still, he could project areas of caution and concern, even with the
small amount of solid data available.
Item: Someone had definitely called out the guns, and unless they
played industrial espionage for keeps in the Twin Cities, that meant someone
was vitally interested in Toni's case.
Item: By logical extension, and if Fran was right about Toni being the
only living witness to a mass killer's identity, then the shadowy someone
just might want Blancanales's sister taken out of the picture permanently.
And finally, Item: By all indications, the human savage that Bolan had
come to St. Paul to eliminate was still out there, hungry and waiting for
his next chance to strike. And if the lady cop was correct in her surmising,
he was not only a rapist, but a five-time murderer as well.

7

Lieutenant Jack Fawcett was tired and exasperated, and he didn't care
who knew it.
He didn't like being roused from sleep in the predawn hours to drive
across town and stand above the remains of two leaking stiffs, even though
the assignment was nothing new or extraordinary for a lieutenant in homicide
division. It was still a drag, even after fourteen years on the job. It
would always be a drag.
He watched the uniformed officers moving listlessly as they herded the
little clutch of sleepy residents back from the crime scene and onto the
sidewalk. All around the little cul-de-sac, people in bathrobes and slippers
were sprinkled across lawns and sidewalks, gawking morbidly at the silent
residue of violent death.
Behind Fawcett, to the east, the sky was showing the faintest line of
pink along the horizon. On the little residential street it was still dark,
however, the scene lit eerily by the flashing lights of black and white
police units and the city tow truck he had ordered up.
If Jack Fawcett couldn't sleep, hell, nobody would sleep.
The tow truck had just finished winching the long sedan over and onto
its tires again from its previous inverted position. The medical examiner's
two orderlies were removing a limp body from the driver's seat, laying it
out on the street for preliminary examination. To Fawcett's right, in the
middle of the street, a second prone figure lay shrouded in linen.
A young junior-grade detective approached Fawcett. His youthful face
was already hardened around the eyes and mouth from exposure to violent
death. He carried a large manila envelope, the contents jingling, and popped