"yourlifeismine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barton Gary)

I was on my own, Johnnie Dale. For the first time in four months, I was leaving you. And I
wasn't sorry. I was only sorry because I hadn't seen through this thing a long time ago.

No, I wasn't forgetting you, Johnnie Dale. You were still dangerous to me. And you wouldn't
quit this case until that money turned up--I knew that. So I'd be back for you, with those
bullets that had your name on them.

That would be after I had the thirty thousand dollars in bonds,


The building on Jane Street was a walk-up. And it was dark. But I knew where to go, and found
the little apartment on the second floor, rear.

There was a shaft of yellow light showing beneath the door, and I tried the knob, though I
knew it would be locked. But that lock was a cinch, and the woman sitting in the front room
didn't know a thing till I walked in on her.

"Hello, Mona," I said softly.

"You!" she said. Her voice was little above a frightened whisper, and her eyes were wide
with fear.

"Expecting me, Mona?"

"I've been expecting you for months," she told me.

"I thought you had left Nickie. I thought you were in Chi."

"Not when I knew this hide-out and that there was thirty thousand dollars Iying around."

"You were a fool to stay, Mona," I told her.

"I would have been a fool to leave--with you and the rest of the wolves after this dough!"

"So now you have a partner," I said.

"Like hell there'll be a partner!" Mona snapped, and there was a gun in her hand. "Here's
where you came in--"

I whirled even as she fired. And she must have been very nervous and excited, because the
slug went high and chewed into the wall in back of me. I hit the couch on the other side of the
room rolling, and another bullet tugged at my coat. But I had the .45 out of my pocket now, and
was firing under my arm as I went down.

The couch had rolled away from the wall as I hit it, and I got down behind it and got set.
Mona sent two more at me, but her gun was still kicking high and the slugs bit into the plaster
over my head.

My next shot caught her in the wrist, and she screamed terribly and dropped the gun to the
floor. She was still screaming when I put one high into her chest--I was afraid the noise she