"deathhastwohands" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blackmon Robert C)

seat beside him and cried silently, her hands over her face. Her slender body was jerking.
Rayburn, on the back seat, was silent.


They left the city limits behind and went out Highway 76. Moran's right foot pressed harder and
harder on the gas pedal and the sedan's speedometer needle touched eighty on the dial. After a
moment, it had passed eighty and crept around toward ninety, then ninety-five. Moran's knuckles
showed whitely as he gripped the wheel rim. Muscles knotted at the angle of his jaws, as he
stared at the light-struck ribbon of pavement streaming toward them. There were no other cars
on the road. An occasional filling station shot past, a streaking blur of lights in the darkness.

Moran's lips set into a straight, grim line.

Death might have two hands, or many but, barring accidents, none of those hands would touch
Wilma Trent's brother tonight. The governor couldn't do anything but order a stay of execution
after reading the letter and learning of Charlie Ricker's death and the other two deaths
tonight. And he, Bill Moran, was going to have to explain a lot of things--leaving the Fairview
Apartments before the police came, not reporting Charlie Ricker's death, taking Rayburn and
Wilma Trent to the governor. But the hell he was going to catch would be worth it, if Frank
Trent's life were saved.

"Miss Trent," Donald Rayburn yelled above the roar of the sedan motor and the rush of wind
about the car, "would you let me see that letter? Perhaps I might see something in it that you
missed."

Wilma Trent gave no sign that she had heard Rayburn.

"I've got it."

Driving with one hand, Moran fished the letter from his coat pocket. He held it up and
Rayburn took it. Moran kept his eyes on the road. The sedan's speedometer needle was quivering
past the ninety-five mark. Moran put both hands on the quivering wheel and turned most of his
attention to driving. A part of his mind still struggled with the questions of who had killed
Charlie Ricker, who had sent the two killers to Wilma Trent's apartment.

The two killers he had shot wouldn't have had time to kill Ricker. There was a third man,
possibly more. Wilma Trent had received Ricker's letter only thirty minutes before he, Moran,
had arrived at the apartment. Ricker's name, apparently, hadn't figured in the thing until the
arrival of the letter.

The killers could have got Ricker's name and address from the boy who brought the letter.
They were, then, watching the apartment. The third man had gone to the Eagle Hotel to get
Ricker. The two killers had cut the telephone wire to be sure Wilma Trent and Moran couldn't
summon outside help. Then they'd got a key, opened the door, intending to blast both of them
to--

A change in the whistling roar of the speed-born wind about the sedan broke into Moran's
thoughts. For a moment, he thought little of it, then knew it had been caused by lowering a
window somewhere in the sedan, Wilma Trent was still huddled on the seat beside him, her hands
over her face, crying.