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

Glancing up at the broad rear-view mirror, he saw Donald Rayburn's figure leaning over
toward the side of the car. He heard the dry rasp of tearing paper, but the sound made no
impression on him for moments. Then realization struck with the force of a hard physical blow.

He knew, now, who had sent the two hard-eyed killers whom he had shot in Wilma Trent's
apartment. He knew who had killed Charlie Ricker--and why.

Donald Rayburn had torn Charlie Ricker's letter into bits and was feeding the paper scraps
out through the open window of the sedan! The pieces of the letter would be scattered over a
mile of the highway. No one could ever fit the pieces together again. The letter that was to
have saved Frank Trent was being destroyed entirely. It was as if Rayburn were actually throw-
ing Frank Trent's life from the sedan window!

Instantly, the puzzling happenings of the past hour formed themselves into a grim and
vicious pattern in Moran's mind. Death, he knew now, did have two hands. Those two hands were
the two plump fists of Donald Rayburn!


Cold sweat beaded on Moran's face. He could feel his stomach muscles mass into a cold, hard
knot. Charlie Ricker's letter was gone. There was nothing he could do now to save it. Any move
on his part, now, with the big sedan traveling at ninety-five miles an hour, would result in a
quick and unpleasant death for all of them. A car couldn't be stopped at that speed for
hundreds of feet. Clamping down suddenly on the brakes would mean a wreck.

He touched the brake pedal with his left foot, eased up with his right on the gas. The
lights of another filling station blurred past and were gone. The sedan started losing speed
slowly.

Donald Rayburn threw the last of the paper scraps through the window and yelled shrilly:

"Keep going! Don't stop!"

In the mirror, Moran saw him claw frantically at a side pocket of his gray coat, then saw
a gun in Rayburn's hand, He could see the man's round white face in the mirror. His eyes held
the hard, bright mercilessness that Moran had seen in the eyes of the two killers in Wilma
Trent's apartment.

Rayburn leaned forward and pressed the cold muzzle of the gun against the back of Moran's
neck.

"Keep going, or I'll shoot!" There was a shrill, frantic note in Rayburn's voice. Moran
could feel the gun trembling against his neck.

"Go ahead and shoot!" Moran yelled. "We're making eighty. If I die, well go in the ditch!"

Rayburn swore, his voice as high and as thin as a woman's. The gun muzzle left Moran's neck.
He saw Rayburn move in the mirror.

"I'll kill the girl!" Rayburn screamed. He pressed the muzzle of the gun against the back