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

"Good, ain't it?" His eyes crossed as he looked at me. "Have a seat. Sit down." He
waved a fat hand toward the bureau. "Who are you?"

He dropped the bottle on the bed and scowled. His little blue eyes got mean as he
fumbled for the edge of the bed. The bottle gurgled out its contents onto the mattress.

"What's the idea of busting into my room, eh? How come a gen'man can't sleep in this
joint, eh? I want the manager! Get me the manager! I'm gonna see what's the matter a
gen'man--"

He found the edge of the bed and almost tumbled out on the floor. 1 went over and
pushed him back onto the bed. He fell on his back, Iying on the whiskey-soaked mattress.
He squinted up at me, all the meanness passing out of his bleary eyes in an instant.

"You knew David Hammond?" I asked him. "Room 712?"

Ollis closed his eyes. His lips moved a little.

"Hammond, 712." He shook his head. "Never heard of him. Knew Neal Carter and Alfred
Marsh Fine fellows, hut they can't hold their liquor. Told'em they couldn't. We tried it.
We found out. I showed 'em, I drank 'em under the table. The bellhops hadda put'em to bed.

His words started blurring together and he kept his eyes closed, his chunky body relaxed
on the bed. He opened his mouth wide and started snoring.


I shut off the light and left the room. James Ollis was in no condition to tell me anything.
According to him, both Neal Carter and Afred Marsh would be in the same condition. But I had
to make sure about that. The three drunks were the only ones on the seventh floor with Hammond,
and Hammond was dead--murdered. He'd been killed not many minutes ago, according to the groan
into the phone.

I went along the hallway to 708, Marsh's room, and knocked. There wasn't any answer, but
through the panels I could hear a man doing a very noisy job of snoring. My passkey opened
the lock, and I went into the room. It smelled strongly of whiskey.

A reading light was on beside a chair near the bed. Afred Marsh was on the bed, on his
back. His mouth was open, and he was snoring loudly. I went over and looked at him.

He appeared to be about thirty-five. He was in shorts and white cotton undershirt, and
his arms and legs were knobby, thin. He needed a shave. His clothes were on the chair by
the light and there was a folded newspaper on the floor beside the chair.

I went over to the chair, intending to have a quick look for something identifying
the man on the bed as Alfred Marsh, but the headlines on the folded newspaper that caught
my eye made me forget that. The headlines were marked with pencil. They read:


HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS MISSING.