"Shadow - 341201 - Back Pages - Grace Culver - Double Chocolate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

A narrow, sinister cul-de-sac opened off the pavement at right angles; a
roughly paved, dead-end alley, on both sides of which grim rows of squalid
buildings opened. The dirty walls were a literal honeycomb of doors and windows.
There was no light except that thrown in from the street where she stood.
At one of the doorsЧa battered looking cellar hatchЧJorgen's hunched figure
was pausing. Metal gleamed between his fingersЧa key. The door swung
inward. He plunged through it into darkness, and the panel closed.
Grace did not stop, or turn into the cul-de-sac. If there were a gangЧas
Albertson at the Importer's Trust had statedЧothers of them might easily be
about the place and watching her.
Head down, hands plunged deep in her pockets, the redhead scurried onward,
turning south at the next intersection as though a muffled man in a
dead-end alley were no concern of hers whatever.
But there was a drug store on the corner, its grimy windows alight behind
cigar boxes, magazines and soft drink ads. And less than a minute later, Grace
was in a booth in its stuffy interior, listening to the ring of a nickel in the
telephone.
It was a long time before her party answered. But before she had resigned
herself to failure, the receiver at the far end lifted.
"Noonan's agency."
The redhead recognized that voice.
"Jerry Riker? It's Grace, Jerry. I---"
He interrupted her with a whoop. "Hi, Carrots! Say, listenЧI didn't know it
was your birthday until Tim spilled it this morning. How about a date to-night?"
"That's why I called you up," she answered.
"Swell! How about that new show at the-"
"This is business, Jerry! I've got a show of my ownЧgang of counterfeiters that
are flooding the city. Stumbled on 'em by luck. Now listen! Get Tim. Both of
you shag down here as fast as you can make it. I'm on Wickenden Street, a block
from the river."
"ButЧbut what's the set-up?"
"Odds unknown. All I can tell you is, the hang-out's in a blank alley about half
a block east of the drug store where I'm phoning. You'll known it by the picture of
Jean Harlow over the cash register. I've got to get back now. I'm watching 'em."
She heard the receiver click.

Jorgen might have gone out again already, Grace realized, as she moved
back in the direction from which she had come with as much speed as she dared.
But that had been a necessary risk. She had been in a tight spot alone, and
Tim and Jerry would be on their way to help her now. She needed them.
The cul-de-sac was empty when she reached it. Blank windowsЧsome of
them boarded upЧstared down on the sinister alley like watching eyes. Behind
a few of the cracked panes, stories above the street, lights shone faintly.
But it had been a cellar entrance Jorgen had taken. There was a row of them,
all alike, yawning from the shadows on the side where he had stood. She hadn't
had time, before, to notice which one was his.
Knowing only that it was the east side of the alley she must watch, Grace
hugged the dingy bricks of the opposite wall and stepped forward into darkness.
At a point some twenty feet in from the street, a rain barrel had been set
against the west side of the cul-de-sac. Its lee formed a shallow black pocket,