"Shadow - 351015 - Back Pages - Grace Culver - Bombproof Baby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

From: The Shadow, The House That Vanished, 10/15/35


"Redsie" Culver ironed out a laundry racket,
but to do so she had to prove she was a

BOMBPROOF BABY
by Roswell Brown

It's summer fever," the redhead yawned, stretching like a cat and knocking
a file of finger-print cards off one corner of her desk with the sweeping
gesture.
"Huh?" Jerry Riker muttered.
He had been looking at the backs of her bright curls for a long time and
thinking thoughts of his own. When she came suddenly to life, it startled him. But
"Redsie" Culver was always startling him.
"Summer fever," Grace repeated distinctly."Spring fever grown up. I'm
sleepy. I'm bored. Nothing happens. Life is too smooth."
Jerry looked hopeful.
"How about a movie to-night?"
"A movie? You would!" Disconsolately, "Big Tim" Noonan's secretary and
right hand began to gather up her scattered cards. "A movie I'd even rather sit
here like I am, till I'm old and gray, trying to prove that the mug that broke
into Mrs. Rabinovitz's store and tuck the till for eight bucks fifty hasn't got a
double-whorled thumb like Rocco C. Bragatelli's. And that says little."
It was a perfect afternoon outside the windows of Tim Noonan's detective
agency offices. Blue sky. Bright sun The wrong time entirely to deal with Rocco C.
Bragatelli and his problematic connection with minor monies once in the possession of
Mrs. Ashelom Rabinovitz.
"I wish Tim would get back she announced. "I could tell him about
that laundry lad that's telephoned three times since he left for lunch. It would
take up a couple of minutes, anyhow."
Jerry grunted.
"What the guy want?'
"I wouldn't know. And if I did, as the perfect confidential secretary to a
man of affairs, I wouldn't tell."

It was ten minutes and an additional laundry call later that Big Tim lumbered
into the office and tossed his battered panama in the direction of the
hatrack with nonchalant precision. Grace whooped at the sight of him.
"Your Sunday shirt's been shredded, Noonan! Or else they broke off all
your buttons. They're hot to apologize."
"Who?"
"Horner's Laundry. Mr. Horner himself, in factЧwhoever he is. I've
taken four calls and a call-back number. They must have messed up your
scanties good and proper."
The gray-haired giant creaked into his desk chair.
"I trade with a one-eyed Chinese man on Madison Avenue. Where's
that number? Oh, yeah. I'd better see. They maybe have run the Rabinovitz woman
through a wringer by mistake. In which case, no call for apologies."