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

starter. He'll crack down on others, AndЧ"
"And there we'll be!"
Tim's eyebrows lowered.
"There Jerry and me may be. Not you. Pineapples are no toys for girls.
This case is all male stuff, from now on."

"Tim Noonan, ifЧ"
"No sale." Tim said.
She knew he meant it. The Irish in her flared up, then died. No sense
getting him riled untilЧ"When do you big men try it?"
"To-night. Near midnight, maybe. But as far as you're concerned, young
ladyЧ"
"All right, all right!"
She left the office hurriedly. Her eyes were bright, angry. She found it
hard work to smile when she stopped at Horner's secretary's desk in the outer
waiting room.
"ErЧcould youЧ"
"Yes, Miss?"
"I need some information. Do your delivery trucks go out on a definite
schedule? I mean, that one this afternoon? Is two the regular hour?"
The secretary's pale lips twitched.
"No, Miss. The regular schedule has been suspended for a week. Since the
Combine letters have seemed dangerous, each driver has been told when to report
the next day. Never two days the same."
"So only the driver and Mr. Horner would know?"
"Yes, Miss."
Grace nodded thoughtfully.
"I see. And one more thing. I wonder if you have this particular driver's
home address on file? Wally Mapes, I mean."
"We have, Miss."
Slowly, the smile in Grace Culver's sherry-colored eyes was becoming more
genuine.

Number 11 Barnstable Street, might have been the building from which the
dreary little crosstown alley had derived its name.
Standing on the broken flagstones that passed for a sidewalk, Grace stared
up at the bleak expanse of peeling paint and gray, weathered timber. Narrow
windows, like unblinking dead eyes, stared back at her.
Mr. Wally Mapes, she decided, was in a brighter spot even in the bare,
anti-septic-scrubbed aridity of the District Hospital's emergency ward.
Climbing the rickety wooden steps from the street, she jabbed a rusty bell
with one cautious finger tip. It had seemed more than likely that the ark
of a building would collapse under the pressure.
Somewhere inside, a metallic jangle began and continued until she removed
the finger. She waited. The finger that had pressed the buzzer button traced the
outline of a long pearl barpin, obviously cheap and flashy, that she wore at the
throat of her blouse. The pin had not been part of her costume when she had
left Horner's laundry, half an hour earlier.
Heavy footsteps, moving slowly, thudded along the hall on the other side
of the drab panel. The door, opening a narrow slit, creaked dismally on its