"Shadow - Back Pages - 370515 - The Kid Faces Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

Danny Garrett grinned. "Sure!" he said. "I'm glad to do errands for you guys
like that. Give me Hudson's address."
For three days Danny Garrett spent all the hours he had free for shining shoes
in and around the neighborhood of Paul Hudson's combination soda-
magazine-book-stationery store, and by now he had begun to agree with Mike
Ryan and .the chief that Slug was wrong about Hudson. The merchant seemed
neither nervous nor unhappy; and Danny hadn't seen anything that would make
him even slightly suspicious.
As a matter of fact, Hudson was a likable man, and Danny struck up an
acquaintance with him.
On the third day Danny sipped a soda Hudson had given him for delivering
some newspapers into apartment houses.
"Mr. Hudson," he asked subtly, "did you ever know any cops?"
Paul Hudson's dark eyes gleamed. He was a medium-sized man in his early
thirties who had crisp and curly black hair, a swarthy complexion, and thickish
lips.
"Sure," he replied frankly. "I told them I thought some one was going to
murder me!"
Danny hadn't expected that, and he was astounded. He knew that Paul Hudson
had a dry sense of humor, and that he often startled people by telling the
truthЧwhat he thought of them, their clothes, their wives, and whether or not he
cared for their patronage. He had a score of enemies for this, but twice as many
friends who looked upon him as something rare.
"YouЧyou told them that?" Danny asked.
"Yeah," said Paul, and closed the subject.
Danny Garrett sat there drinking the soda. A tall, gray-haired man whom
Danny recognized as Stanley Sims, a well-known doctor, and a good friend of
Paul, came into the little store and sat down beside him.
"Hello, Paul!"
"Hello, doc," Paul replied, smiling slowly. "How's everything at the clinic?"
"Fine!" Doctor Sims boomed. "And Shirly is fine, too. She asked me to tell
you she would see you later to-night. How is your treatise coming?"
"The treatise is coming along all right," Paul Hudson said, and he closed that
subject, too. He had a deft way of doing that at exactly the time he wished.
Danny said he would see Paul later and left the store. He drummed up trade
on Third Avenue, and two hours later came back and sat down on the newspaper
rack in front of Hudson's establishment.
He saw Shirly Parker as she approached. She was garbed in her white nurse's
uniform and a thin coat. Her hair was jet-black and coiled in rolls on the back of
her neck; she had eyes that were as shiny as ebony.
Danny had learned long ago that she was Paul's girl. She entered the store, and
Danny Garrett remained sitting on the rack.
He was surprised to see Shirly Parker come out of the store less than five
minutes later. She glanced at Danny, then up and down the street. Her face was
as pale as a ghost. She had something bulky tucked under her arm that looked like
a manuscript.
As she hurried toward the curb to call a cab, Danny noticed idly that she was
wearing new shoes, that the soles, as her tiny feet went clip-clop, were spotless.
Then a taxi pulled up and the girl climbed into it and made off.
For a moment the significance of this strange action did not fully dawn on the