"Elrod, P N - Vampire Files 10 - Cold Streets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elrod P N)

Only a patch of night-gray sky was visible through a grimed window. I thought we
were still well within the city, though, just not in an area with high buildings
to give me a landmark.
"Yeah," said Ralph. "It's all here, Dugan, small bills. We're rich!"
"Right then," said the third party. "Lead on, and I'll watch your backs."
The window went up, and Vinzer shifted gears. We rolled forward, apparently on a
more direct course to our destination. There were fewer turns, and I saw the
rise and fall of telephone wires and passing streetlights. No way to tell where
we were heading.
"Watch our backs," Vinzer muttered. "More like watching us so we don't run off
with the dough."
"I'd do the same if I was him. Just makes sense. Dugan trusted us to meet up
with him."
"Only after he told me how tough it would be to do anything else."
"What d'ya mean?"
"He didn't come out and say it, but he let me know."
Ralph persisted with the same question.
Vinzer snorted. "He told me it would be too bad if the cops got a description of
us and the plate numbers of the car."
"So?"
"It was how he said it. Like he'd phone it all in if we didn't show."
"Well, we did show, so now it don't matter."
"He don't trust us, so I don't trust him."
"You worry too much. Dugan's been straight from the start, just careful, you
know? This was being extra careful. I'd do the same if I was him."
"If you was him, you wouldn't need the money."
"He said he was broke."
"Yeah. He said. You ever once live in a place like he's got? I don't buy his
story."
"Don't matter to me. This job worked out. That's what matters."
Vinzer muttered again but subsided.
The steady undulation of phone wires threatened to make me carsick, so I looked
away. I'd materialized down in the foot well, which was unpadded, with a
blackjack in one coat pocket and a .38 revolver in another. Both seemed to be
burrowing toward each other as each bump and pothole in the road telegraphed
through my long bones. I settled in as best I could for the duration and hoped
my unaware companions continued to be preoccupied by thoughts of Dugan. He
sounded to be the possible brains behind their operation and apparently lived
somewhere nice enough to impress Vinzer. Maybe it was too nice and needed a lot
of expensive upkeep, so he chose kidnapping over bank robbery to acquire some
big cash.
As a crime, kidnapping used to be almost respectable, a popular, low-risk way of
getting rich quick. All you had to do was walk off with someone's kid for a day
or so, trade the tot for a box of spending money, then hope to lam it before the
cops caught up. The American public had developed a sneaking admiration for such
criminals, almost like for Robin Hood. It was a lark, an adventure, and no one
was ever really hurt. Until the Lindbergh case showed everyone up. The fun had
gone out of the game. Now it was as deadly as it had always been, maybe more so.
Harsh federal penalties had raised the ante for the criminals, so the more
ruthless ones made killing the victim part of the job. If they were really