"P. N. Elrod - Vampire Files 07 - A Chill In The Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elrod P N)

Paco lobbed that last grenade."
 And what a sight she had been with her throwing the thing as far as her tiny form could manage, then
running flat out in the other direction to hit the dirt a half second before the whole night went up. She'd
been laughing the whole time.

"Yeah, Fleming," said Coldfield. "We wanted to come back for you. Sorry."

"I'm not. None of you needed to be there. Angela's her father's daughter and then some when it comes
to being crazy."

"So what happened? How'd you get away?"

It would be much easier if I could give him the truth of it, of how I'd nearly checked out four times over
this night. First by getting shot up by a wiseguy named Chaven, which weakened me; I can survive
bullets, but can't tolerate blood loss too damn well. Then later, while trying to get away from Angela
Paco, I caught a load of grenade shrapnel. The stuff had gone right through me, of course, but it hurt like
blazes and weakened me more. The third time, while I was locked up and alone, one of Angela's mugs
came to work off a grudge by trying to beat my brains out. I was only just able to stop him, and in the
aftermath, I'd fed from him to stay alive. It saved me, until the morphine in his blood kicked in and laid
me out flat. That's when Angela, figuring me to be dead, decided to drop my body into Lake Michigan.
The only reason I was moving at all was that with my condition I'm a lot tougher than I used to
beтАФthough at the moment I was feeling pretty damned fragile.

A real hell night for yours truly, Jack Fleming, and there was still more of it left.

"Kyler had Frank Paco prisoner," I said, trying to sort what to say and what to leave out. "Was going to
use him to get full control of the old Paco gang away from Angela. When Kyler pegged out, that
lieutenant of his, Chaven, cozied up with her to get her to trade me for her father." And one other
hostage, a walking adding machine named Opal who knew how to work the gang's books.

"The hell you say. Why did Chaven want you?"

"He needed a patsy to blame for Kyler's death. Probably pretty embarrassed, what with aiming at me
and getting his boss instead when I ducked too fast. After he gave back Paco, he hauled me, Kyler's
body, and what was left of a guy called Vic who was playing both sides, aboard theElvira and was
going to dump us all in the lake for fish food. I waited until I had a chance, then jumped Chaven. He's
dead now. Charles, it was with your gun."

Escott offered me a thin, glacial smile, his face alight for a second. "I'm delighted to hear it was put to
such good use, though there might be trouble should the police trace it to me. I suppose I'd best report
the gun has been stolen."

"They won't trace anything even if they do find the body. The bullet went right through him."

"How fortunate."

He might not have thought so had he been the one pulling the trigger.

"What's become of it? My Webley?"