"P. N. Elrod - Vampire Files 08 - The Dark Sleep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elrod P N)

She grimaced and seized a fork, glared at it, and made a point of wiping it thoroughly with her napkin,
which I thought unnecessary. Granted, the joint wasn't the Ritz Hotel, like what she was used to, but then
it was a few steps above a greasy spoon, like what I'd been used to before I stopped eating solid food. It
was clean and well lighted, with no lip-rouge stains on the glasses, and the ashtrays were emptied
regularly. Not my kind of place these nights, but still fairly respectable.

Escott had chosen it because you could seat yourself, hence my place in a booth with Miss Sommerfeld,
and his at a table twenty feet away with Jason McCallen. From my vantage I could easily block the front
and back exits in case McCallen decided to hoof it before our business with him was done.

Our client wasn't too happy being so close to him, but with her short dark hair hidden by a gray cloche
hat and the rest of her covered up with a matching coat and galoshes, she looked like a thousand other
Chicago women for this time of year. Besides, McCallen was angled away from us, and would have to
turn to spot her.

I'd tried to dress to blend in as well, leaving my pricey double-breasted suits and silk shirts in the closet
in favor of a nondescript jacket and slacks, both in dark blue. My newsboy's cloth hat was stuffed in a
pocket, and I wore black shoes with gum soles. My hair was trimmed, combed, and slicked straight
back from my face. The impression I hoped to give was that of a laborer taking his girl out on a
Friday-night date. Nothing fancy, but not insultingly cheap.

Miss Sommerfeld pushed her vegetables around and savagely speared a single kernel of corn. She
shoved it into her mouth and chewed on it for half a minute.

"Stop staring at me," she growled.

I broke off and looked down at the mirror. Instead of paying attention to business, I'd been distracted
by how long it took her to eat the corn kernel.

The tiny image in my hand shivered and settled. It was the same as the last time I'd checked, with Escott
and McCallen at their table facing off over cups of cooling coffee. My partner was lean and tall,
beak-nosed, dressed neatly in a stuffed-shirt sort of way, looking like a fussy bank teller. McCallen was
just as tall, but more massive, with at least an extra fifty pounds of solid muscle riding easily on his
shoulders and arms. He was big, hairy down to his knuckles, and dressed like a longshoreman. I couldn't
blame Miss Sommerfeld for seeking help with the Escott Agency in dealing with him.

According to her story, McCallen had taken away an envelope of papers that were not his. They were
worth a lot to her, enough to hire us to get them back again. She didn't want publicity, so the theft went
unreported to the cops, and her lawyers had no clue about the incident.

When she first came to Escott's office early this afternoon to rent his services as a private agent, he made
a good stab at trying to find out the contents of the envelope, but she clammed up and shook her head.

"It's personal and private," she told him. "Nothing illegal, I assure you, but they don't belong to him. Will
this cover your fee?" Then she put five matching pictures of Andrew Jackson on his desk and that was
that.
 He called home at sunset to give me the short version of the deal and what sort of help he would need
from me if I was available. I wasтАФat least until around two in the morning when my girlfriend got off
work.