"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 254 - Syndicate of Sin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

stairs.

On the street corner, the man outside the drugstore had faded, too.

There was a coin phone box on the wall of the rooming-house hallway. In a moment, its bell began to
ring.

A frowzy landlady in a soiled kimono came out of the rear room on the ground floor. She answered the
call, then grunted.

"O. K. Hold the wire."

She waddled up the stairs and came down again, went back to her room. People in this house liked to
have privacy when they took messages.

The man who came down the stairs a moment later was thin, pasty-faced. He moved with the silence of a
cat. He picked up the hanging receiver and said: "Yeah?"

No one answered.

"Who's callin'?"

Again there was silence. With a smothered oath, the man slammed the receiver back on its hook. He
started to turn.

The muzzle of a gun jammed against his spine.

"Take it easy, punk!" Bobo whispered.

Bobo had the gun. Sam stepped in front of the victim. He had a gun, too. His grin was menacing.

"Hello, Blinky," he said, "We're going places!"

Blinky didn't try to deny his identity. His left eyelid was twitching violently. Blinky had a nervous tic in his
eye muscle that he couldn't control. It was what gave him his nickname.

"You boys must be makin' a mistake. I ain't done nothin'!"

"Shut up! Let's go."

They walked Blinky out the door and down the dark front stoop. It was a nice professional jobтАФno
haste, no gun showing.

Blinky and Sam got into the back seat of the sedan. Bobo drove. The car sped away.

The whole job had taken less than ten minutes.

HALF an hour later, the same black sedan halted in a more impressive neighborhood. It was a street east
of Central Park, in the Eighties. Not all the people who lived on this street were millionaires. But Ellery
Cotswold was.