"Kyle, Duncan - Terror's Cradle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kyle Duncan)

'Coupla days.'

'Excellent,' I said.

'Excellent it's not, bud.'

I said, 'All publicity's good publicity. Remember Cleopatra. Don't worry about it. Meanwhile she's where?'

'Staying with friends.'

'Well, she always had plenty of those. New friends wherever she goes. Some nicer than others, but not much. Do I see her tonight?'

Spinetti shook his head. 'Tomorrow,'

'In Las Vegas?'

'No. Not in Nevada.'

'Arizona or California?'

He'd had enough. 'I'll call you tomorrow. Early. Where are you staying?'

'The Dime Palace.'

Above the mirror lenses his eyebrows lifted. 'A motel?'

I said, 'Pounds convert into dollars in a most unfavourable way. Legacy of war, and things.'

'Yeah. Call you tomorrow.' He turned and walked away.

He was stuck with the mucky end of this stick, and I didn't feel sorry for him.

The Dime Palace wasn't quite as cheap and nasty as it sounds. Las Vegas, and the people who run it, take a simple attitude to visitors: they encourage them, tempt and flatter them, house them comfortably, feed them well and cheaply -and concentrate on removing their money at the gaming tables. So the Dime Palace was a twenty-dollar motel and charged ten. Included in the ten was a free drink and a free meal and the pool and the rest, plus a colour TV set in the room and free local phone calls. I've stayed in places, in Paris and Stockholm for instance, and in Russia, that gave a quarter the value and charged four times as much.

I was back there, about half-past ten, taking off my tie and adjusting the air-conditioning, when the phone rang. I stared at the instrument for a puzzled moment, wondering who the hell was ringing me. Then I picked it up, II

'John Sellers?'

'Speaking.'

'Message for you, bud. Leave Vegas. Don't come back.'

'Who-?'

'You hear what I said?'

'I heard. You've got a wrong number, I think.'

'Just go, Sellers. Go now.'