"killersusesewers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lewis Stafford)

KILLERS USE SEWERS
by STAFFORD LEWIS


Trapped in o manhole, Dove Sands hod to save that girl and smash o murder ring!


The girl was in a hurry. Her red hair streamed in the wind and her stockinged feet pounded
the ground in hard, swift strides. And she wore neither hat nor coat, though it was a cold
winter night. That was strange.

Dave Sands was puzzled and amazed as he watched the girl run toward him. He didn't like
finding the gate open, either; the night man always kept it closed. The gate was part of a
high wire fence, surrounding the big grounds of the sewage= disposal plant.

Dave watched the girl run toward him by the light of a full, midnight moon. He was just
entering the plant grounds, and she had to pass him to get out through the only exit within
four hundred yards. He noticed a long, round purse flipping in the girls fast moving hand,
seeming to help pump her swift feet faster. He moved toward the girl to learn what her
trouble was.

The girl was very close to Dave Sands, now. He stood directly in her path and shouted:

"What's the matter--" Dave ducked as he saw the purse flip upward at his bead. The purse
glanced on the side of his cap, a hard, stunning blow. Dave Sands went down, dimly realizing
the purse in the girl's hand was really a blackjack!

Dazed and half conscious, he heard a man's running feet on the driveway that led to the
gate and the roar of a car zipping through it. The last thing he remembered hearing was the
girl's scream!


The next thing Dave Sands knew, he was feeling very rocky. A tremendous pressure inside his
head seemed to be trying to break his skull. His head ached so badly he could hardly see. He
shook it and a sharp pain knifed at his brain. He quit the head-shaking.

He got up, shivering from the damp, cold wind that swept off Puget Sound and looked a-
round. He could see no sign of the girl with the blackjack or the men who had chased her with
a fast car.

Dave Sands fought his headache and tried to concentrate on the girl and the opened gate.
He realized the girl must have been trying to escape from a gang of extortion murderers who
had their victims so badly frightened neither the newspapers nor the police could get much
information from them. Men who would be brave in the face of a threat of death from knife or
gun are often terrified by threats of death by an unusual or revolting means. This gang's
threat was either asphyxiation by sewer gas and then drowning in sewage--or paying the money
they demanded.

The first murder had failed through lack of specialized knowledge. A banker had been