"Destroyer - 009 - Murderers Shield" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Warren)

"Everybody in your business, not in mine. Well, that got me thinking. Even a racist like you admits that a man like Big Pearl is smart. He doesn't put himself in a position where he's going to be killed. The average pimp lasts two years. He was going for fifteen. How? By making it profitable for people not to kill him. So the motive had to be something other than profit, right?"

"If you say so, Sherlock," said McGurk.

"Okay. Then we get the financier in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Maybe he made enemies. In heroin, that's possible."

"Right."

"But he operated like Big Pearl. He paid. And made it unprofitable to kill him. And the judge in Connecticut was another one on the take. His life was very profitable to the Mafia."

"Maybe he took and didn't deliver," said McGurk. He wheeled the car sharply into the darkness and stopped. He turned off the lights and an outline of a small cabin could be seen from the car.

Duffy grabbed two bottles and McGurk grabbed two bottles and they stepped gingerly over the rock-strewn earth to the cabin entrance. McGurk turned on the lights and Duffy got the ice.

"You look at the judge's record," Duffy said. "He always delivered. The Mafia had a good reason to keep him alive."

"Okay. It wasn't the mob. Maybe it was some nut." McGurk twisted the plastic ice cube tray, sending ice skittering across the formica table top. He gathered handf uls of the ice and filled two large mugs Duffy brought forth.

"Nuts don't work that well," Duffy said. "I know that. Fill the tray. We're going to be out of ice soon if you don't."

"Oswald didn't work that well. Sirhan didn't work that well. There are two dead Kennedys because of nuts who didn't work well. I'll fill a couple on the next tray."

"Those were one-hit affairs, Bill. These things aren't. There's a string of them. Bam. Bam. Bam. They get in. They get out. Over and over. That's not nuts; that's competence any way you want to slice it. Fill the tray now."

McGurk raised his mug and smiled.

"To two dumb donkeys-us," he said.

"To two dumb donkeys-us," said Duffy.

They clinked mugs and drank and walked into the living room, letting the remaining ice cubes melt in the tray.

"I'd have two choices for who's doing these killings," said Duffy. "Soldiers or cops. Somebody professional."

"Okay, soldiers or cops," said McGurk.

"Cops," said Duffy. "Soldiers couldn't find their rectums if not located near toilet seats."

McGurk smiled broadly.

"Okay, cops. Why haven't there been identifications? Cops' faces are known around their cities, especially in cities under a half-million."

Duffy leaned forward on the torn leather couch. His face broke into a grin, one former professional making judgment on current professionals.

"That's the beauty of it. I figure it's reciprocal hits." He put his mug down on the wooden floor and reinforced his explanation with his hands. He put them out wide to either side, then crossed them to the far sides. "New York cops make a hit in Harrisburg. Harrisburg makes a hit in Connecticut. Connecticut cops make a hit in New York or what have you. The locals set it up; the outsiders hit. It's foolproof. You know the hardest thing in an assigned hit is finding the sonofabitch of a target. If it weren't for the Maquis that knew France, we couldn't have found our way into Paris."

McGurk shook his head.

"You Fordham guys were always so fucking smart. We could always tell a Fordham guy. He read books."