"Destroyer - 025 - Sweet Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Warren)

Remo turned toward him. "Will you go away? Can't you see I'm talking business here?"

He turned back to Smith. "See, my safety's not a problem anymore, so all you've got to worry about is security for the organization. We'll do everything under a fake name."

Smith sighed and shrugged.

"So it's settled?" Remo said.

"I'm gonna settle you," Willie yelled.

Remo said, "Now I've been very nice with you, Willie, so far. Don't make me spoil my good record."

"Who gonna pay for my darts?" Willie's yelling had started to attract a crowd, as men, glasses in hand, moved away from the bar and toward the back room.

"Settled?" Remo asked Smith again.

Smith nodded.

Remo turned away. "I'll play you for your darts, Willie," he said.

"Give 'em here," he said.

Willie tossed the three tipless darts onto the table and Remo picked them up. It had been a dozen years or more since he had thrown darts, back when he had been a policeman on the Newark police force. He was pretty good then but now as he hefted the darts, he realized he had known nothing then. He had gotten pretty good at the game by making his mistakes consistent, not by learning to throw darts correctly.

"One inning," he said to Willie. "If you win, I'll give you fifty dollars for your darts."

"Twenty dollars," Smith said.

"I'll give you a hundred dollars for your darts if you win," Remo said. "And if I win, we just forget it."

"All right," Willie said, with a slow smile washing over his face. "Clarence, you go get some darts from the bar."

Three more brand-new wooden darts were brought to the back room. Willie looked them over then handed them toward Remo.

"You first," Remo said. "I want to see what I have to beat."

"Okay," Willie said. "I pick the inning. We shoot number four."

Willie leaned over the shooting line, and carefully threw the darts at the board. The first two landed in the red ring; the third in the outside white ring.

"That seven points," Willie said with a smile.

He pulled the darts from the board and handed them to Remo who remained sitting at the table, facing away from the board.

"That's all right," Remo said. "I'll use these."

"Hey, dummy, those darts ain't got no points on 'em," Willie said.

"Never you mind. I've got to beat seven?"