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

Without waiting for an answer, Remo twisted in his chair, to face the board, and then fired all three darts at once in a wide sweeping motion of his right hand.

Later on, people in Tuesday's Pub would say the skinny white man threw the darts so fast no one could see them.

The three darts hit the heavy board with a thunk. Side by side in the white arc of the number four wedge, they hit, with such force that their snub noses smashed through the heavy cork and stopped only when they reached the wall behind.

"Nine points, I win; leave me alone," Remo said.

Willie looked at Remo, at the dart board, and at Remo again.

Remo stood up, along with Smith and Chiun, who whispered to Willie: "He is a showoff. It is better if the darts have points." Chiun looked down and took the three darts Willie had used from the young man's hand. He looked at the board once, then tossed all three darts with one easy motion of his right hand. The darts each buried themselves into the back end of one of the darts Remo had thrown. "Practice," Chiun said. "You will get better."

He turned to follow Remo and Smith. No one bothered them as they left Tuesday's Pub.

In the Volkswagen Smith had rented at the St. Louis Airport, he outlined their plan.

Smith would go on to the conference at Edgewood University and see what Dr. Wooley's "television breakthrough" was all about.

Remo and Chiun would wait for Smith until he contacted them.

He had arranged a place for them to stay.

In a hotel.


CHAPTER EIGHT


Whatever Dr. William Westhead Wooley had done, it had hit a nerve, and his simple technological conference had turned into an event.

Hundreds-from the media, from scientific foundations, from industry-babbled amidst the remnants of their fruit cup, broiled brisket of beef, and snow peas dinner.

The booze had been flowing since the welcoming cocktail party. Dr. Harold Smith had found himself standing next to a greasy-looking man who was escorted by a six-foot-four, two-hundred-fifty-pound goon type and an Oriental in a black suit, who made the color look like a social judgment. The man insisted upon talking to Doctor Smith about how NBC's second season wasn't as good as ABC's season and CBS didn't have anything on the air that was any good at all, not counting Rhoda and Archie Bunker, and if he had something to say about it, there'd be game shows at night, because that was how you found out how people really acted, by taking real people and waving money in front of them.

Doctor Smith was about to excuse himself when a hush fell over the cocktail party.

Patti Shea had appeared. The Queen of Television.

Men's mouths were loosely open; women's were tightly shut. She was wearing a maroon gown, severely cut and open to just above the navel. The color of the dress did more than make her straw-gold hair stand out. It picked it up and pushed it in the crowd's face.

Patti Shea sighed heavily, causing her breasts to rise which created a major seismic disturbance at the front of her dress. Several matronly ladies sat down.

Patti's right leg moved forward to walk into the room. Her dress clung to it momentarily, then her creamy leg appeared through a slit in the garment which reached up to the thigh.

As she moved into the room, everyone made a desperate attempt to take their eyes off her. One man blinked and sat down. Norman Belliveau was biting his lower lip so hard it bled. Another man tilted back and fanned himself.

Some whistled silently, some winked at their friends, but no one ignored her-not until Patti had taken her seat at a table in the front of the room and the room again lapsed into normal activity. Some kept looking. Her crossing of her right leg over her left sent the man on her right reeling and the man on her left painfully remembering not to stare, at the expert elbow-in-the-ribs urging of his wife, who had decided that the teased hair on which she had spent $35 that morning looked cheap.

Lee (Woody) Woodward, the head of college affairs, had risen hastily from his seat at the head table and started tapping on his glass, which no one could hear because Stanley Weinbaum, director of admissions, was busy shouting: "Sit down everybody. That means sit down."