"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 022 - The Annhilist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

damn 'em! I know you're the Man of Mystery, and I know people try to kill you and you do things to 'em
and the law never hears about it I don't like it. From now on, when anybody takes a shot at you, you call
a cop and he'll handle it. Do it like anybody else does."

"In other words, have the police fight my battles?" Doc asked.

"Call it what you want," Hardboiled scowled. "There'. laws to take care of crooks. And another thing:
behave yourself and you won't have any battles to fight."

Doc asked dryly, "You have a faint suspicion I am a crook? Is that it?"

Hardboiled glared. "'When I have suspicions, they're not faint!" he yelled. "I come out with 'em."

Doc said, "Suppose you come out with them now."

The beefy inspector's leather sap swung for emphasis.

"I think you do things outside the law!" Hardboiled roared. "That makes you subject to arrest. There are
laws to punish criminals. And don't feed me that hokum about them not being punished in this day,
because they are. Let the law take its course."

Doc said, "No one is disputing that"
Hardboiled put out his jaw. "I've heard that you set yourself up as judge, jury and penitentiary, all in one,"
he rapped. "Now that stuff don't go. You make one slip, and I'll clap your pants in the holdover so quick
your head'll swim! If there's any one needs arresting in this town, that's my job. I do it. And I don't stand
for anyhody meddling with my job."

Doc murmured without expression, "Very clear."

Hardboiled got his jaw out farther. "Now I want civil answers to plain questions out of you. There has
been two murders here, one of them the eighth in a damned mysterious chain of deaths that's beginning to
get everybody all bothered."

"I see," Doc said.

"Go upstairs and take a look at that other body," Hardboiled directed. "Maybe you can identify it."

The medical examiner managed to work close to Doc Savage's side as the bronze man mounted the
stairs.

"This Hardboiled is a character," he said. "He would insult the president. He's a leather-skinned cop of
the old school, and he's been doing wonders at cleaning up Manhattan since they put him in charge. He's
got a phobia for sticking to the letter of the law where police duties are concerned."

"I have been following Hardboiled's record," Doc Savage said quietly. "The man is just what Manhattan
needed."

The examiner chuckled. "Hardboiled was canned by a previous administration for knocking the mayor
down when they got in a quarrel over one of the mayor's friends breaking the speed limit. He's some
character. His feet always hurt him. Maybe that's what makes him so grouchy."