"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 024 - Red Snow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Driver and assistant sat very still.

Doc Savage whipped away from the shuttered window, ran to his hand bag-the one from which he had
taken the binoculars-and jerked up one of the flaps which separated the container into halves. This
revealed five weapons which, one not knowing much about firearms, might have mistaken for automatic
pistols.

Doc Savage removed one of these. Just ahead of the trigger guard, he clipped a magazine which
resembled one of the reels on which film for home movie cameras is put up. Lying beside the unique
weapons were five cylinders somewhat over an inch and a half thick and nearly a foot long. Doc affixed
one of these to the muzzle of the over-sized automatic device, by a patent coupling.

Going to the window, he lifted it without much noise. The two peddlers were searching truck driver and
assistant for weapons. Doc Savage took a deliberate aim.

There was a sound as if some one had whistled and then clapped hands once in the distance. There was
almost no report from the unusual gun; it was a machine pistol of Doc's own construction, the mechanism
so fashioned that, unlike the ordinary type of automatic and submachine gun, it could be operated with a
silencer. The whistle was made by the bullet; the clap was the sound of the slug hitting one of the
peddlers.

The man who had been hit barked a surprise and jumped, slapping a hand to his thigh.

"What is it?" demanded his companion. Then there was another whistle and clap, and he, too, started and
grabbed a portion of his anatomy.

The pair cackled at each other in their native speech. They stared at small holes in their clothing, where
the bullets had entered. Apparently this was their first experience with a silenced gun.

Then they returned their attention to the truck driver and his assistant, finished searching the pair. Finding
no weapons, they ran around to the rear of the truck to tug at the gate fastening.

They seemed to have a great deal of difficulty with the fastening. Fumbling with it appeared to make them
tired. They leaned against the gate. Both brushed hands over their eyes. Then they sat down behind the
truck. Both sighed. Both fell over and to all appearances went to sleep.

Doc Savage knocked the Venetian blind aside and threw a leg over the sill. His machine pistol was
charged with mercy bullets, thin metal shells filled with a chemical concoction producing quick
unconsciousness. They had been effective on the two strange peddlers.

Down the street, the group of newspaper men had vanished as if some one had waved a magic wand.
They had seen the peddlers' guns. Now that the peddlers were down, the journalists thrust heads from
behind palm boles and parked cars; one fat fellow ceased trying to make a fire hydrant serve as shelter.

Doc Savage swung out on the window sill and prepared to drop the two stories to the narrow lawn
between the hotel front and the sidewalk.

The mounds of oranges, cocoanuts and grapefruit on the peddlers' carts erupted like volcanoes. From
each cart, three men leaped. Their faces were black, but they were obviously not Negroes; the blackness