"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 031 - The Majii" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Sure." The driver swallowed twice. "I'll take you to Doc Savage." Then, under his breath, "Ain't this a
crackpot world!"

The woman spoke one ripping sentence which was absolutely unintelligible to the driver, but seemed to mean
much to the four men with the uniforms and the rifles.

They all got in. The woman received much deference. She had bundled herself in a voluminous, shapeless
cloak, but she had a nice ankle.

The cigarette burned through the hackman's trousers, scorched him and he jumped violentlyтАФthen all but
fainted, for, with a speed born of much practice, one of the brown men snapped up his rifle.

The woman cried out. Wildness, haste in her voice told the taximan the brown one was about to shoot. But
she was in time. The automatic rifle lowered.

The driver found himself some blocks away, going in the wrong direction, before he got over his fright. He
corrected his direction. The woman spoke to him.

"Is Doc Savage in New York?" she asked.

"Don't know," the driver said hoarsely. "He goes all over the world."

The cab was headed for a nest of buildings in the center of Manhattan, out of which towered one of the tallest
skyscrapers in the metropolis.

"What," asked the woman, "does New York think of Doc Savage?"

"He's quite a guy," said the driver. "He helps people out of trouble. Does it for the excitement."

"Then he should be interested in saving my life, as well as others, including, very possibly, his own," the
woman said.

"Yeah, I guess so," said the driver. He had already decided that the woman was some kind of nut.

The woman said no more, and the driver gave attention to his piloting, reflecting at the same time that the
woman, while she spoke distinct and understandable English, had a pronounced foreign accent, but of what
nation, the driver could not tell, he being no linguist.

They were down in the garment sector now, and the streets were comparatively deserted at this hour.

"Stop!" the woman commanded suddenly.

Her voice was shrill, tense. The driver swerved his machine in to the curb, then stared at his cargo as they
unloaded hurriedly and scampered into a subway entrance. They disappeared.

The hackman had not been paid, but he only stared, for the truth was that he felt a relief at getting rid of his
fares, for they were potential trouble, he felt.

But a low, coarse voice rumbled in the driver's ear in a manner to halt his feeling of relief.