"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 173 - Once Over Lightly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

тАЬTell the Great Man I'm here for a re-take,тАЭ I said. тАЬOr do I just walk in?тАЭ

тАЬYou sound determined,тАЭ Monk Mayfair scratched his neck with a fingernail. тАЬI guess you are
determined. Okay. But let me announce you. I was supposed to keep you out of here.тАЭ

He crossed to a door and opened it, hung his head through and said, тАЬShe got in anyway, Doc. She has a
look in her eye.тАЭ He kept his head in the door for a while, then sighed. He told me, тАЬI guess I'm in the
doghouse,тАЭ and held the door wider open.

Doc Savage was wiping his fingers on a towel. He stood beside what could have been a portable
chemical laboratoryтАФthe table was covered with the odd-shaped glass gadgets that chemists useтАФand
there was an odor of acid fumes in the air.

тАЬGood morning,тАЭ Doc Savage said.

He was big. I suddenly got all involved with trying to accept just how big he was. It wasn't just his
physical size that I was feeling now, although there was plenty of that, without it being out of proportion,
and without his being in any sense a physical freakтАФexcept that he could probably tie knots in
horseshoes.

It was the intangible size of him that was flooring me. Because he was all that they said he was, and more.
The way they had looked at him in the lobby yesterday, the awed way the phony Indian named Coming
Going had spoken of him. Glacia's idea that I was a dope for not having heard of himтАФthose were the
things that had told me what he was. He was all they indicated. He was probably more.

I said, тАЬYou're Clark Savage, Jr.тАЭ

He seemed surprised. тАЬYes.тАЭ

тАЬI was pretty slow getting it,тАЭ I told him. тАЬFor some reason or other, the name Doc Savage didn't mean
what it should have. I guess I don't know how to meet a legend. Or don't know one when I meet it.тАЭ
тАЬI don't believe I understandтАФтАЭ

тАЬI have heard of you the way little boys hear there's a pot of gold at the foot of rainbows,тАЭ I explained.
тАЬBut I'm not a little boy, nor even a little girlтАФI'm twenty-four years old. That's too old to believe in
anything at the end of rainbows, except maybe rain. But a while ago, Glacia Loring and I went to sleep
on a stairway. And then I knew.тАЭ

He said, тАЬReally?тАЭ The word meant two thingsтАФthat he was suggesting I didn't know what I was talking
about, and that he knew I wouldn't believe his suggesting.

тАЬI've heard of that gas.тАЭ

тАЬOh.тАЭ

тАЬI even remember where I heard about it,тАЭ I said. тАЬIt was at one of those lectures the F.B.I. give law
enforcement officials. The F.B.I. agent who lectured was named Grillquist, and he said that your
anaesthetic gas had been considered for general police use, but that it wouldn't be used. It was too good.
Crooks might get it, and use it on people, and the folks they used it on wouldn't know, because most of
the time they wouldn't even know they had been gassed.тАЭ