"Дон Пендлтон. Chicago Wipe-Out ("Палач" #8) " - читать интересную книгу автора

appreciate the personal interest."
Palmer nodded and went to the door, then turned back to examine his
boss with a searching gaze. "There was a doll with Louis when he got it," he
announced quietly.
"It figures," Lavallo muttered.
"And she up and disappeared. The chef says he saw her running across
the grounds to meet Bolan. He says she knew right where she was going."
Lavallo's chin quivered. He said, "I told Lou those dollies would kill
him. A man fifty-five years old shouldn't try acting like a young stud
again. I warned him those pains meant something."
"The point is that..."
"I know what point it is!" Lavallo yelled.
"Well I'm going to put a crew working that angle."
"You do that, Rudy. And tell 'em to bring this doll to me. I want to
talk to her personal."
"I figured you would," Rudy Palmer replied, and went on out, carefully
closing the door between the interconnecting offices.
Lavallo absently patted the grip of the .45 and sank onto the corner of
the desk, still staring unseeingly at the window. Shock and anger and fear
and outrage all seemed to have become resolved in a consummate sadness.
Louis Aurielli had been a good friend, a lifelong companion. They had come
up together, through the bloody ranks of family competition to a plateau of
unchallenged power. They'd seen a lot together, and done a lot together -
and together they had become a lot. Now Lavallo felt strangely alone,
exposed to the vicissitudes of a cruel world. And because of what? Because
of a smart-ass soldier boy on a dumb vendetta. What had Louis Aurielli known
of this smart-ass? What did Pete Lavallo care about him?
Okay, sure, there had been that thing at Miami Beach. And some of the
Chicago boys caught hell at Miami. But Lou and Pete had been a hundred miles
away at the time, and why should they take it personal about Miami Beach?
Let the street soldiers worry about the blacksuited bastard, that's what
they were paid to do. Not Lou and Pete. But now here was Louis dead and Pete
worrying.
There just wasn't any justice.
Well... it was personal now for Pete Lavallo. People didn't go around
gunning down his lifelong friends and live to smile about it. Not nobody,
not Mack Bolan, not a hundred Mack Bolans.
Lavallo sat there for a long time... remembering, wondering, hating...
and then he realized that the sun had gone down and that it was getting dark
outside. He went to the window and pulled the blind, then turned on his desk
lamp and punched an intercom button to connect him with a desk situated deep
in the maze of warehouses. A nervous voice responded immediately and Lavallo
asked it, "Did that guy from Rockford show up yet?"
"Not yet, Mr. Lavallo," came the strained response.
"Who the hell does he think he is?" Lavallo snarled. "I told him four
o'clock, and here it is five."
"They were having an ice storm across Interstate 90, sir, up near
Belvidere. Possibly he got caught in that."
"Don't bullshit me no ice storms!" Lavallo raged. "When he gets in, if
he ever gets in, you tell him it's all off. Tell him he's not hauling for