"Дон Пендлтон. The Violent Streets ("Палач" #41) " - читать интересную книгу автора

winning him the "Executioner" label.
It took a big man to carry both names well.
And Mack Samuel Bolan was one hell of a big man.

4

After picking up a new rental car and ditching their riddled sedan on a
lonely side street, Pol Blancanales and Mack Bolan drove directly to a
fashionable apartment complex east of downtown St. Paul. They were not
followed.
On their way up two flights of stairs, Pol filled Bolan in on some of
the background to Toni's case. She had been living in St. Paul the past
three months, working out of this same apartment building while handling
some of Able Team's business that was unrelated to the covert Phoenix
effort.
They reached a nondescript door on the third-floor front, and Pol gave
a prearranged knock before letting himself in with his key. Mack Bolan
followed his friend into a modest but comfortable living room, where the
lights were kept on their lowest setting, casting shadows in the corners of
the room.
Toni Blancanales was emerging from a rear bedroom to greet them, and
Bolan was struck by the change in her appearance since their last meeting.
The Politician's kid sister was wan, almost cadaverous, and
harried-looking. Her face wore the look, yeah, of a cornered animal. She was
drawn and pallid, with dark circles under her eyes.
Toni's shoulder-length dark hair was mussed, looking as though it had
been neither washed nor even brushed for several days. And she wore a
loose-fitting housecoat, clearly designed to hide her young woman's figure,
buttoned high around her throat and trailing almost to the floor.
She greeted them with a weak smile and a breathless monosyllable. Bolan
watched her curl into a padded armchair, slim hands clasped tight around her
drawn-up knees.
Bolan and Pol sat on the couch opposite, neither of them speaking for a
long moment. Bolan used the time to study Toni closely as she sat there, her
eyes averted, looking for all the world like a small child peeking through
the top of some shapeless tent or sleeping bag.
Where her hands were clenched around her knees, the knuckles were white
with tension, fingers tightly interlocked as if to keep those slender hands
from trembling.
"I expected you back from the airport sooner," Toni said at last,
breaking the awkward silence.
As she spoke, her eyes darted briefly to meet Bolan's, then skittered
away again like mice frightened by a sudden noise.
"Yeah, well, we got tied up," the Politician told her.
"Oh?"
Bolan let Toni's brother brief her on their meeting at Holman Field and
the violence that followed. Her gaze never returned to him, and he used the
opportunity to study her more closely, picking out new lines and shadows
that he had never noticed on her face before.
Worry lines, sure. And the shadows of a pain and grief that knows no