Knock, Knock! Who's There?

Начало книги

The drizzling rain fell on Sammy the Black’s sweating face as he shuffled along carrying the bag of money. He was a tall, gangling negro of around thirty years of age. With the muscular shoulders of a boxer and huge hands and feet, few would guess he had the spirit of a mouse. His large black eyes rolled fearfully as he walked, aware that he was carrying some sixty thousand dollars in the shabby holdall and what was worse that everyone in the district knew it.

Every Friday, at exactly the same time, he did this long walk which took four hours. During those hours, he collected money from bars, news-stands and from the Numbers men. During this stop-start walk, Sammy sweated with fear, expecting at any moment some nut would shoot him down and grab the money.

For five hundred and twenty Fridays, he had done this walk and even after so many Fridays when nothing had happened, he couldn’t shake the fear out of his system. He kept telling himself that if it wasn’t this Friday, it could be the next.

Читать дальше →