"Castro, Adam Troy - Ego To Go" - читать интересную книгу автора (Castro Adam Troy)

ADAM-TROY CASTRO

EGO TO GO

Artemus Feeble's greatest asset as a Persona Tailor had always been his ability
to know what the customer needed at first glance. Not merely what the customer
wanted-- that was easy. But knowing what the customer needed: that was a
different knack entirely, one that marked the dividing line between the merchant
and the artist.

His talents had served him well over the years; he'd moved from humble
beginnings sculpting trendy neuroses for the Soho crowd, to his humble but
lucrative sinecure in the Megalopolis Galleria, where he set up shop after that
vast shopping mall elected a governor and declared statehood. True, his store
was just a hole in the wall, really, tucked between an anal hypnotist and an
endorphin bar; and he deliberately kept it tacky to honor the long and
distinguished tradition of talented backstreet tailors-- but the grunge was as
much a simulation as his stooped back and liver-spotted scalp. Anybody who
sampled his work knew that Feeble was among the best.

Take the pudgy man who wandered in at 17:37 Metriday afternoon. Feeble pegged
him as the sort of man who felt embarrassed all the time, by everything he said
or did, and therefore tried to be as anonymous as possible. At this the poor
fellow ultimately failed; though he'd stuffed himself into the kind of suit
designed to be invisible against any background (a suit of real cloth, not
see-thru plastic or holographic projection), the powerful blush that had taken
up permanent residence on his cheeks made his face stand out like a searchlight.
Feeble registered all that, and, incongruously, the man's eyes (which were a
remarkably bright shade of blue he couldn't recall ever having seen before --
the kind of blue that even the sky itself achieved only in poetry written by shy
thirteen-year-old girls), before he turned his attention back to the flashily
dressed young lady already standing at his formica counter. "It's up and
running," he said, in his usual yiddish intonation. "If you ever need any
adjustments, let me know."

The young lady flashed an improbably dazzling smile and floated out the battered
wooden doorway on wings of pure bliss. The pudgy man watched her until she
disappeared up the gleaming escalator to the garden level. "S-she looks happy."

"She is, now. Deliriously. She'll never be in a bad mood again. She'll never
even be cranky. She'll also be incredibly annoying, but there's always a
trade-off. And you, mister? How may I help you?"

The pudgy man dabbed his forehead with a sonic hankie, which emitted a chorus of
high-pitched squeaks as the sweat beads vaporized. "Well, I, uh...hmmmm. This is
embarrassing."

"I'm not surprised," Feeble said. "Let's start with your name, shall we?"