"Blind Shemmy by Jack Dann" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

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BLIND SHEMMY
By Jack Dann
After covering the burning and sacking of the Via Roma in Naples, Carl Pfeiffer, a famous newsfax reporter, could not resist his compulsion to gamble. He telephoned Joan Otur, one of his few friends, and insisted that she accompany him to Paris. Organ-gambling was legal in France. They dropped from the sky in a transparent Plasticine egg, and Paris opened up below them, Paris and the glittering chip of diamond that was the Casino Bellecour. Except for the dymaxion dome of the Right Bank, Joan would not have been able to distinguish Paris from the suburbs beyond. A city had grown over the city: The grid of the ever-expanding slung city had its own constellations of light and his Haussmann's ruler-straight boulevards, the ancient architectural wonders, even the black, sour stenched Seine, which was an hourglass curve dividing the old city.
Their transpod settled to the ground like a dirty snowflake and split silently open, letting in the chill night air
with its acrid smells of mudflats and cinders and clogged drains. Joan and Pfeiffer hurried across the transpad toward the high oaken doors of the casino. All around them stretched the bleak, brick-and-concrete wastelands of the city's ruined districts, the fetid warrens on the dome's peripheries, which were inhabited by skinheads and Screamers who existed outside the tightly controlled structure of Uptown life. Now, as Pfeiffer touched his hand to a palm-plate sensor, the door opened and admitted them into the casino itself. The precarious outside world was closed out and left behind.
A young man, who reminded Joan of an upright (if possible) Bedlington terrier, led them through the courtyard. He spoke with a clipped English accent and had tufts of woolly, bluish-white hair implanted all over his head, face, and body. Only his hands and genitals were hairless.
"He has to be working off an indenture," Pfeiffer said sharply as he repressed a sexual urge.
"Shush," Joan said, as the boy gave Pfeiffer a brief, contemptuous look-in Parisian culture, you were paying only for the service, not for the smile.
They were led into a simple, but formal, entry lounge, which was crowded, but not uncomfortable. The floor was marbled; a few pornographic icons were discreetly situated around the carefully laid-out comfort niches. The room reminded Joan of a chapel with arcades, figures, and stone courts. Above was a dome, from which radiated a reddish, suffusing light, lending the room an expansiveness of height rather than breadth.
But it was mostly holographic illusion.
They were directed to wait a moment and then presented to the purser, an overweight, balding man who sat behind a small desk. He was dressed in a blue camise shirt
and matching caftan, which was buttoned across his wide chest and closed with a red scarf. He was obviously, and uncomfortably, dressed in the colors of the establishment.
"And good evening, Monsieur Pfeiffer and Mademoiselle Otur. We are honored to have such an important guest, or guests, I should say." The purser slipped two cards into a small console. "Your identification cards will be returned to you when you leave." After a pause he asked, "Ah, does Monsieur Pfeiffer wish the lady to be credited on his card?" The purser lowered his eyes, indicating embarrassment. Quite simply, Joan did not have enough credit to be received into the more sophisticated games.
"Yes, of course," Pfeiffer said absently. He felt guilty and anxious about feeling a thrill of desire for that grotesque boy.
"Well, then," said the purser, folding his hands on the desk, "we are at your disposal for as long as you wish to stay with us." He gestured toward the terrier and said, "Johnny will give you the tour," but Pfeiffer politely declined. Johnny ushered them into a central room, which was anything but quiet, and-after a wink at Pfeiffer-discreetly disappeared.
The room was as crowded as the city ways. It was filled with what looked to be the ragtag, the bums and the street people, the captains of the ways. Here was a perfect replica of a street casino, but perfectly safe. This was a street casino, at least to Pfeiffer, who was swept up in the noise and bustle, as he whetted his appetite for the dangerous pleasures of the top level.
Ancient iron bandits whispered "chinks-chinks" and rolled their picture-frame eyes in promise of a jackpot, which was immediately transferred to the winner's account by magnetic sleight of hand. The amplified, high-pitched
voices of pinball computers on the walls called out winning hands of poker and blackjack. A simulated stabbing drew nothing more than a few glances. Tombstone booths were filled with figures working through their own Stations of the Cross. Hooked-in winners were rewarded with bursts of electrically induced ecstasy; losers writhed in pain and suffered through the brain-crushing aftershock of week-long migraines.
And, of course, battered robots clattered around with the traditional complement of drugs, drink, and food. The only incongruity was a perfectly dressed geisha, who quickly disappeared into one of the iris-doors on the far wall.
"Do you want to play the one-armed bandits?" Joan asked, fighting her growing claustrophobia, wishing only to escape into quiet; but she was determined to try to keep Pfeiffer from going upstairs. Yet, ironically-all her emotions seemed to be simultaneously yin and yang-she also wanted him to gamble away his organs. She knew that she would feel a guilty thrill if he lost his heart. Then she pulled down the lever of the one-armed bandit; it would read her finger-and odor-prints and transfer or deduct the proper amount to or from Pfeiffer's account. The eyes rolled and clicked and one hundred international credit dollars was lost. "Easy come, easy go. At least, this- is a safe way to go. But you didn't come here to be safe, right?" Joan asked mockingly.
"You can remain down here, if you like," Pfeiffer said, looking about the room for an exit, noticing that iris doors were spaced every few meters on the nearest wall to his left. The casino must take up the whole bloody block, he thought. "How the hell do I get out of here?"
Before Joan could respond, Johnny appeared, as if out of nowhere, and said, "Monsieur Pfeiffer may take any
one of the ascenseurs, or, if he would care for the view of our palace, he could take the staircase to heaven." He smiled, baring even teeth, and curtsied to Pfeiffer, who was blushing. The boy certainly knows his man, Joan thought sourly.
Am I jealous? she asked herself. She cared for Pfeiffer, but didn't love him-at least she didn't think she did.
"Shall I attend you?" Johnny asked Pfeiffer, ignoring Joan.
"No," said Pfeiffer. "Now please leave us alone."
"Well, which is it?" asked Joan. "The elevator would be quickest, zoom you right to the organ room."
"We can take the stairs," Pfeiffer said, a touch of blush still in his cheeks. But he would say nothing about the furry boy. "Jesus, it seems that everytime I blink my eye, the stairway disappears."
"I'll show you the way," Joan said, taking his arm.
"Just what I need," Pfeiffer said, smiling, eliminating one small barrier between them.
"I think your rush is over, isn't it? You don't really want to gamble out your guts."
"I came to do something, and I'll follow it through."
The stairwell was empty, and, like an object conceived in Alice's Wonderland, it appeared to disappear behind them. "Cheap tricks," Pfeiffer said.
"Why are you so intent on this?" Joan asked. "If you lose, which you most probably will, you'll never have a day's peace. They can call in your heart, or liver, or-"
"I can buy out, if that should happen." Pfeiffer reddened, but it had nothing to do with his conversation with Joan, to which he was hardly paying attention; he was still thinking about the furry boy.
"You wouldn't gamble them, if you thought you could buy out. That's bunk."
"Then I'd get artificials."
"You'd be taking another chance, with the quotas thanks to your right-wing friends in power."
Pfeiffer didn't take the bait. "I admit defeat," he said. Again he thought of the furry boy's naked, hairless genitals. And with that came the thought of death.
The next level was less crowded and more subdued. There were few electronic games to be seen on the floor. A man passed dressed in medical white, which indicated that deformation games were being played. On each floor the stakes became increasingly higher; fortunes were lost, people were disfigured, or ruined, but-with the exception of the top floor, which had dangerous games other than organ-gambling-at least no one died. They might need a face and body job after too many deformations, but those were easily obtained, although one had to have very good credit to ensure a proper job.
On each ascending level, the house whores, both male and female, became more exotic, erotic, grotesque, and abundant. There were birdmen with feathers like peacocks and flamingos, children with dyed skin and overly large, implanted male and female genitalia, machines that spoke the language of love and exposed soft, fleshy organs, amputees and cripples, various drag queens and kings, natural androgynies and mutants, cyborgs, and an interesting, titillating array of genetically engineered mooncalves.
But none disturbed Pfeiffer as had that silly furry boy. He wondered if, indeed, the boy was still following him.
"Come on, Joan" Pfeiffer said impatiently. "I really don't want to waste any more time down here."
"But I always thought it was the expectation that's so exciting to seasoned gamblers," Joan said.
"Not to me," Pfeiffer said, ignoring the sarcasm. "I want to get it over with." With that, he left the room.
Then why bother at all? Joan asked herself, wondering why she had let Pfeiffer talk her into coming here. He doesn't need me. Damn him, she thought, ignoring a skinny, white-haired man and a piebald, doggie mooncalf coupling beside her in an upright position.