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

"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


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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.
She took a lift to the top level to catch up with Pfeiffer.
It was like walking into the foyer of a well-appointed home. The high walls were stucco and the
floor was inlaid parquet. A small Dehaj rug was placed neatly before a desk, behind which beamed a
man of about fifty dressed in camise and caftan. He had a flat face, a large nose that was wide,
but had narrow nostrils, and close-set eyes roofed with bushy, brown eyebrows, the color his hair
would have been, had he had any.
Actually, the room was quite small, which made the rug look larger and gave the man a commanding
position.