"Jack Dann - The Diamond Pit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

some brightly lit, and could see rooms that led into other corridors. I was in
a polished, many-hued glass warren that could hold many more men than we who
were here now. We crowded into an empty room, which was a high tower -- a
terminus of sorts.
I looked up at a large, brightly lit opening covered with grating and
saw a man looking down at us -- I assumed he was Mr. Randolph Estes Jefferson.
Some sort of lens must have also covered the opening because Mr.
Jefferson seemed greatly magnified and also slightly distorted, as though his
girth was being pulled toward the edges of the opening. He looked to be about
forty-five and had one of those faces that always remind me of a pug dog:
jowly and fleshy, yet absolutely intent -- the proverbial dog with a bone. He
stood erect, as though he was wearing military gear instead of a straw boater,
blue blazer, and white flannel Oxford bags. If it weren't for that face and
his bearing, he could have been a fashion plate. He was swinging what I
thought was a cane, swinging it back and forth over the opening to the tower
of our prison (but which was, in effect, just a grating in the grass from his
perspective). A girl of perhaps eighteen stood beside her pug dog father. She
wore a thin blue blouse with a pleated tennis skirt and a blue bandeau to keep
her hair in place. Her hair was blond, curly, and bobbed, and although I
couldn't see the color of her eyes, I imagined they would be blue. Her mouth
was crimson, her face tan against the blue bandeau. Even with the slight
distortion, I could see that she was perfection -- a pure vision of youth and
freshness and beauty.
"Hey, leave the old guy and come on down here."
"Push him through the grate, we'll take care of everything for you."
"They don't call me snugglepup for nottin'," Crocker shouted, and most
everyone was laughing -- except Mr. Jefferson. His daughter smiled warmly at
all of us and bowed, as though she was being presented at a cotillion in New
York or Chicago or Paris.
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Jefferson, "remember your manners. If y'all
continue to embarrass me before my daughter, I shall be happy to instruct my
slaves to forget to supply you with your daily rations, which I presume are to
your expectations?"
"Slaves?" I asked Skip, who was standing beside me and rubbernecking,
to get a better look at the girl.
"Yeah," Skip said, "he's got hundreds of 'em, I guess."
"The rations are fine, except we could do without the fish eggs," said
Rick Moss, a short unshaven man, who was so muscular that he looked like he
might have been a weight lifter.
"So the rations of caviar are not appreciated," Jefferson said. "Well,
we'll take that item off the menu." Randolph Estes Jefferson sounded cheerful,
as if he were merely a waiter taking an order and listening to customers'
complaints. "Now my Phoebe loves caviar," he said, putting his arm around his
daughter, "so I, of course, just assumed y'all would too. I figured your
generation with all your jazz and Wall Street savvy was more sophisticated
than mine."
But Harry Talmadge and Keith Boardman, who were standing beside me and
looking quietly bored, were not exactly what you'd call jazz babies -- Harry
looked to be in his middle forties, but it would be difficult to guess whether
Keith was in his fifties or sixties. He looked well fed and well exercised, as