"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 06" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

calendar distributed by an automobile spare-parts com-
pany, featuring a colour photograph of a peacock, along
with framed permits from the city council, a price list, a
notice declaring the establishment's legal closing day as
Wednesday, advertisements for various brands of amaro
and beer, and a drawing of a tramp inscribed 'He always
gave discounts and credit to everyone'.
The three men talking in low voices at the bar fell silent
as Zen entered. He walked up to them, pushing against
their silent stares as though into a strong wind.
'A glass of beer.'
The barman, gaunt and lantern-jawed, plucked a bottle
of beer from the fridge, levered the cap off the bottle and
dumped half the beer into a glass still dripping from the
draining-board. The glass was thick and scored with
scratches. At the bottom, a few centimetres of beer lay
inaccessible beneath a layer of bubbles as thick and white
as shaving-foam.
The barman picked up a copy of the Gazzetta dello Sport.
The other customers gazed up over their empty coffee
cups at the bottles of half-drunk spirits and cordials
stacked on the glass shelving. Above the bar, in pride of
place, stood a clock whose dial consisted of a china plate
painted with a list showing the amount of time the pro-
prietor was allegedly prepared to spend on tax collectors,
rich aged relatives, door-to-door salesmen, sexy house-
wives and the like. Plain-clothes policemen on unofficial
business were not mentioned.
Zen carefully poured the rest of the beer into the glass,
dousing the bubbles. He drank half of it and then lit a
cigarette.
'Fausto been in tonight?'
The second hand described an almost complete revolu-
tion of the china plate before the barman swivelled
smoothly to face Zen, as though his feet were on castors.
'What?'
Zen looked him in the eye. He said nothing. Eventually
the barman turned away again and picked up his news-
paper. The second hand on the clock moved from
'mothers-in-law' through 'the blonde next door' and back
to its starting place.
'This beer tastes like piss,' Zen said.
The pink newspaper slowly descended.
'And what do you expect me to do about it?' the barman
demanded menacingly.
'Give me another one.'
The barman rocked backwards and forwards on his feet
for a moment. Then he snapped open the heavy wooden
door of the fridge, fished out another bottle, decapitated
it and banged it down on the zinc counter. Zen took the