"Eddings, David - High Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (High Hunt)

"Dan here's been drinkin' German beer," Jack boasted. "He can put you under the table without even settlin' the dust in his throat."

"Didn't we meet a couple times a few years back?" Sloane asked me, pulling off his coat and settling down in a chair.

"I think so," I said.

"Sure we did. It was when Alders here was still married to Bonnie." He loosened his tie.

"Yeah," I said, "I believe it was."

We talked for about an hour, kidding back and forth. At first Sloane seemed a little simple Ч that giggle and all Ч but after a while I realized that he was really pretty sharp. I began to be very glad that I'd called Jack and come on out here to his place. It began to look like I had some family to come home to after all.

About eleven or so we ran out of beer, and Sloane suggested that we slip out for a couple glasses of draft. Margaret pouted a little, but Jack took her back into the hallway and talked with her for a few minutes, and when they came back she seemed convinced. Jack pulled on a sport shirt and a jacket, and Sloane and I got ourselves squared away. We went outside.

"I'll be seeing you, Margaret," I said to her as she stood in the doorway to watch us leave.

"Now you know the way," she said in a sort of offhand invitation.

"Be back in an hour or so, sweetie," Jack told her.

She went back inside without answering.

We took Jack's car, a slightly battered Plymouth with a lot of miles on it.

"I won't ride with Sloane when he's been drinking," Jack said, explaining why we'd left Sloane's Cadillac. "The son of a bitch has totaled five cars in the last two years."

"I have a helluva time gettin', insurance." Sloane giggled.

We swung on out of the trailer court and started off down South Tacoma Way, past the car lots and parts houses.

"Go on out to the Hideout Tavern," Sloane said. He was sprawled in the back seat, his hat pushed down over his nose.

"Right," Jack said.

"I hear that a man can do some pretty serious drinking in Germany," Sloane said to me.

"Calvin, you got a beer bottle for a brain," Jack told him, turning a corner.

"Just interested, that's all. That's the way to find out things Ч ask somebody who knows."

"A man can stay pretty drunk if he wants to," I said. "Lots of strange booze over there."

"Like what?" Sloane asked. He seemed really interested.

"Well, there's this one Ч Steinhager, it's called Ч tastes kind of like a cross between gin and kerosene."

"Oh, God" Ч Jack gagged ЧФit sounds awful."

"Yeah," I admitted, "it's moderately awful, all right. They put it up in stone bottles Ч probably because it would eat its way out of glass. Screws your head up something fierce."