"Ellison, Harlan - Pretty.Maggie.Moneyeyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

Comes now the double-cross. If you're reading these consecu- tively, Ellison follows Ballard like a double-shot of Jack Daniel's after a whisky sour. He is about to punch you in the belly. His prose is as stark as a skull by Georgia O'Keefe and as steady

subject and the object, the man and his work. When he writes, that's what he is. I'd say intense, but that's triteand if you know him, redundant, too. PRETTY MAGGIE MONEYEYES Harlan Ellison With an eight hole-card and a queen showing, with the dealer showing a four up, Kostner decided to let the house do the work. So he stood, and the dealer turned up. Six. The dealer looked like something out of a 1935 George Raft film: Arctic diamond-chip eyes, manicured fingers long as a brain surgeon's, straight black hair slicked flat away from the pale forehead. He did not look- up as he peeled them off. A three. Another three. Barn. A five. Barn. Twenty-one, and Kostner saw his last thirty dollarssix five-dollar chips scraped on the edge of the cards, into the dealer's chip racks. Busted. Flat. Down and out in Las Vegas, Nevada. Play- ground of the Western World. He slid off the comfortable stool-chair and turned his back on the blackjack table. The action was already starting again, like waves closing over a drowned man. He had been there, was gone, and no one had noticed. No one had seen a man blow the last tie with salvation. Kostner now had his choice: