"Elrod, P N - Jack Fleming - The Vampire Files 02 - Lifeblood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elrod P N)

away before pouring a drink and pretending to imbibe. Ten cents for the
whole bottle would have been an overcharge; the stuff smelled like some
of the old poison left over from before repeal. I brought the glass to
my lips, made a face, and coughed, spilling some of it down my
well-stained shirtfront.

While I was busy dabbing at the mess with a dirty handkerchief, a big
man in dark gray came in and went straight to the bar. He was in a suit,
which was wrong for the neighborhood, and he was in a hurry, which was
wrong for the hour. At one in the morning, nobody should be in a hurry.
He ordered a whiskey with a beer chaser and took a look around. It
didn't take long; except for me, seven booths, and the bartender, the
place was empty.

He studied me like a bug. I pretended real hard that I was drunk and
simple-minded and hoped he'd buy the act. It helped that I wore rough
work clothes that stank of the river and past debauches with the
bottle--just another country kid corrupted by the big bad city.

Apparently I was no threat. He knocked back the whiskey and took the
beer to the last booth next to the back door and sat on the outside
edge, where he could see people coming in from the street. I used the
tilted mirror hanging over the bar to watch him. It was an old one with
flecks of tamish like freckles, but his reflection was clear enough. He
hunched over the beer and drained it a sip at a time, with long pauses
in between. His soft hat was pulled low, but now and then his eyes
gleamed when he used the mirror himself. I kept still and enjoyed his
slight puzzlement when he couldn't spot my image in the glass.

Another man walked in from the night and hesitantly approached the bar.
He was also too well dressed, but was a bit more seedy and timid. He had
a tall, thin body with a beaky nose that supported some black-rimmed
pince-nez on a pastel blue velvet ribbon. He wore a cheap blue suit, the
cuffs a little too short and the pants a little too tight. His ankles
stuck out, revealing black silk socks peeking over the tops of black
shoes with toes that had been chiseled to a lethal point. He affected a
black cane with a silver handle, which would buy him eternity in this
neighborhood if he waved it around too much.

He tried ordering a sherry and got a look of contemptuous disbelief
instead. He had better luck asking for gin, then made a point of wiping
the rim of the glass clean with his printed silk handkerchief before
drinking. After taking a sip, he dabbed his lips and smoothed the pencil
line under his nose that passed for a moustache.

He looked around, as nervous as a virgin in a frat house. He noted me
and the man in the back booth, and when neither of us leaped out to cut
his throat, he relaxed a little. He checked the clock behind the bar,
comparing its time to a silver watch attached to his vest and frowned.