"Mel Gilden - Zoot Marlow 2 - Hawaiian UFO Aliens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilden Mel)

'Just don't bother my customers,' Charlie said in a voice a little kid might use to protect his pet frog.
The Malibu Bar and No-Grill didn't have many customers at the moment, and all of them sat at the
bar. An old geezer not much more prosperous than Dweeb studied us with the mild eyes of a herd animal
and attempted a smile. A fat guy didn't turn around. In his white suit, he looked like a giant marshmallow.
Farther along the bar, where it was too murky to see who owned them, hands moved glasses of beer.
Game for anything, Bill hopped up onto a stool. I stood on the brass rail and said, 'Beer, please.'
The old geezer and the fat man in the white suit were watching. The fat man in the white suit was not
really a man at all, but a Surfing Samurai Robot. He had a chiselled artificial face that was all planes and
angles. In that lightтАФno better than the quality of the clienteleтАФit seemed to be silver. Across his
forehead, just about where his white hat crossed it, was one of those samurai head bands. He had a glass
in front of him, but I had no idea what he might have been drinking from it.
Charlie glared at me as if I'd asked for credit. 'You got any ID?'
'ID?' I said.
He shook his head, 'Identification.' His hands never moved.
'Surely that isn't necessary,' the fat man said in a low, gruff voice, full of sin and badly kept secrets.
'Surely you can butt the hell out,' said Charlie without even looking at him.
I took my temporary driver's licence from my wallet and laid it down on the sticky bar. Charlie
looked at it without picking it up. 'This thing don't have your picture on it. It could be anybody's.'
'Look,' I said, 'if I promise not to drink any of it, will you give Dweeb here a drink?' I took the licence
back and set down a dollar bill. It must have been enough, because Charlie actually moved. He took the
dollar and replaced it with an open bottle of beer and a glass. Dweeb reached for it hungrily and began to
carry it away.
'You'll drink it here with these nice folks,' I said. I wanted everybody to hear our conversation. You
never knew when somebody might have something to contribute.
Dweeb moved his fingers nervously, then put the beer and the glass down again. With a shaking hand,
he poured the beer, not getting much of it on the bar. Charlie moved slowly to mop it up and slide a
paper coaster under the glass. It said, SURF NAKED, and had a picture of the woman on the wall.
While I let Dweeb take a long sip of his brewski, a young man emerged from the gloom at the end of
the bar, walking toward me splay-footed as if he expected me to hand him a diploma. He managed to
look thin and soft at the same time, and his skin was the unhealthy colour of mushrooms. Hair as gloomy
as the shadows he'd emerged from hung in strings to his shoulders. The clothes he wore were neither
clean nor new, but very neat, as if he'd ironed his shirt and pants without washing them first. The brown
tie that hung around his neck like a flat wrinkled wormтАФthe colour hiding who knew how many terrible
stains?тАФwas tacked to his shirt with a tiny pearl sitting on a golden tripod. The tie pin was the only bright
spot on him.
'Excuse me, sir?' he said, piping like the upper registers of an organ.
'Sure,' I said.
He shuffled his feet for a moment, and then went on. 'I was just admiring your necklace.'
'Oh?' I'd forgotten I was wearing it. I resisted touching it now.
Dweeb put down his beer and said, 'Nix. These guys are all over the place. Everywhere you go, one
of these Medium Rare freaks wants to buy your spine necklace.'
'Why is that?' I said to the freak.
The freak didn't say anything, but pulled a folded sheet of pink paper from a pocket. I unfolded it. It
was some kind of flyer advertising spiritual advice. At the top it said, HAPPY DAY! MEDIUM RARE
LOVES YOU!
'Does this mean anything?' I said.
'I let Medium Rare into my life. She asks so little from each of us, yet gives so much.'
'How much does she give for this necklace?'
'A free reading when you come to her retreat in Changehorses.'
'Reading?'