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

'Your fortune.'
Bill laughed.
I said, 'I know what my fortune is. Trouble is my business. No sale.'
Charlie growled, 'Get out of here before I throw you out.' He took the flyer from my hand,
ostentatiously balled it up, and dropped it behind the bar.
'Medium Rare loves you,' the freak said and scrammed.
The door curtain fell back into place and I looked at Dweeb, 'You were saying?' I said.
'Huh?' When Dweeb put down the glass, there was foam on his upper lip.
'About the passengers who were on the hat. The hat on the beach. You remember the hat on the
beach?'
The geezer apparently couldn't follow the ins and outs of our conversation because he hummed a little
tune over and over to himself as he stared at the dusty bottles behind the bar and sipped his beer with a
small lapping sound. Charlie was rinsing out his grey rag. The fat robot was watching me as if I were a
puzzle box he was trying to figure out. Down at the dark end of the bar, beer glasses rose and fell,
making cozy thumping sounds as each touched the bar in its turn.
'I remember. I was just gathering my thoughts.'
 I had something clever to say, but it didn't seem to be worth the trouble. I just waited. We all did. The
only sound in the place was the slow whish-whish of the big fans turning in the ceiling.
'Thoughts all in place?' I said.
'Yeah.' Dweeb looked worried. He'd always look worried, even if he was just talking about the
weather. He said, 'The two that got off the hat were kind of Oriental types. Slanty eyes, big, wide faces,
you know.'
'I know.' I'd seen a Charlie Chan movie once. It didn't make me an expert, but it would have to do.
'Did you see them get off the hat?'
'I didn't see them getting off, exactly, but near enough. They walked right by it as if they saw giant hats
on the beach every day. Is that natural?'
'I guess not. What else?'
'One of 'em was a good-looking babe with long blonde hair. The other was a guy with short hair like
a brush.'
For some reason, our conversation seemed to be making Charlie the Bartender nervous. His fingers
drummed the bar, which for him was almost a screaming fit.
The fat robot said, 'Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing. I've never encountered a blonde
Oriental.' A guy like that would say excuse me when he slid the knife between your ribs.
Dweeb shook his head and said, 'Yeah. That's funny, isn't it?'
'I seen one. Real recent, too.' I looked around in surprise. The geezer who I thought was asleep had
spoken. His voice had been used hard all its life. It was just tin cans kicked down a gutter, but it was
more intelligent than I would have expected. Charlie was wiping down the bar as if he wanted to buff a
hole through it.
'Yep,' the geezer said, still looking at the dusty bottles. 'I was down at the Sparkle Room relieving a
powerful thirst when these two came in.'
'How were they dressed?' I said.
'Casual. Like a couple of tourists back from the islands.'
'That's them,' Dweeb said.
Charlie burned him with a look.
'Anyway, they come into the Sparkle Room, the woman in particular getting a lot of attention. They
asked the bartender bot for the phone number of a taxi service. They talked pretty.' He smiled, savouring
it. He savoured it long enough that I thought maybe he'd fallen asleep. Charlie was leaning down at the
curve in the bar, drumming his fingers again, watching us as if we were cockroaches.
The geezer shook himself and said, 'Well, that bot mixes a hell of a drink, but he don't talk much. He
just pointed at the books hanging by the phones back near the Johns. We all kind of watched these two