"Zach Hughes - Seed of the Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

dollars in airmail postage alone, not counting the perfumed stationery.

"Hi, Bud." She said his name in a way which made the older men, the
two charter boat skippers, feel both uncomfortable and envious. He
squeezed her hand and looked at her fondly. She felt a great tide well up
and capsize all her dikes before it.

Outside, in the growing light of dawn, a marine diesel, fired and caught
and began to cough out evil-smelling fumes over the smooth, dark water of
the Basin. Gulls stopped sleeping or resting on the water and soared,
scouting for tidbits. One of the drinking fishermen fell down the three
steps of the restaurant and ground his face into the gravel. He lay there
embarrassed, bewailing his luck in his befuddled mind, while his three
companions shifted their feet. He'd only lost a hundred and six dollars at
Acey-Deucey the night before and now this. Low atop the flat roof of the
restaurant, hidden behind the upward extension of the walls, the flying
saucer flickered and winked out of existence.

Sue Lee Kurt, better known to Bud Moore, her intended, and to other
residents of the small coastal fishing village as Sooly, because it was easier
to say than Sue Lee and because Southerners tend to slur two-name
names, fell to with a healthy gusto as a stack of pancakes with an
over-easy egg atop were, delivered to the table. She ladled on five pats of
butter, poured on half a pitcher of syrup, punctured the eye of the egg and
smeared the yellow over the pancakes and, with one contented,
"M-mmm," filled her mouth.

Bud Moore was taking a busman's holiday. His charter party had
canceled out at the last minute, and since he wasn't being paid to take
people out into the deep green to catch big, fierce king mackerel, he was
taking Sooly and a couple of friends out into the deep green to catch big,
fierce king mackerel for fun and, possibly, for enough fish flesh to sell and
pay the cost of running his 55-foot Harker's Islander out to the edge of the
continental shelf.

Sooly had put together a massive six-course lunch of boiled eggs, tins of
Vienna sausage, potato chips, cookies and Schlitz beer, giggling when she
bought the latter because Freep Jackson at the market asked to see her
I.D. when he knew full well she was over nineteen. Everyone else brought
food, too. The ice chest aboard the boat was full, with much of the space
given over to cans of beer. There was a tiny hint of a southeast breeze at
the mouth of the river. The bar was bouncy with the breeze blowing into a
falling tide. Sooly and Bud, knowing that Carl Wooten was prone to
seasickness, began to chant, "Up and down. Up and down." Carl obliged by
barfing over the stern rail while Melba and Jack Wright laughed, lying
side by side on the padded engine cover, arms entwined, causing a flood of
pure and happy envy to engulf Sooly. Melba and Jack had been married
for over a year and were fabulously happy. Jack wasn't hard-headed like
some people Sooly knew. Bud looked at her with a raised eyebrow, asking
silently what he'd done to deserve her dirty look.