"Harvey Jacobs - The Retriever" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jacobs Harvey)

THE RETRIEVER
Harvey Jacobs
Harvey Jacobs's new story collection, My Rose and My Glove, should
be available for those who collect things, and even for those who don't.
Mr. Jacobs's other books include the collection The Egg of the Glak and
the novels Beautiful Soup, American Goliath, and The Juror. There was a
list around here with his complete list of publications, but it seems to be
missing. Perhaps Joe Luna can help...



AURORA PLATZ WRIGGLED her bottom against a hard leather chair
shaped like a baseball mitt. The glove's pocket made a seat, its spread
fingers made a back. The chair swiveled on an iron post. Aurora moved
her body sideways, pivoting along the perimeter of an invisible crescent,
trying to get comfortable.
The whole office had a sports motif. Autographed footballs, basketballs,
baseballs, and three hockey pucks rested on top of a long cabinet filled
with file folders. There were pictures of thoroughbreds crashing toward
finish lines, running backs smashing into end zones, soccer players
making head contact with flying balls, masked goalies deflecting slap
shots, a bowler goosing air with his thumb while a triangle of pins blew
apart, many glossy photos of baseball greats diving at bases, fielding
impossible drives, swinging blurred bats against blurred balls. There was
a poster for a Louis-Schmelling fight and a frame holding a pair of unused
ringside tickets for the historic bout between Muhammad Ali and Sonny
Liston.
The pinched little man who sat behind a metal desk facing her, Joe
Luna, wore a Yankee cap and a Rams T-shirt. He rubbed his right hand
over what she recognized as a nicotine patch stuck to the bubblelike bicep
of his left arm, then reached the hand into his mouth and pulled out a wet
wad of Nicorette chewing gum. There was an empty pack of the nicotine
gum sitting in an ashtray the size of a salad bowl filled with butts. Luna
rolled the spent slug of Nicorette into a soggy ball and dropped it into the
disgusting ashtray. Aurora had a sudden vision of a chef gone totally
insane, preparing the last meal for a condemned serial killer. She also had
the feeling that she knew this Mr. Luna from someplace else. "Have we
met before?" Aurora asked him.
"I doubt it. Besides, Joe Luna never forgets a blousefull."
"Pardon?"
"Cancel that remark."
Luna took a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes from a desk drawer, slid out
one of the white cylinders, lit it with a lighter shaped like a woman's torso.
When he flicked on its flame the torso's large breasts blinked red nipple
lights. He tilted his head back, sucked in a long draught of smoke and let
it out slowly.
"You ever try to quit smoking?" he asked her. "What a fucking wrestle.
So, lady, what can I do for you?" Aurora noted that Luna's voice was a
perfect match for his skimpy body and shrunken head, a high-pitched alto
like the scream of a bird.