"James Patrick Kelly - Ninety Percent of Everything" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

hand at him so that my mother's diamond ring was about ten centimeters from
the bridge of his nose. "Look, Wetherall, you want to go on a magical mystery
tour? Just stare at this and hold your breath until you pass out. It'll save
us both a lot of time and money."
"Money is not a problem, Liz." He gently but firmly pushed my hand
away. His skin was cool. "I want to build a house as close as possible to the
jewel formation growing on Eastline A. Thorp need not be involved. I need a
shitdog expert, Liz -- the best there is. I need you."
I tried not to be flattered. "A house! What about the big stink?"
"One man's problem is another man's opportunity," he said. "The stink
has its uses."
"Such as?"
He gestured at the inside of the Jolly Freeze truck. "I'm a man who
values privacy as much as great beauty."
I let that go, for now. "Okay. You build a mansion with a picture
window that overlooks the jewels. You get yourself the best gas mask money can
buy. How are you going to keep the shitdogs from eating your basement?"
"Have you ever heard of Nguyen O'Hara?"
At that moment I realized that the van was no longer moving and the
music had stopped.
****
First Thorp, now O'Hara. Was Wetherall attracted to eccentrics? Maybe that's
why he had chosen me. Not because of all the time I'd spent studying the
shitdogs, but because I'd been raised by eccentrics and had learned to
tolerate, if not appreciate, strangeness. But how could he know that?
I hoped he hadn't found my aunts.
****
"Nguyen O'Hara, the lighter-than-air architect?" I said. "The man who floats
slums? Didn't he win the Nobel Prize for Hype?"
"Mexico City would have sunk into the mire by now if its _colonias_
weren't aloft. O'Hara's a genius."
"Putting the poor in balloons works for about eight minutes," I said.
"First come the tourists, then the developers, and before long the floating
neighborhood is all candle shops and jewelry stands. Meanwhile ninety percent
of the families -- the ones not finding a niche in tee-shirt sales -- are
forced into some brand new slum that's ten miles from nowhere. Pretty sleazy
if you ask me. Anyway, those bubbleshacks are hardly a billionaire's digs."
"He calls it lifthousing," said Wetherall. "And you've never seen
Laputa."
"Laputa?"
"O'Hara's private lifthouse. I've arranged for Nguyen himself to give
you the tour."
Although I hadn't yet said I was interested in his project, Wetherall
had read me like an annual report. There was no way I could turn him down --
not when he was offering what could be unprecedented access to the shitdogs.
"I could clear some time at the end of the week, maybe Friday afternoon."
"Now," he said.
"Now?" I said. The thought I was even now skipping the Curriculum
Committee meeting made me feel strangely giddy.
"I'd want you and Nguyen to meet each other as soon as possible."