"C M Kornbluth - The Altar At Midnight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

The Altar atMidnight



C. M. Kornbluth




The Altar atMidnight



HE HAD quite a rum-blossom on him for a kid, I thought at first. But when he moved closer to the light
by the cash register to ask the bartender for a match or something, I saw it wasn't that. Not just the nose.
Broken veins on his cheeks, too, and the funny eyes. He must have seen me look, because he slid back
away from the light.
The bartender shook my bottle of ale in front of me like a Swiss bell-ringer so it foamed inside the green
glass.



"You ready for another, sir?" he asked.



I shook my head. Down the bar, he tried it on the kidтАФhe was drinking Scotch and water or something
like thatтАФand found out he could push nun around. He sold him three Scotch and waters in ten minutes.



When he tried for number four, the kid had his courage up and said, "I'll tell you when I'm ready for
another, Jack." But there wasn't any trouble.



It was almost nine and the place began to fill up. The manager, a real hood type, stationed himself by the
door to screen out the high-school kids and give the big hello to conventioneers. The girls came hurrying
in too, with their little makeup cases and their fancy hair piled up and their frozen faces with the perfect
mouths drawn on them. One of them stopped to say something to the manager, some excuse about
something, and he said: "That's aw ri'; getcha assina dressing room."



A three-piece band behind the drapes at the back of the stage began to make warmup noises and there
were two bartenders keeping busy. Mostly it was beerтАФa midweek crowd. I finished my ale and had to
wait a couple of minutes before I could get another bottle. The bar filled up from the end near the stage
because all the customers wanted a good, close look at the strippers for their fifty-cent bottles of beer.
But I noticed that nobody sat down next to the kid, or, if anybody did, he didn't stay longтАФyou go out
for some fun and the bartender pushes you around and nobody wants to sit next to you. I picked up my