"Garbage Day" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mccarthy Wil)

enough room for the boys to settle in at a corner clustered with round tables,
but the doorway out to a balcony seemed much more inviting, and that was where
they went. And if Bascal was looking for trouble, here was the perfect
opportunity, because the balcony had seating for twenty or maybe twenty-five
people, but was two-thirds full already, and the empty seats weren't in a block,
but scattered all over the place.
Bascal Edward de Towaji Lutui was full of surprises, though; as the boys piled
up behind him in the doorway, he could actually have cut a fairly menacing
figure there. But instead he just stood up straight, clapped his hands twice for
attention, and called out: "Excuse me! I'm afraid you're all going to have to
move inside. The balcony is reserved for a private party."
The quality of his voice was something Conrad really was going to have to study:
self-assured, vaguely apologetic, and entirely official. There was no question
that you were going to comply, and if for some reason you didn't, well, there'd
be all sorts of hassle for everyone involved, and in the end you'd still be
vacating your chair, thank you very much. It took barely thirty seconds to clear
the crowd, and settle in at all the good seats along the rail.
The last to leave was a girl of about sixteen, and Bascal, still stationed by
the exit, grabbed her elbow as she passed. Wrapped in a loose-fitting dress of
glossy black fabric. Her hair and eyelids and irises had been done up in a
matching shade, while her lips and fingernails matched her shoes with a seething
red-black glow, like bits of iron sitting at the bottom of a campfire.
"You lovely thing," Bascal said, "can you answer me a question?"
"Get lost," she replied calmly, jerking her arm away. Then she paused, taking a
good look at his face. "Oh, whatever. What do you need?"
"Are you in a hurry?"
She chewed her glowing lip for a moment, then stopped. "I'm here with friends.
We had a good table, which you just took, so yeah, I need to get inside and find
something. Before they come back."
"Ah," Bascal said. "I won't keep you, then."
She half-turned to go inside, then checked it and faced him. "Are you ... "
It hung unspoken: are you the prince? Bascal didn't answer. "Go on inside and
get a seat for your friends. I'm sure that whatever ... transaction is keeping
them from you must be very important. But when you're settled, come and see me.
Us. I have a question."
A brown-smocked waitress materialized, looking annoyed. "Did you just kick
everyone off this balcony?" For some reason, she directed the question at Steve
Grush.
"No," he replied, with his usual sullen brilliance.
"We'll have fourteen glasses of beer," Bascal said, jumping in. "And fourteen
cups of coffee, plus some pitchers of ice water. To eat, we'll take some sort of
chips and dip thing, and a big plate of cheese and veggies. Does it come with
olives? I love olives."
The waitress had a wellstone sketchplate in her hand, but didn't write anything
on it or speak to it. She was under thirty, but her look suggested she'd seen
quite enough punk kids come swarming in here like they owned the place.
"Who's paying?" she wanted to know.
Bascal held up a thumb. "That would be me."
"Uh-huh." She presented him with the sketchplate, skeptically.
"Authorized up to twenty thousand," Bascal said to it, rolling his thumb across