"London Bone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

London Bone
a novelette by Michael Moorcock

For Ronnie Scott

ONE
My name is Raymond Gold and I'm a well-known dealer. I was born too many
years ago in Upper Street, Islington. Everybody reckons me in the London
markets and I have a good reputation in Manchester and the provinces. I
have bought and sold, been the middleman, an agent, an art representative,
a professional mentor, a tour guide, a spiritual bridge-builder. These
days I call myself a cultural speculator.
But, you won't like it, the more familiar word for my profession, as I
practised it until recently, is scalper. This kind of language is just
another way of isolating the small businessman and making what he does
seem sleazy while the stockbroker dealing in millions is supposed to be
legitimate. But I don't need to convince anyone today that there's no
sodding justice.
'Scalping' is risky. What you do is invest in tickets on spec and hope to
make a timely sale when the market for them hits zenith. Any kind of
ticket, really, but mostly shows. I've never seen anything offensive about
getting the maximum possible profit out of an American matron with more
money than sense who's anxious to report home with the right items ticked
off the beento list. We've all seen them rushing about in their overpriced
limos and mini-buses, pretending to be individuals: Thursday:
Changing-of-the-Guard, Harrods, Planet Hollywood, Royal Academy,
Tea-At-the-Ritz, Cats. It's a sort of tribal dance they all feel compelled
to perform. If they don't perform it, they feel inadequate. Saturday:
Tower of London, Bucket of Blood, Jack-the-Ripper talk, Sherlock Holmes
Pub, Sherlock Holmes tour, Madame Tussaud's, Covent Garden Cream Tea,
Dogs. These are people so traumatized by contact with strangers that their
only security lies in these rituals, these well-blazed trails and familiar
chants. It's my job to smooth their paths, to make them exclaim how pretty
and wonderful and elegant and magical it all is. The street people aren't
a problem. They're just so many charming Dick Van Dykes.
Americans need bullshit the way koala bears need eucalyptus leaves.
They've become totally addicted to it. They get so much of it back home
that they can't survive without it. It's your duty to help them get their
regular fixes while they travel. And when they make it back after three
weeks on alien shores, their friends, of course, are always glad of some
foreign bullshit for a change.
Even if you sell a show ticket to a real enthusiast, who has already been
forty nine times and is so familiar to the cast they see him in the street
and think he's a relative, who are you hurting? Andros Loud Website, Lady
Hatchet's loyal laureate, who achieved rank and wealth by celebrating the
lighter side of the moral vacuum? He would surely applaud my enterprise in
the buccaneering spirit of the free market. Venture capitalism at its
bravest. Well, he'd applaud me if he had time these days from his railings
against fate, his horrible understanding of the true nature of his coming
obscurity. But that's partly what my story's about.