"Pronzini, Bill - Nameless Detective 007 - Hoodwink" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pronzini Bill)

Would-be, borderline, confirmed, sodden, reformed; one stage or another. All drunks, every damned one of us.Ф

I had no comment to make on that. Instead I said, "Things been that tough for you lately?Ф

"They couldn't get much tougher. I haven't made a dime in five months or written much of anything in four. Not because I can't write any more; because I can't sell any more.Ф

"Why is that?Ф

"Market's tightened up. Competition is stiff from top to bottom, so most of the old-line hacks like me have been squeezed out. Lots of hackwork being published, but it's either big, specialized crap on assignment or through packagers, or it's genre stuff done by stable hacks. Not much chance of me getting into one of the stables today; paperback editors are all twenty-five-year-old English Lit majors who never read a goddamn word of paperback fiction before they were hired. They build up their own stables; they only use upward-mobile hacks. My agent's trying to work out a deal with one of them now, a series of heavy-breathing adult Westerns at three grand a crack. Pun intended. But it'll never happen.Ф

"So how are you getting by?Ф

"Scraping, brother. I gave up my apartment three months ago and moved in with a lady friend.Ф

"In Cypress Bay?Ф

"Near there. In Jamesburg. But she's not too well off either. She'll throw me out sooner or later if I don't bring some bread into the house.Ф

I didn't say anything.

He lit a cigarette, threw the match in my waste-basket, and glanced around the office. "Doesn't look like you're exactly in the chips yourself," he said.

"Well, I'm not starving.Ф

"Then how come the packing boxes?Ф

"I'm moving next week, not being evicted.Ф

"Better digs?Ф

"A little better, yeah.Ф

"Glad to hear it," he said. "This place is like something out of a forties pulp, you know that? One of the Hannigan stories, maybe. Private eye in a shabby office with stains all over the walls, sitting around waiting for clients to walk in. You wouldn't happen to have an office bottle, would you?Ф

"No,"I said.

"Too bad.Ф

"Sure." I had begun to feel a little uncomfortable, and I guess that showed in my face, too. Dancer gave me another of his sardonic grins.

"Don't worry, I didn't come all the way up here to put the bite on you," he said. "I'm not that desperate. Not yet, anyhow.Ф

"Just to say hello, huh?Ф

"Nope. I'm in town for the convention.Ф

"What convention is that?Ф

"The pulp convention, what else?Ф