"Callahan 03 - Callahan's Secret 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

When Mickey Finn reprograms reality, he does so with thoughtfulness and subtlety. The heap of clothes we made stayed dry, but now we could feel the warm rain on our bodies-except that nothing could make it run up our noses even when they were upturned. I didn't notice until after; I was preoccupied. She was warm and soft and limber and skilled- and very enthusiastic; somewhere in there I started believing in God again just to have somebody to thank.
The distant sounds of my friends' voices came drifting up through the roof, and that seemed correct. One of the greatest pleasures in my life is turning people I like on to Callahan's Place; I get a big kick out of introducing a new friend to my old friends. I had never yet turned someone I loved on to Callahan's, simply because in the last dozen years I hadn't come to love anyone that I hadn't met in Callahan's, but I expected it to be at least twice as nice- and I already knew that I loved Mary. I was beginning to be in love with her (if you get the distinction), the first time I'd been in love since I killed my family, and the prospect of introducing a lover to Mike and the gang sounded heavenly. Just a sliver of a thought, this, that resonated every time the faint sound of a familiar laugh reached me, a warm certainty that there could have been no finer place to fall in love, and to make love for the first time, than where I was.
God, she was a sweet pillowy armful! I've had a few of the bony women everyone else claims to like: nothing to squeeze, nothing to admire, I had to be careful with my weight, I was afraid to let go for fear I might bruise something, and even so my pubic bone got sore. A woman like Mary, now: you can roll around on a woman like that. You can let yourself go, secure in the awareness that the system is roomy and cushioned, and you can explore forever without running out of things to see and appreciate, and you find, time after time, so often that I'm tempted to say always, that passion and compassion and sensuality each double for every pound above so-called "optimum weight." Take your skinny women and stick them up the same receptacle with hard beds and cold showers and red-line exercise and "natural" food and all the other things everyone earnestly pursues in the belief that pleasure and pain are nature's diabolical attempts to trick us, that the less you enjoy a thing the better it must be for you; take 'em and stick 'em, and give me something a man can enjoy!
Our lovemaking was about as good as a first time can be. It was not the telepathic experience it could become with practice and study, of course-pethaps even less so than a simple sporting event might have been. I spent most of my time in my own head, startled by the unexpected magnitude of my own need, and~then bemused by the discovery that hers was even greater. Phe~ii~enшy vs. tenderness ratio definitely tilted to the left, and there seemed to be some question as to who was raping whom. It got pretty athletic in spots. (Doubtless noisy as well, though I'm sure the rain blanketed most of it.) Most of the information that we passed back and forth came directly from the spinal column or just a little bit higher up.
But tenderness was in there too, and caring, and sharing, and something oddly like nostalgia, and so all in all it was about as nice a last time as you could have asked for, -too. Our afterglow-durations synched, which is always nice, and we picked little roofing-pebbles from each other's backs, for all -the world like monkeys hunting lice. In the process we magically dried out again. It turned out that we both smoked the same brand of cigarette, but when we took two from the pack, Finn's magic selectively failed and they soaked through. We wasted two more before giving up, then I cautiously experimented and learned that a joint was immune. Opinionated man, Finn-but maybe he knows something. We dressed while we toked, and when we were dressed we started drifting over toward the stairwell.
I stopped. "Mary, let's not go down yet. Once we do it'll be wall-to-wall introductions and smiles and drinks and toasts. I want you to meet my friends-but I haven't-had a chance to get to know you yet."
"As the old joke goes, it's been the equivalent of a formal introduction."
"You know what I mean. I don't know where you live or where you grew up or what you want to do with your life or how many husbands you have-hell, I don't know your last name!"
"I don't know yours."
"My point exactly. The inmates downstairs, lovable and extraordinary though they be, will keep-let's talk."
"Let's talk later: you know we will. Right now I want to go where there are lights on."
"Yes, but-"
"I want to check the staircase over one more time, too."
"-it's perfectly-"
"All right, I want to hear people admiring it."
"-you -don't-"
"I want a drink."
"-I bow to superior intelligence."

Warm light and happy noise and the smell of good suds came flooding out the opened door; as we descended the stairs the sour, oddly pleasant aroma of Callahan's everpresent El Ropo cigars joined the mix.- Under the laughter and talk, Fast Eddie Costigan was playing Mac Rebennac stuff, and occasionally one patron or another would scat along with him. Noah Gonzalez was working on a gag he'd picked up from Al Phee, juggling full shot glasses, and by God he finally had it down cold. A small cheering section had gathered; while they clapped, Noah started sipping from the shots as they passed his face. (Noah works for the Suffolk County Bomb Squad, is why one leg is artificial, and a merrier man you'll never meet.) Mary and I joined the onlookers; true artistry is rare. Noah drained two tumblers, spilling no more than a teaspoon or so on himself, then swallowed, wiped his mouth without losing rhythm, and hollered out, "Open wide, Drink!"
Long-Drink McGonnigle never blows a cue. "Hit me," he cried, and opened his mouth wide.
This is what I think I saw: the shot glass still containing whiskey went up one last time, tilting this time in stately slow motion so that the contents almost spilled; then it came down, and Noah caught it,-stopped it cold with three fingers, the contents departed on a high trajectory, Noah flung it back into the stream of traffic so that it made up the lost time, we held our collective breath-and the Drink whipped his head two inches to the left and the flying booze impacted squarely against the back of his throat. A roar went up, and Noah laughed so hard he lost all three glasses, and-perhaps most magnificent of all-Long-Drink did not lose so much as a drop of the load.
So rarely in life are we privileged to be present at such a moment. When I was ten, my family spent a summer vacation puptenting around New Hampshire, and inevitably we took the cog railway up Mount Washington, a journey itself worth remembering, but what I will never forget as long as I live is standing at the bookoff railing with the family, admiring the view while trying to keep from being blown over the edge by the fierce mountaintop wind, and the truly beautiful thing that happened then. Dad's hat blew off, before he could even try to save it, and sailed out over an indescribable gulf, bound for the state of Maine with every chance of making it. He'd been a little grumpy earlier that day, and had regained his good spirits by force of will only a short time earlier, the rest of us made small cries of dismay as we watched his hat recede. So did several bystanders. But Dad was heroically determined to keep his good mood: he forced a smile, and even essayed a joke. "Don't worry," he called above the wind, "there'll be another one along in a minute." He put up his hand as if to pluck a hat from the sky. And a hat flew into his hand.
This, you may say, and I will agree, is a wonderful thing, a marvelous thing. But the beautifuI thing, the thing that came back to me again and again during my stormy adolescent battles with Dad and kept me from ever really hating him, is what he did then. He caught the hat, smoothly, and without the slightest hesitation placed it on his head, pokerfaced. Even -the fact that it was a perfect fit did not faze him. "You see?" he said, and held a deadpan all the way through the ensuing ovation. I've always loved and admired my dad, but in that two or three seconds he became immortal.
Some moments are golden, is what I'm saying, and what Noah had just pulled off was.one of those, somebody playing above himself. It made me feel awed and happy and grateful. Callahan's Place had done me proud, serving up some magic for mejust as I brought Mary in the door to meet it. After the inevitable storm of glasses bad shattered in the fireplace, I joined the throng of people who wanted to buy Noah and Long-Drink a drink. We were all disappointed, as Callahan had caught the act and announced that the boys' tab was covered for the night-but I was mildly annoyed to notice that -Mary too bad offered the pair a drink...from a flask. She had insisted on coming down here, putting off our getting to know each other (other than in the biblical sense, I mean), because she wanted a drink-which she'd had with her. We could have sat up there on the roof and killed the flask, talked for hours before coming downstairs...
Hush, I told myself sensibly. Sexual intercourse vests no property rights. And how could I resent any combination of crcumstances which had allowed me to witness the triumph of Noah and the McGonnigle? All around the room, people whose attention had been elsewhere were getting the tale secondhand and kicking themselves. Let it go, Jake- "That was special," Mary told me, grinning and taking my hand.
"Yes, indeed. Noah claims he's working up a routine with live шhainsaws, and now I think I believe him. What'll you have?"
She sniffed the air. "Do I smell coffee?"
"Jamaican Blue Mountain. Mike has Mends in Tokyo. And, anticipating your next question, he also has Old Bushmill's, distilled in Ireland, and fresh whipped cream, and he knows how. Come on."
Callahan was working up a sweat behind the bar when we got there, but he stopped short as he came past us with twelve drafts in his big hands and said to Mary, gesturing in my direction, "Mary, if your tastes are as simple as this, you might be interested in dating me sometime."
"What can I do?" she said. "He's got the negatives. But thanks."
Callahan wrinkled his big broken nose and grimaced.
"Damn. Jake, what'll you charge me for a print?"
"Sorry. The rights are tied up. Mike, you sure picked a good staircase-putter-inner. You do know where that thing came from?"
"Sure do," Callahan said. "I made a point of asking Sally for it when I heard she was closing. Yeah, Mary does good work. What'll you folks have?'
"God's Blessing on us both, Mike," I told him. He nodded and went off with his dozen overdue beers.
Mary was smiling broadly. "I like this place, Jake."
"I already knew you had good taste. Pun intended."
"Ouch. You did warn me."
"Around here we don't even wait for straightlines."
"Well," she said, absolutely pokerfaced, "the shortest distance between two puns is a straightline," and helped herself to some peanuts from the free lunch.
I felt like I had the time I was coming on just a little to a stranger about what a hot guitarist I was, and discovered too late that I was talking to Mr. Amos Garrett. (Remember the demonic guitar break in Maria Muldaur's "Midnight At the Oasis"? That Amos Garrett.. -) "And the success of any pun," I tried to riposte, "is in-"
"-the oy of the beholder," she finished for me.
Hmmm...
Mike returned wth a pair of Irish coffees. "Two God's Blessings," he announced. "I could swear I still hear rain- but you two are bone-dry, and I don't see a brolly."
"Finn's doing," I explained, and he nodded. "Say, Mike, where do you know Mary from? And how come you never invited her around before?'
"Long story. Excuse me, will you? It's time to get the evening started."
He emptied a glass that Shorty Steinitz had foolishly left unattended and banged it on the bartop. "All right, folks- Tall Tales Night is now in session. Who's first?'
Ralph Von Wau Wau was pushed forward by the crowd. "I do have a mildly interesting story for you all," he said, and! glanced at Mary to see how she would take it. I mean, I suppose it's a subjective thing, but I find a talking dog to be more intrinsically startling than - a seven-foot flying cyborg. But she didn't blink. Well, I had warned her.
In that charming German accent of his (he is a Shepherd), Ralph told a fairly complex story about a demonically possessed lady of his acquaintance whom he had exorcised after even a bishop had failed; the yarn built inexorably, to the line, "Possession is nine points of the paw," and produced some very canine howls of agony from the innocent bystanders.