"Robinson, Spider - Callahan's Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)
"None at all," I told him. "I'm afraid I deal in nothing but one-dollar bills."
"Singles? Seriously? How come?"
I shrugged. "House custom. Call it. . . homage to the memory of a departed friend Long story."
He grinned. "Do you actually mean to tell me that with a guitar case full of hundred-dollar bills, I can't get a drink in here? Oh, that's marvelous!"
"Well,"! said, "I judge you to be a special case. How about if on a one-time basis, I change one of those into singles for you?"
He looked thoughtful. "How many drinks would a hundred singles buy me? Hypothetically."
"That depends."
"Say they were all rum-and-Cokes."
I shook my head. "That's not what it depends on. Every drink in the house, from Coke to Irish coffee to champagne, costs three dollars. But if you turn in your empty glass or mug or whatever, you get to take a dollar back from the cigar box over there." I pointed it out, down at the end of the bar closest to the door. "So, hypothetically speaking ... well, let's see:
ninety-nine singles would buy you thirty-three drinks-but if you dIdn't toss any of your empties into the fireplace, you'd be entitled to raid the cigar box for another thirty-three singles, treat yourself to eleven more drinks, then go get eleven singles from the box, add 'em to the dollar you still had left over from your original hundred and have four more snorts for a nightcap, then take four singles, have one more for the road, and walk out with a buck in your pants. Plus whatever leftover hundred-dollar bills you don't have time to burn by closing, if any. This is just theoretical, of course: I wouldn't sell a man forty-nine glasses of orange juice. And I'd cut you off Once you were down to cab fare~ I don't let anyone leave here drunk with their car keys. But it comes down to, three bucks a drink, a dollar back if you return your empty."
He was stating at the cigar box, sitting there unattended at the end of the bar, singles spilling over its sides. "What keeps anyone from filching a fistful of those on their way out?"
he asked.
I shrugged again. "Honesty? Integrity? Self-respect? Enlightened self-interest?"
He grinned delightedly. His grin was almost manic, his gaze intense. "I'm beginning to like this place. You don't find many bars with a flat rate-much less a Free Lunch of dollar bills. But look here: if I let you break that yard. . . well, let's say I'll have three or four drinks, tops that leaves me with eighty-eight-and possibly ninety-two-singles to dispose of." He gestured to his open guitar case. "As you can imagine, I expect to be somewhat arm-weary by the time I've emptied this thing. Another ninety-four missiles might just be the straw that broke the camel's wrist."
"1 see your problem," I agreed. "After you've burned a guitar case full of hundreds, how much fun can there be in burning singles?"
He smiled. I wish I saw guys in their fifties smile that big more often. "How about this? Why don't! just give you a hundred, and we'll call it an advance payment on my tab?" He looked around the room. -Don and Ev were holding a crowd with pornographic smoke rings, the Lucky Duck was trouncing Slippery Joe Maser at darts by flipping them over his shoulder, and the cluricaune was dancing a jig upside dowti on the (new) rafters while Fast Eddie played the C-Note... pardon me, the C-Jam Blues on his beat-up old upright."I think I'm going to be doing a lot of drinking in here: you people are crazy as a basketball bat."
"Yeah, we're weird as a snake's suspenders, all tight," I agreed. "Welcome to Mary's Place. I'm Jake Stonebender."
"Rogers is my name," he said.
I hesitated. "Ordinarily I don't ask a man's first name if he doesn't offer it to -me . . . but in your case I think I'm going to make an exception. No offense, but I just don't think! can call you 'Mister Rogers' with a straight face for any length of time."
He sighed. "I quite understand your problem. But it isn't going to get any better when I give you my first name."
"Try me." I made up my mind not to laugh, whatever he said next.
"My parents, for reasons which have always seemed to me inadequate, elected to name me for my Uncle Buckingham."
I managed to keep my face deadpan, with great effort, but a nasal sound like a snore played backwards soon escaped from me despite my best attempts to suppress it.
I gave up and released a large bolus of laughter. He waited it 6ut; I tried my best to keep it short, but it just kept coming and coming.
I mean, it was beyond perfect. It would have been a funny name anywhere-but here it had added impact. Buck Rogers had walked into Mary's Place. Hell, we should have been expecting him! And the first thing he'd done was to start rogering bucks.
I finally got it under control and stuck out my hand. "Buck, I apologize. See, you don't know it yet, but you were born to find this place. That's why I couldn't help laughing. It's not your name, so much as the appropriateness of it. I've actually heard much worse names."
"Name two," he challenged me.
"Well, I know of a guy in Yaphank named Bang who actually named his daughter Betty. Swear to God. And a friend of mine, a sci-fi movie buff named Ted -Leahy, got himself married to a fellow fan, an Asian-American feminist named Susan Hu, and of course they both really idolized George Lucas, so-
His face was pale. "Oh God, no. Tell me they didn't-"
"Afraid so," I said sadly. "Mr. and Mrs. Leahy-Hu named their firstborn son 'Yoda.' Lad's about three years old now, and he's already learned to fight. Dirty."
Buck shuddered. "You win," he said. "Betty and Yoda have me beat by a mile. Suddenly I need a drink. So what do you say? Will you let me open up a line of credit with one of these bills?"
I shook- my head. "Your money's no good here. As you seem to feel yourself. I'm having too much fun to charge you for it. Name your poison."
"You did speak of Irish coffee?"
"We call it 'God's Blessing' here. Sugar in yours?"
"Please. One standard glop."
I turned, adjusted the 'settings on The Machine, to
'The only one in the world," I agreed, "more's the pity. Drink up-it ain't much good cold. Well, not as much good."
He lifted it and took a careful sip. The instant he did his face changed. He had been under some well-controlled strain; now he began for the first time to truly relax, and seemed pleasantly surprised that nothing bad happened when he did. "The coffee is Celebes Kalossi he said slowly.
I nodded. "Lately it's considered more polite to call it 'Sulawezi,' though."
"...but what is that whiskey? It's like Bushmill's Black Bush, only better..." He shook his head. ". . . "only that's impossible."
I nodded again. "Ain't it? They call it 'Bushmill's 1608' in honor of the year Mr. Bushmill started distilling. As I get the story, the progression goes like this: 'plain' Bushmill's is, of course, ambrosia, the water of life itself; the Black Bush, which they've only just started selling outside of Ireland, is that ambrosia mixed with some that's been in the cask a dozen years. But the 1608, presently available only on the Emerald Isle, is just the twelve-year-old stuff. Beyond describing, isn't it? Long-Drink McGonnigle over there smuggled a case back with him from a vacation in An Uaimh, his family's ancestral home. It just seemed perfect for the occasion somehow."
(Today, in 1995, I'm happy to report that you can buy 1608 in any good liquor store. That is in fact the definition.)
He-was already three-quarters of the way through, sipping slowly but repeatedly. "Almost a pity," he said between sips, "to mix it," sip, "even with coffee," sip, "even coffee like this." He was done. He paused to savor the sensations he was experiencing, then smiled broadly, set the mug down, and said, "Would your hospitality extend to another, Jake?"
But I had already started it working, the moment I saw his reaction to that first taste; in moments it was ready. I put another i~1ug -on the belt for myself, and brought his to him. "Here you go." -
He had gone back to making money airplanes, but he paused again to drink half of his second cup. "Better get back to work," he said, setting it down. "I've got a lot of it ahead of me, and the night is middle-aged."
"I'd be glad to give you a hand," I offered.
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