"Robinson, Spider - Callahans Crosstime Saloon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

creditable Irish jig was Doc Webster, fat and jovial as the day he pumped the
pills out of my stomach and ordered me to Callahan's. See, I used to have a wife
and daughter before I decided to install my own brakes. I saved thirty dollars,
easy . . .
The Doc left the square-dancers to their fate-their creative individuality
making a caller superfluous-and drifted over like a pink zeppelin to say Hello.
His stethoscope hung unnoticed from his ears, framing a smile like a sunlamp.
The end of the 'scope was in his drink.
"Howdy, Doc. Always wondered how you kept that damned thing so cold," I
greeted him.
He blinked like an owl with the staggers and looked down at the gently
bubbling pickup beneath two fingers of scotch. Emitting a bellow of laughter at
about force eight, he removed the gleaming think and shook it experimentally.
"My secret's out, Jake. Keep it under your hat, will you?" he boomed.
"Maybe you beter keep it under yours," I suggested. He appeared to consider
this idea for a time, while I speculated on one of life's greatest paradoxes:
Sam Webster, M.D. The Doc is good for a couple of quarts of Peter Dawson a
night, three or four nights a week. But you won't find a better sawbones
anywhere on Earth, and those sausage fingers of his can move like a tap-dancing
centipede when they have to, with nary a tremor. Ask Shorty Steinitz to tell you
about the time Doc Webster took out his appendix on top of Callahan's bar . . .
while Callahan calmly kept the Scotch coming.
"At least then I could hear myself think," the Doc finally replied, and
several people seated within earshot groaned theatrically.
"Have a heart, Doc," one called out.
"What a re-pulse-ive idea," the Doc returned the serve.
"Well, I know when I'm beat," said the challenger, and made as if to turn
away.
"Why, you young whelp, aorta poke you one," roared the Doc, and the bar
exploded with laughter and cheers. Callahan picked up a beer bottle in his huge
hand and pegged it across the bar at the Doc's round skull. The beer bottle,
being made of foam rubber, bounced gracefully into the air and landed in the
piano, where Fast Eddie sat locked in mortal combat with the "C-Jam Blues."
Fast Eddie emitted a sound like an outraged transmission and kept right on
playing, though his upper register was shot. "Little beer never hoit a piano,"
he sang out as he reached the bridge, and went over it like he figured to burn
it behind him.
All in all it looked like a cheerful night, but then I saw the Janssen kid
come in and I knew there was a trouble brewing.
This Janssen kid-look, I can't knock long hair, I wore mine long when it
wasn't fashionable. And I can't knock pot for the same reason. But nobody I know
ever had a good thing to say for heroin. Certainly not Joe Hennessy, who did two
weeks in the hospital last year after he surprised the Janssen kid scooping
junk-money out of his safe at four in the morning. Old Man Janssen paid Hennessy
back every dime and disowned the kid, and he'd been in and out of sight ever
since. Word was he was still using the stuff, but the cops never seemed to catch
him holding. They sure did try, though. I wondered what the hell he was doing in
Callahan's Place.
I should know better by now. He placed a tattered bill on the bar, took the
shot of bourbon which Callahan handed him silently, and walked to the chalk