"Norman Spinrad - He Walked Among Us" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spinrad Norman)

to New York. He reallyhad come to the Apple on business, not looking for new talent, maybe, but to
secure some bookings for a couple comics he already had under contract. All he had done was hang
around the hotel bar for a few drinks, he hadn't been looking for any action, not really.
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But let a pair of formidable young knockers like Sabrina's heave into sight, let a pair of juicy red lips start
cooing seductively after he had justhappened to mention that he was a hot-shot talent agent from
Hollywood....

How was he supposed to know that Marsha's P.I. had followed him out from the Coast with his
microphones and cameras? Wellsure he had slipped the house dick fifty bucks to let him know if any
wise-guy came nosing around his room. Didn'teveryone do that? Wasn't it just a matter of keeping your
ass covered just in case? Look at the shit he'd have been in if he hadn't!

тАЬYouget off on this sleazing around, Balaban,тАЭ wife number two used to tell him. тАЬIt's the sneaking
around in crummy motels that gets your pathetic pecker up, not the bimbos you do it with. If you weren't
looking over your shoulder for detectives and divorce lawyers, you'dnever be able to raise a hard-on!"

Well, Tanya had been a cunt on wheels with the disposition of a speed freak wolverine, and Texas
Jimmy would have been hard-put to remember very many situations when impotence wasn't the least of
his problems, but in his more philosophical moments, he had to acknowledge that she sort of had a point.

A state of contented monogamy with a wife and kiddies in a big house in Thousand Oaks and the whole
nine yards was impossible for Texas Jimmy to imagine as anything other than the moral equivalent of
condition terminal in Boca Raton or Sun City. On the other hand, a romantic streak, or a neurotic
fixation, or an instinctive self-knowledge he knew better than to examine, kept him from simply leading
the carefree bachelor life of the disconnected playboy.

Not that heenjoyed being tailed by divorce dicks, not that he had enjoyed the financial consequences of
his first two divorces, nor that he anticipated the results of his impending third with what you'd call relish,
but he had to admit that the tummelling of it all did indeed probably do much to maintain his edge.

In this, he knew, he was something like the comics he managed. Comedians with sex lives that a Jewish
mother could love were few and far between, and of the dozen or so in Texas Jimmy's stable, eight of
them would be going through some kind of crazy tsuris at any given time. It wasn't that you had to be
neurotic to be a comic, or that doing stand-up comedy was a sure ticket to the rubber room, but that you
had to maintain thatedge to stay funny. Like a top, once you stopped whirling and twirling, you tended to
fall on your ass.

Kapplemeyer's Country Club Resort Hotel was five rambling wooden stories of faded pastel green with
forest green trimming. A sagging covered porch ran across the front of the building. In the summer, no
doubt, the beach chairs would be filled with gorked-out old folks and the rusty green lawn tables laden
with the cloyingly sweet hi-balls and planter's punches favored by same, but now the outdoor lounging
area was deserted, making the place seem even deader that it probably was.

тАЬJesus Christ,тАЭ observed Sabrina as an ancient bellman in a musty puke-green monkey suit emerged
from the main entrance and tottered down the stairs.