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

 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html




The house band consisted of four pimply teenagers from the nearest high school who looked like they'd
cut your throat for a quarter and played like you'd be willing to pay it. The MC, a muscular balding yutz
in a too-tight tux with cuffs up to the shins and sleeves to match, had introduced himself to Jimmy before
the agony began as the Master of Ceremonies, tennis coach, and assistant manager.

тАЬHey, Mr. Balaban, babes, you're in luck tonight,тАЭ this schmuck had babbled, тАЬwe've booked a fabulous
comic all the way from Hollywood tonight, the one and only, the incredibly talented, the world famous...
JaтАФackDunphy!"

Jack Dunphy was a name that Texas Jimmy actually dimly recognized, not that he would give this
pinhead the satisfaction of showing it, an ancient refugee from the local game show circuit last seen doing
used car slots in Bakersfield.

That had been about ninety minutes by his watch, five shots of bourbon, and a million years of
stupefaction ago, and the booze had been too thoroughly watered to function as anesthesia, at least as far
as Jimmy was concerned.

Sabrina, on the other hand, after sharing the bottle of champagne with him in the suite, had gone on to a
series of cutely-named sweet mixed drinks, no two alike, none of which Jimmy had ever heard of, most
of which seemed to contain rum or gin or maybe both, and seemed to have succeeded in getting herself
fairly thoroughly snockered.

At least she had stopped complaining about the acts, which, even to her unsophisticated and
unprofessional taste, clearly bit the Big One, and sat there quietly turning green from the loathsome
combinations churning in her stomach. Jimmy hoped she wasn't going to throw up, not that he could
blame her, if this went on much longer he would probably puke himself.

On the stage, Elvis in drag had been replaced by not by Jack Dunphy, but by a goddamndog act , two
horrible little yapping Yorkshire terriers in pink and blue bows jumping through hoops, twirling on their
hind legs, dancing with each other, and otherwise being put through their pathetic paces by a fiftyish
woman in a black tux and top hat who in a previous incarnation might once have been a Vegas chorus
girl.

Weird, Jimmy, thought, really weird. It was passingly strange to go seven acts deep even in a dim dive
like this without putting on the comic.

Indeed, given the amount of time that had expired, the comatose state of the audience, and the
bottom-of-the barrel awfulness of the current number, Jimmy was beginning to have some faint hope that
the ordeal was about to be over, that Dunphy hadn't shown and this was the last act on the bill.

Theycouldn't have something worse that this in the wings, could they? Could they?

The dog act ended to a smattering of applause from the salesman and the deputy and polite grunts and
head-bobs from the Japanese businessmen.