"Ian Watson - The Thousand Cuts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

The Thousand Cuts
by Ian Watson
v1.1 тАУ 2005-09-13 by reb: all obvious errors corrected; not checked against hard copy



The Petrushka restaurant was a large dim cellar, with theirs the only table occupied. Ballet Russe murals
writhed dimly on the walls: exotic ghosts.

As the waiter unloaded the chilled glasses of vodka, Don Kavanagh observed, "I don't think Russian
restaurants are very popular these days."

"That's why we came," Hugh Carpenter said. "Bound to get a table."

"Don't blame me," said the waiter. "I'm a Londoner, born and bred."

"Maybe there's a good sketch there," suggested Martha Vine, who was the ugly sister of the team. "You
know, restaurants run by the wrong sort of people. Such as an Eskimo Curry House тАФ Or, wait a
minute, how about a slaughterhouse for vegetables. Wait, I've got it, protests at vegetable vivisection!"

Hugh dismissed the notion, and the waiter, with the same toss of his head. The whole sparkle of their TV
show relied on cultivating a blind spot for the obvious.

"Not quite mad enough, darling." He cocked his head. "What's that?"

Don listened.

"A car backfiring."

"That many times?"

"More like gunfire," said Alison Samuels, shaking her impeccably corn-rowed red hair. She was beauty,
to Martha's beast.

"So it's somebody gunning their engine." Hugh grinned triumphantly. "Okay, where were we?"

Soon after, sounds of crashing and breakages, a woman's scream and incoherent shouting came from the
upstairs vestibule of the Petrushka тАФ

"This isn't one of your practical jokes, is it, Hugh?" asked Martha anxiously. "Tape recorder upstairs? Is
it?"

"No, it damn well тАФ"

At that moment two brawny men wearing lumber jackets crowded down the stairs, thrusting the waiter,
who was bleeding from the mouth, and the manager and his beige-blonde receptionist ahead of them. A
third man stayed up top. All three were armed with machine guns.

"Stay where you are!" The armed man's accent was southern Irish. "You three, get to a table and sit
down!"