"George Aleg Effinger - When Gravity Fails" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

on the Street for years, like Chiri, or they might run. “Who’s she?” I said, nodding at the
new girl on stage.

“She wants to be called Pualani. You like that? Means ‘Heavenly Flower,’ she says. Don’t
know where she’s from. She’s a real girl.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So you’ll have someone to talk to now,” I said.

Chiri gave me her most dubious expression. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “You try talking to her
for a while. You’ll see.”

“That bad?”

“You’ll see. You won’t be able to avoid it. So, did you come in here to waste my time, or
are you buying anything?”

I looked at the digital clock blinking on the cash register behind the bar. “I’m meeting
somebody in about half an hour.”

It was Chiri’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “Oh, business? We’re working again, are we?”

“Hell, Chiri, this is the second job this month.”

“Then buy something.”

I try to stay away from drugs when I know I’m going to meet a client, so I got my usual, a
shot of gin and a shot of bingara over ice with a little Rose’s lime juice. I stayed at the
bar, even though the client was coming, because if I sat at a table the two new girls
would try to hustle. Even if Chiri warned them off, they’d still try. There was time
enough to take a table when this Mr. Bogatyrev showed up.

I sipped my drink and watched the girl onstage. She was pretty, but they were all pretty;
it went with the job. Her body was perfect, small and lithe and so sweet that you almost
ached to run your hand down that flawless skin, glistening now with sweat. You ached,
but that was the point. That’s why the girls were there, that’s why you were there, that’s
why Chiri and her cash register were there. You bought the girls drinks and you stared at
their perfect bodies and you pretended that they liked you. And they pretended that they
liked you, too. When you stopped spending money, they got up and pretended that they

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When Gravity Fails


liked someone else.

I couldn’t remember what Chiri had said this girl’s name was. She’d obviously had a lot
of work done: her cheekbones had been emphasized with silicone, her nose straightened
and made smaller, her square jaw shaved down to a cute rounded point, oversized breast
implants, silicone to round out her ass . . . they all left telltale signs. None of the
customers would notice, but I’d seen a lot of women on a lot of stages in the last ten