"Goodis, David - Nightfall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goodis David)

The fat fellow said, "She's giving you the eye."
Vanning gulped and got it down. He looked at the fat fellow. He said, "What?"
"A number just walked in."
Vanning leaned far over the bar and studied the glass and its contents. Without fully knowing why, he said nastily, "Numbers are always walking in."
"This isn't bad."
"None of them are bad," Vanning said. "They're all wonderful."
"I just thought I'd mention it."
"Thanks," Vanning said. "Thanks for mentioning it."
The fat fellow shrugged and put some beer down his throat. He was quiet for a little while and then he said, "Too bad you're not interested."
"Why?"
"She is."
"That's nice," Vanning said. "It always builds the ego."
"I wish she was looking at me."
"Maybe I'm in the way."
"Oh, that's all right," the fat fellow said.
"No, really." And Vanning gave a brief, quiet laugh. "I'll move on down the bar. Or I'll take a walk outside. Anything you like."
"Don't do that. It wouldn't help me. I'm not her speed."
The nastiness cruised away. Vanning turned to the fat fellow and said sympathetically, "Now why carry on like that?"
"Oh, cut it out," the fat fellow said morosely. "I'm just a fat slob and I don't have enough brains to make people overlook it."
"Glands?"
"No, not glands. Appetite. I've had six meals already today and the night is still young. I'd have as much chance with that item as Eskimos in the Sahara."
"Go on," Varkiing said, a little amused. "It isn't that hopeless. Give it a try. Nothing ventured--"
"Yes, I know all about that, and if I thought there was one chance in a thousand of getting a hello, I'd start an operation. But if I ever saw a hopeless state of affairs, this is it. I'm not in that league. Take a look at her and you'll see what I mean."
"Don't let them scare you," Vanning said, again lifting the glass. "They're not poison."
"Maybe you could sell me on that, but the way you say it, you don't mean it. You've been hurt, brother, you can't kid me. You've been hurt plenty."
Vanning's hand tightened around the glass. He put it down. He tapped ten fingers on the surface of the bar and took a deep breath and gazed straight ahead. "All right," he said. "What about it?"
"Nothing," the beer drinker said. "I've been hurt too."
"That's a shame. Should we start crying on each other's shoulder or do you think maybe it's a good idea to skip the whole thing? Have another beer?"
"She sure is looking at you."
"All right, then," Vanning said, "don't have another beer. And do me a favor. Don't give me a play-by-play of what's taking place at the end of the bar."
"I bet I know what's the matter." And the fat fellow wore a gleeful, shrewd little smile. "You're one of those bashful guys. I bet you're afraid."
"Afraid?"
"That's what I said."
"Afraid," Vanning murmured. He gripped the rounded edge of the bar. "Afraid. I'm afraid."
The beer drinker waited a while, and then he said, "I beg your pardon, friend, but would you mind telling me what the hell is wrong with you?"
"I'm afraid," Vanning said.
"I'm going out for a sandwich," the fat fellow said. "Food settles all my problems, and yet my biggest problem is food itself. That's the way it goes, my friend, and I tell you it's a vicious circle, it certainly is."
"I guess so," Vanning said.
The fat fellow was paying his check, turning away from the bar, walking toward the door. Vanning watched him, and then Vanning's eyes hopped away and to the side and toward that part of the bar where she was standing alone in a yellow dress. Her figure was on the buxom side. Voluptuous, but in a quiet, wholesome way.
She was about twenty-six, Vanning estimated while he looked at her and while she looked directly back at him. And then the first coherent thought that entered his head was the idea that she didn't belong in this place, she ought to be home reading a good book, and tomorrow morning she ought to be in the park wheeling a baby carriage. And all that was in his eyes as he stood there looking at her, and agreement with all that was in her eyes as she looked at him.
Even at this distance he could see there was no paint on her face except for some lipstick. But all the same there was color in her face, quite a bit of it aside from a beach tan, and it was deep rose all over her cheeks. He didn't think he was causing that. The deep rose was probably a permanent condition in her face. It was definitely a face, and it went along with the rest of her, and he knew why the fat fellow had retreated from the situation. The shining blond hair, loose and wispy and lovely around her shoulders, was some thing else that must have given the fat fellow a bad time.
She kept on looking at Vanning, and he kept on looking at her, and finally he told himself it was curiosity and nothing else that was making him pick up his drink, walk toward her.
Going toward her, it was more as though she were coming toward him, and the effect of her was something tremendous. He couldn't understand that, because along with it there was something uncanny, made all the more uncanny by the fact that she looked to be anything but uncanny or hard to figure out. He asked himself to stop trying to understand it.
He said, "Think you know me?"
"No."
"Then why are you looking at me?"
"Can't I look?"
He frowned and glanced at her with his head inclined a little. She stood there and looked at him. He had a feeling that she was a few strides ahead of him and he didn't like that.
"I guess you cah look if you want to," he said. "I don't know what you expect to see."
"I'm not sure either."