"Ron Goulart - A Whiff of Madness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

made it to the edge of the curbstone.
A dozen gold-braided policemen were galloping by, mounted on white stallions.
"My, look at those horsewhips, so many of them," remarked a fat lady.
"What do you suppose the man without his pants is meant to represent?" asked her twin.
"What man without pants, Alma?"
"Right there, Dolores, that bald man trotting along in the wake of the horsemen with the dozen or
more angry high priests in hot pursuit"
"Palma!" said Summer.
It was indeed the bald photographer, clad in a candy-striped singlet and a pair of sky-blue briefs.
The howling catmen on his trail wore flowing black and gold robes, and were waving double-edged
golden swords. "Sacrilege! Defilement!" they were shouting. "Profanation!"
Dodging white horses, Summer reached his friend's side to begin running with him. "You were
supposed to refrain from trouble."
"I'm trying," panted Palma, "I'm trying. That's why I'm attempting to outrun this particular bunch
of crazed fanatics."
"Sacrilege! Debasement!" cried the nearest robed catmen, who were not more than a dozen feet
behind.
"What did you debase?"
"Oh," said Palma, "I merely patted a nun on the keaster."
Sprinting, Summer got alongside one of the galloping policemen. "You won't mind my borrowing
this?" He tugged the horsewhip out of its saddle holster.
Stopping where he stood, Summer told Palma, "Head for that alley over there." He cracked the
whip, tufts of fur fluttered up in the glaring air, and the lead priest fell down. While the whip was still
wound around the fallen man's furry ankle, Summer jerked it and caused the priest to trip the next two
pursuers.
Palma meanwhile was streaking for the narrow alley between two towering neobrick buildings.
After felling three more priests and avoiding the angered mounted policeman, Summer took off.
In the alley he asked, "Why'd you stroke some nun on the rear end, anyway?"
Palma sprang for the top of the nearwood fence at the alley's end. "Foolish damn thing to do,
since I'm basically a tit man," he admitted. Wheezing, he struggled over the fence and dropped down into
the miniature golf course on the other side. "Of course I didn't even realize she was in holy orders, seeing
as how she was naked at—"
"How'd she happen to be naked?" Summer joined him on the turf.
Running down the sloping field of the tiny golf course, the bald photographer replied, "Women
usually are naked in the ladies' wing of a Turkish bath. See, through a perfectly honest mistake I
happened to wander into—"
"Never mind." Summer glanced back over his shoulder. "They've ceased chasing us."
Palma slowed down, wiping his hand across the top of his glistening bald head. He was roughly
the same height as Summer, nearly two years older. "You wouldn't expect Quakers to be so vindictive,"
he said. "Though it may be the Peregrinian splinter—"
"What was the parade about?"
"Nothing much; another public execution this afternoon."
"Fore, for mercy's sake!" cried a dwarf they were approaching. "Fore!" He swung his golf club in
the air several times.
 "Excuse us." Palma bowed toward the man and his midget spouse. He and Summer had to cross
a stone bridge over a small scummy lagoon to reach the street "Did you happen to notice the knockers
on that midget broad? If you multiply those tits by three it's fairly astound—"
"Why are the citizens of Laranja East having a big parade for this public execution?"
"They always have parades, sometimes a carnival or a masked ball," explained Palma. The girl
who ran the bear-baiting concession at the last carnival had a momentous set of chabobs, Jack. The