"George R. R. Martin - The Pear-Shaped Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

though he did, had a more immediate concern. “Where do you want this recliner?” he wanted to know.

Later they had a few beers, and Rick and Molly and the Heathersons came over to help them warm the
apartment, and Rick offered to pose for her (wink wink, nudge nudge) when Molly wasn't there to hear,
and Donald drank too much and went to sleep on the sofa, and the Heathersons had a fight that ended
with Geoff storming out and Lureen crying; it was a night like any other night, in other words, and Jessie
forgot all about the Pear-shaped Man.
But not for long.

The next morning Angela roused Donald, and the two of them went off, Angie to the big downtown firm
where she was a legal secretary, Don to study shrinking. Jessie was a freelance commercial illustrator.
She did her work at home, which as far as Angela and Donald and her mother and the rest of Western
civilization were concerned meant that she didn't work at all. “Would you mind doing the shopping?”
Angie asked her just before she left. They had pretty well devastated their refrigerator in the two weeks
before the move, so as not to have a lot of food to lug across town. “Seeing as how you'll be home all
day? I mean, we really need some food.”

So Jessie was pushing a full cart of groceries down a crowded aisle in Santino's Market, on the corner,
when she saw the Pear-shaped Man the second time. He was at the register, counting out change into
Santino's hand. Jessie felt like making a U-turn and busying herself until he'd gone. But that would be
silly. She'd gotten everything she needed, and she was a grown woman, after all, and he was standing at
the only open register. Resolute, she got in line behind him. Santino dumped the Pear-shaped Man's
coins into the old register and bagged up his purchase: a big plastic bottle of Coke and a one-pound bag
of Cheez Doodles. As he took the bag, the Pear-shaped Man saw her and smiled that little wet smile of
his. “Cheez Doodles are the best,” he said. “Would you like some?”

“No, thank you,” Jessie said politely. The Pear-shaped Man put the brown paper sack inside a
shapeless leather bag of the sort that schoolboys use to carry their books, gathered it up, and waddled
out of the store. Santino, a big grizzled man with thinning salt-and-pepper hair, began to ring up Jessie's
groceries. “He's something, ain't he?” he asked her.

“Who is he?” she asked.

Santino shrugged. “Hell, I dunno. Everybody just calls him the Pear-shaped Man. He's been around
here forever. Comes in every morning, buys a bottle of Coke and a big bag of Cheez Doodles. Once we
run out of Cheez Doodles, so I tell him he oughta try them Cheetos or maybe even potato chips, y'know,
for a change? He wasn't having none of it, though.”

Jessie was bemused. “He must buy something besides Coke and Cheez Doodles.”

“Wanna bet, lady?”

“Then he must shop somewhere else.”

“Besides me, the nearest supermarket is nine blocks away. Charlie down at the candy store tells me the
Pear-shaped Man comes in every afternoon at four-thirty and has himself a chocolate ice-cream soda,
but far as we can tell, that's all he eats.” He rang for a total. “That's seventy-nine eighty-two, lady. You
new around here?”

“I live just above the Pear-shaped Man,” Jessie confessed.