"Nayler, Ray - Pinball Zen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nayler Ray)

= "Pinball Zen"
by Ray Nayler


"Your girlfriend's outside waiting for you."

"Where?"

"Just outside."

Stan went out, pausing to tell a kid that he couldn't drink soda in the arcade.

"I'm not drinkin' it, just carryin' it."

He stopped a second, staring at the kid's broad, stupid face. There was a thin blond mustache trying to grow above the kid's lip.

"What was that?"

The kid's mouth opened, but his friend pulled him away.

Jen was standing outside next to one of the big cement ashtrays, smoking. She had her arms wrapped around herself because it was too cold for her T-shirt; the cold made the skin on her arms blotchy.

"Hey. Phil called."

"What'd he say?"

"I didn't answer it. He let a message on the machine. Said call him back. He sounded pissed."

"Okay."

"You gonna call him?"

Her lipstick was too dark for her face. Under the mercury vapor lights she looked old. Stan could see the lines and pits in her skin.

"I already talked to Phil. I already went over it with him. What am I gonna say?"

"You just gotta make him believe it. I mean, it's true, right?"

Stan looked up into the light and watched a moth whacking himself against it.

"You act like you don't believe me either."

She finished the cigarette and mashed it out on the cement. Stan looked at the ashtray and back at her, but she didn't get it.

"What the hell are you smiling about? This is serious. He thinks...."

"What do you know about what Phil thinks?"

"Oh, right, what do I know," she said meaninglessly.