"Mack Reynolds - After Utopia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

its appearance was concerned. It looked like any other
bar.
The Vandyked owner-bartender was a typical resident
of extradition-free Tangier. Exsmuggler, excon man,
ex-half a dozen other types of criminal, the knowledge
that Interpol was waiting for him anywhere out of
Tangier kept him hemmed in; and kept him honest, for
that matter. Paul Lund was smart enough not to foul his
sole remaining nest.
Paul said, “Hi, Tracy. Haven’t seen you for donkey’s
years.”
Cogswell said, “I’ve been working. Having trouble with
my eighth chapter.” He flicked his eyes over the two
other occupants of the bar and recognized them both: an
American sergeant of the marines, stationed at the local
consulate, and a French teacher at the French lycée, a
parlor-pink type who got his kicks out of supporting the
Commie party line in public but who, in the finals, would
probably turn out to be a rabid DeGaulle man.
Paul was saying, “Eight chapters? Haven’t you got any
further than that with that poxy book of yours? Wot’ll
you have?”
“I’m rewriting,” Cogswell said. “Let me have a pastis.”
“Absinthe?”
“Hell no, that stuff fuzzes up my head for days.”
Paul Lund poured an inch of Pernod into a tumbler and
added three parts of cold water to it. Cogswell climbed up
on one of the tiny bar’s six stools and took a sip. He
wondered how Desage was doing in Marseille. The police
had nabbed him the week before, but they had nothing
on him. France was one of the countries where the
movement was legal; the authorities didn’t like it, but it
wasn’t illegal. The same was true of the States and
England. In the smaller countries they were
underground. The smaller ones and the Soviet countries.
It meant a bullet in the back of your head if you were
caught behind the Curtain.
Paul winked at him and indicated the other two
customers with a gesture of his head. “Jim and Pierre are
solving all the troubles of the world.”
Cogswell grunted. He listened uninterestedly to the
argument. It occurred to him that Jim looked
surprisingly like a taller Mickey Rooney and Pierre
Meunier like David Niven.
The argument wasn’t unique. The American marine
evidently got his opinions as well as his facts from Time .
Pierre Meunier was reciting the Commie party line like a
tape. In fact, as Cogswell listened he decided that
Meunier wasn’t even doing a particularly good job of
that. He evidently wasn’t aware of the fact that the party