"Victor Pelevin. Babylon (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

interesting. Tatarsky noted the slight, barely visible trembling of the
fingers and realised his customer was a stimulant abuser. He could easily
be, for instance, some middle-level bandit or businessman, or - as was often
the case - something halfway between the two.
'What kind of Davidoff? Standard or lights?' Tatarsky asked.
'Lights,' the customer replied and leaned down to glance in through the
little window.
Tatarsky started in surprise - the customer was a fellow student from
his year at the Literary Institute, Sergei Morkovin, one of the outstanding
characters of their year. He'd hardly changed at all, except that a neat
parting had appeared in his hair, and a few grey hairs had appeared in the
parting.
'Vova?' Morkovin asked in astonishment. 'What are you doing here?'
Tatarsky couldn't think of a good answer.
'I get it,' said Morkovin. 'Come on, you're out of this dump.'
It didn't take long for Tatarsky to be persuaded. He locked up the
kiosk and, casting a fearful glance in the direction of Hussein's trailer,
followed Morkovin to his car. They went to an expensive Chinese restaurant
called The Shrine of the Moon, ate dinner and did some heavy drinking, and
Morkovin told Tatarsky what he'd been up to recently. What he'd been up to
was advertising.
'Vova,' he said, grabbing Tatarsky by the arm, his eyes gleaming, 'this
is a very special time. There's never been a time like it and there never
will be again. It's a gold-rush, just like the Klondyke. In another two
years everything'll be all sewn up, but right now there's a real chance to
get in on the ground floor straight off the street. You know, in New York
they spend half a lifetime just trying to get to meet the right people over
lunch, but here ...'
There was a lot in what Morkovin said that Tatarsky simply didn't
understand. The only thing that was really clear to him from the
conversation was the outline of how business functioned in an era of
primitive accumulation and the way it was interlinked with advertising.
'Most of the time,' said Morkovin, 'it goes like this: a guy borrows
money on credit. He uses the credit to rent an office and buy a Jeep
Cherokee and eight crates of Smimoff. When the Smimoff runs out, it turns
out the jeep's wrecked, the office is awash with puke and the loan is due
for repayment. So he borrows money again - three times more than before. He
uses it to pay back the first loan, buys a Jeep Grand Cherokee and sixteen
crates of Absolut vodka. When the Absolut...'
'OK, I get the picture,' Tatarsky interrupted. 'So what's the ending?'
'There's two endings. If the bank the guy owes to is one of the mafia
banks, then some time or other he gets killed; and since there aren't any
others, that's what usually happens. On the other hand, if the guy's in the
mafia himself, then the last loan gets shifted on to the State Bank, and the
guy declares himself bankrupt. The bailiffs come round to his office,
inven-torise the empty bottles and the puke-covered fax, and in a little
while he starts up all over again. Nowadays, of course, the State Bank's got
its own mafia, so the situation's a bit more complicated, but the basic
picture's still the same.'
'Aha,' Tatarsky said thoughtfully. 'But I still don't see what all this