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Anderson, Kevin J - A Fantastic Holiday Season 2014/ Андерсон, Кевин - Фантастические каникулы 2014 [2014, EPUB, ENG]

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A Fantastic Holiday Season 2014 / Фантастические каникулы 2014

Название: A Fantastic Holiday Season 2014 / Фантастические каникулы 2014
Год выпуска: 2014
Под редакцией: Anderson, Kevin J / Андерсон, Кевин
Издательство: WordFire Pres
ISBN: 978-1-61475-201-1
Формат: EPUB
Качество: eBook
Язык: английский

Описание:
Антология фантастики (в основном, фэнтэзи) рождественско-новогодней тематики. Один рассказ 2013 года, остальные - 2014-го. Вроде как еще ничего не переводилось Smile
Naughty & Nice by Kevin J. Anderson
Close Knit by Nina Kirki Hoffman
Astronaut Nick by Brad R. Torgersen
The Longest Night by Mercedes Lackey
Jimmy Krinklepot and the White Rebels of Hayberry by Quincy J. Allen
Midnight Trains by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
A Christmas Feast by Jonathan Maberry
A World Done In by Great Granny’s Grateful Pie by Ken Scholes
Santa's Mortuary by Heather Graham
Yes, Virginia2097c, There is a Santa Claus by Sam Knight
Christmas Eve at Harvey Wallbanger’s by Mike Resnick
The Atmosphere for Miracles by David Boop
A Sufficiently Advanced Christmas by Eric James Stone
Unappreciated Gifts by Patricia Briggs
Christmas Eve at
Harvey Wallbanger’s


A Harry the Book story


Mike Resnick


So we are sitting around Joey Chicago’s 3-Star Tavern, with the wind howling outside the front door and sounding just like Velvet Voice Vinnie singing off-key. I am nursing an Old Washensox, minding my own business, which of course is dependent on whether Aqueduct comes up muddy on Christmas Day. Gently Gently Dawkins has been studying the crossword puzzle in the newspaper for the past twenty minutes, trying to come up with a four-letter word for “stupid,” when Benny Fifth Street suddenly remembers what night it is.
“Hey, Joey!” says Benny. “Did you ever patch that hole in your roof?”
“It ain’t snowing on you, is it?” shoots back Joey Chicago from behind the bar.
“That’s good,” says Gently Gently, looking up from his puzzle. “I wouldn’t want no reindeer falling on top of me.”
“Right,” agrees Benny. “Then it’d be ‘Off, Dancer! Off Prancer! Off all you other horned nags!’ instead of ‘On, Dancer! and so forth.’”
“Are you sure there was a Prancer?” asks Gently Gently.
“Absolutely,” says Benny. “There’s got to be, if it’s going to rhyme with Dancer.”
“That is all very well and good,” says Gently Gently, “but I don’t remember nothing rhyming with Cupid or Rocket.”
“There ain’t no Rocket,” says Benny.
“Sure there is,” says Gently Gently. “There’s Dancer, Prancer, Donner, Vixen, Cupid, Cupcake, Dandy and Rocket.”
“I got a double sawbuck that says some of them are not in the sleigh-pulling business, and that I can name more of Santa’s reindeer than you can,” says Benny.
Gently Gently slaps twenty dollars on the bar. “Okay, wise guy,” he says. “You’re faded.”
Benny frowns, trying to remember his childhood, when he probably knew the names of the reindeer as well as I know the morning line at Santa Anita. Finally he clears his throat and says: “Dancer, Prancer, Donner, Vixen, Buster, Blitzen, Gemini and Comet.”
“I don’t remember no Blitzen,” says Gently Gently.
“Of course not,” says Benny. “That’s why you are losing the bet.”
Gently Gently turns to me. “Boss, who’s right?”
“Neither of you,” I tell him.
“Put in your twenty bucks and take your best shot,” says Benny, who is getting more than a little warm under the collar.
“I do not make bets,” I said. “That is for suckers. I book bets, which in case it has slipped your mind is how I pay your salaries. But I will name the reindeer anyway: Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Gummo, Zeppo, Curly, Moe and Larry.”
“You’re all wrong,” says Joey Chicago. “You’re forgetting Rudolph—though I cannot imagine his nose gets much redder than Gently Gently’s after he has downed a couple of Old Peculiars and a chaser.” He grabs the forty bucks and sticks it in his pocket. “Anyway, I guess that makes me the winner.”
Benny holds out an empty glass. “If you’re going to keep the money, I should at least get a free refill.”
“Check the walls,” says Joey. “Do you see any signs posted to the effect that this is a charitable institution?”
“Where is your Christmas spirit?” demands Benny.
“I left it in my other suit,” says Joey.
Just then, before they can come to blows, or more likely curses, Dead End Dugan walks through the door. I don’t mean through the doorway; I mean through the door. We have to make allowances for Dugan, who is a little more powerful and a lot less noticing since he became a zombie.
“I been looking all over for you, Harry,” he says.
“That is probably why you haven’t found me until now,” I reply.
“Bet-A-Million McNabb owes you a lot of money, doesn’t he?” says Dugan, and I notice that Benny and Joey have backed away, because when you’ve been dead and occasionally buried for the past five years you just naturally are not about to put any perfume companies out of business, or even any cologne companies for that matter. Gently Gently, who is rarely operating on more than two or three of the eight cylinders God gave him, keeps sniffing his drink, trying to figure out where the smell is coming from.
“Yes,” I say. “He drops ten large betting on Horrendous Howard to knock Kid Testosterone out by the fifth round.” I shake my head sadly. “Horrendous Howard might pull it off, too, if he doesn’t trip and fall on his head going back to his corner after the first round. Last I hear, he still thinks he is King Arthur and he will not eat off any table that has corners on it.”
“This is all no doubt very interesting,” said Dugan, who as far as I can tell has not recently been interested in much besides visiting Madame Bonne Ami’s House of Exotic Comforts for the Recently Departed, “but you should know that even as we speak he is playing five-card stud with Loose Lips Louie.”
I do not need to hear what Dead End Dugan will tell me next, because like almost everyone else except maybe Bet-A-Million McNabb, I know that Loose Lips Louie acquires his name by beating every member of a battleship’s crew out of their savings in a single night, and his specialty is five-card stud, which indeed he has used to sink more than one ship’s crew.
“In fact,” Dugan is saying, “he is taking such a bath that about twenty minutes ago he has to change his name to Bet-A-Thousand McNabb.”
“I have to get to him and collect my ten thousand dollars before he loses it all to Loose Lips Louie,” I say. “Where is this game going on?”
“At Harvey Wallbanger’s Social and Sporting Club for Gentlemen of Quality,” says Dugan.
“Isn’t that where Morris the Mage hangs out?” says Benny.
I frown. “Come to think of it, yes, that has become his home away from home.”
“Do you suppose he is helping Louie to win?” continues Benny.
“I don’t know, but we might as well play it safe and take our own protection along.”
“Where is he?” asks Benny.
“In the men’s room, where he always is,” says Joey Chicago. “He doesn’t like to be disturbed.”
“He will have to live with it,” I say, heading off to the men’s room, where I find Big-Hearted Milton seated on the floor as usual, surrounded by five black candles and reading a book.
“Why are you bothering me when I am studying the ancient grimoires?” he says, slipping the book into a suit pocket.
“Come on, Milton,” I say. “I see the title before you can hide it, and it is Meter Maids in Bondage.”
“Some grimoires are less ancient than others,” he says defensively.
“Get up,” I say. “We have work to do.”
. . .
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