Читать книгу Five Quarters of the Orange / Пять четвертинок апельсина онлайн

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“Waitcher turn, hé, mémère,” she said smartly, through a mouthful of gum. “Can’tcher see there’s people waiting?”

“Oh, is that what you’re doing, sweetheart?” I snapped. “I thought you were just looking for business.”

The girl gaped at me, and I elbowed past her without a second glance. Mirabelle Dartigen, whatever else she might have done, never raised her children to mince their words.

The counter was high, and I found myself looking up at a young man of about twenty-five, good-looking in a dirty-blond sharpish kind of way, hair past his collar and a single gold earring-a cross, I think-dangling. Eyes that might have done something for me forty years ago, but nowadays I’m too old and too particular. I think that old clock stopped ticking just about the same time men stopped wearing hats. Come to think of it, he looked a little familiar, but I wasn’t thinking about that then.

Of course, he already knew me.

“Good morning, Madame Simon,” he said in a polite, ironic voice. “What can I do for you? I’ve got a lovely burger américain if you’d care to try it.”