Gods of Manhattan Read Free

just didn't get it.
    The man snorted, not bothering to lower his voice. "Well, obviously. Have you noticed they don't have any flags here?"
    "We've got a flag. We don't use it much." O'Malley scowled despite himself. It'd been a sore point since 1954.
    "Well, there you are. And they go on and on about all the culture here, and then you go to the gallery and it's all just nonsense, just a lot of silly colours and shapes. My five-year-old nephew could do better. And the music..." He turned to O'Malley, as if he was responsible for everything he'd seen and heard. "I've never heard anything like it in my life! The noise! There was one fellow playing some sort of - well, I'm not sure what-"
    "Guitar." muttered O'Malley.
    The man flushed; his wife tutted and sniffed, her mouth shrinking even tighter. "He wasn't even wearing a suit. When I go to a concert back home, we expect the performers to be dressed properly and to play proper instruments. And proper music. Not three-minute bursts of jingles and shouting."
    O'Malley shrugged and picked up another glass. "Who was it?"
    The man in the tweed shook his head angrily; his wife's mouth had almost disappeared. "Oh, I don't know. They were singing something about 'taking Berlin'. Probably your socialist friends. Well, that sort of propaganda doesn't wash with me. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have a thousand like Herr Hitler than one Bolshevik like Bartlet or Rickard. If you ask me, a strong leader like that is what this country needs."
    O'Malley scowled. Typical Brits - half of them probably mailed checks to Untergang from their cosy little armchairs back home. "Yeah, well, he's not exactly a good friend of ours, so you might want to watch that kind of talk while you're here."
    The man drew himself up to his full height - roughly a foot and a half shorter than O'Malley. "And you should watch your tone, Sir. I'm a guest in your country, and a customer, and the customer is always right."
    O'Malley breathed in, then out. Don't get mad at the customers. All it took was one bad report spreading through Assrapeshire and he could end up losing a hundred customers. Keep the Brits happy, that was the rule. That was the price for running an English bar.
    He could've taken his brother's advice and started a futurehead club, but no, he wanted to serve a 'better class of person'. What a schmuck.
    "Sorry, Sir," he muttered, concentrating on cleaning the pint glasses.
    There was a long silence. The Brits didn't say anything else for a while, and O'Malley was glad of that.
    After about a minute of strained silence, the bell over the door rang and a skinny guy with long, dirty blonde hair and a ratty beard walked in, sniffing the air like a dog. He looked as though he hadn't bathed in weeks. The Brits shrank back, looking daggers. The long-haired man just smiled, good-natured.
    "Hey, Larson." O'Malley smiled.
    "Uh, hey, O'Malley." Larson grinned, nervous, fumbling in his pocket. "Listen, can I borrow your phone?"
    O'Malley nodded. "Just remember to pay for the call. How's the fight against the Man? The cops still hassling you?" He took a perverse pleasure in needling Larson about his police phobia, especially with those damned supercilious Brits hanging on every word he said. Larson couldn't have come in at a better time.
    The man with the dirty blonde hair laid twenty bucks down on the counter. Larson was notorious for being broke - chasing the dragon would do that to you. This was more money than O'Malley had ever seen him with. "Damn, Larson, what have you been getting into?"
    Larson chuckled nervously. "Oh, uh, this and that." He wandered back behind the bar, heading into the back room, and O'Malley found himself surreptitiously listening in, trying to hear what was said over the loud tuts of the British heifer and her grim husband.
    "Disgusting," the British guy kept saying, over and over. "Disgusting country. Disgusting people."
    O'Malley ignored him.
    "Uh, never mind how I found you,"