"Foster, Alan Dean - Smart Dragons, Foolish Elves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

cognac. The suitcase full of rubies and sapphires.

He said, "Shouldn't the registration say something about
the year and make?"

The dealer shifted his weight from foot to foot. "Matter
of fact, we don't have the registration. But it's perfectly
legitimate. Hey, look, I'd like to get this car out of my lot,
so maybe we call it two twenty-five, huh?"

"It all sounds pretty mysterious. Where'd you get the car,
anyway?"

"There was this little guy who brought it in, about a year
ago, a year last November, I think it was. Give it a valve
job, he said. I'll be back in a month -- got to take a sudden
business trip. Paid in advance for tune-up and a month's
storage and everything. Wouldn't you know that was the
last we ever saw of him? Well, we stored his damn car here
free for ten, eleven months, but that's it, now we got to get

AS IS 5

it out of the place. The lawyer says we can take possession
for the storage charge."

"If I buy it, you give me a paper saying you had the right
to sell it?"

"Sure, Sure."

"And what about getting the registration? Shifting the
insurance over from my old heap? All the red tape?"

"I'll handle everything," the dealer said. "Just you take
the car outa here."

"Two hundred," Norton said. "As is." .
The dealer sighed. "It's a deal. As is."

A light snow was falling when Norton began his cross-
country hegira three days later. It was an omen, but he was
not sure what kind; he decided that the snow was intended
as his last view of a dreary winter phenomenon he wouldn't
be seeing again, for a while. According to the Times,
yesterday's temperature range in L.A. had been sixty-six
low, seventy-nine high. Not bad for January.

He slouched down behind the wheel, let his foot rest
lightly on the accelerator, and sped westward at a sane,