"Mel Gilden - Zoot Marlow 2 - Hawaiian UFO Aliens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilden Mel)

over the edge of the seat.
'You want the Department of Motor Vehicles, known to its friends, of which there are few, as the
DMV.'
'I want it, all right. I'm tired of waiting for the first cop with a little time on his hands to pull me over
and discover my terrible secret. Where's the DMV?'
Bill told me, and I backed slowly onto Pacific Coast Highway. Rain suddenly attacked the windows
with hard spatters, and we were off. Soon I couldn't see through the cascade rolling down the
windshield. Driving was pretty exciting there for a while. Even Bill had a good grip on the handrest. 'Use
the wipers! Use the wipers!'
'What wipers?' I was busy at the moment, trying to decide if the thing in front of me was a truck or a
sports car.
'Windscreen wipers!' His left arm telescoped toward me, reached for the dash, and turned a black
plastic knob. Immediately, a couple of arms came up on the outside of the windscreen and swept the
water one way and then the other.
'Cool,' I said. 'How'd you happen to know about that?'
'Bubble memory,' he said, and tapped the side of his little ducky head.
The DMV was a square yellow building with a parking lot on one side. The grey, joyless day
complemented it so perfectly. I wondered if, maybe, rain fell there all the time. The building had no class,
no style, its only distinguishing marks being the words DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES in
bold block letters on the side, and a jagged chorus line of black marks drawn along one wall.
'Graffiti,' Bill said.
'Meaning what?'
'Meaning there's probably more action around here when the place is closed.'
'I just want a driver's licence,' I said.
I had my pick of spaces in the nearly empty lot. I told Bill to wait for me in the car. He got busy
betting himself which raindrop would reach the bottom of the window first.
Inside the DMV building was a single room, lit too brightly with fluorescent tubes. Following the Los
Angeles tradition, the air conditioning was on, making the room even colder than the air outside. Bored
clerks sat behind desks in the cubicles, making notes on papers that would probably be filed in boxes
somewhere and never seen again. A lot of the clerks were wearing coats or sweaters. One guy had a knit
hat pulled over his ears.
English and Spanish signs hanging from the ceiling told the multitudes where to stand, which line to
wait in, whom to see. No multitudes were there at the moment, so I walked up to a counter that had an
INFORMATION sign hanging over it. Arrows pointed downward just in case anybody entertained
thoughts of standing in line on the ceiling. I stood tippy-toe so I could see over the top of the counter.
 Nobody was standing on the other side, so I called out, 'Am I in the right place to get a little
information?'
A bored man looked up from his work. His shoulders sloped, and his hair was thin. But his white shirt
was crisp, and his tie didn't clash with it. Astonishingly, his face dropped into an even more bored
expression when he looked at me. 'What sort of information?'
'Is this where I get a driver's licence?'
'It is if you're eligible.'
'Am I eligible?'
'I don't know. Are you? Read the sign.' He pointed to another sign, this one taking up most of one
wall. In English and Spanish it said that a driver had to be so old, had to pass such and such tests,
couldn't be crazy.
'Sure, I'm eligible.'
'Are you a citizen?' He kind of sneered when he said it.
I said. 'I'd rather not shout. Do you have legs, or are you screwed into that desk?'
A few of the other clerks almost laughed. The guy I was talking to didn't like that, but he stood