"Carl Hiaasen - Sick Puppy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hiaasen Carl)

Carl Hiaasen - Sick Puppy

1

On the morning of April 24, an hour past dawn, a man named Palmer Stoat shot a rare African black rhinoceros. He fired from a distance of thirteen yards and used a Winchester.458, which knocked him flat on his back. The rhinoceros wheeled, as if to charge, before snorting twice and sagging to its knees. Its head came to rest under a spread of palmettos.

Palmer Stoat instructed his guide, a former feed salesman named Durgess, to unpack the camera.

"Let's first make sure she's dead," Durgess said.

"Are you kidding? You see that shot?"

Durgess took the Winchester from his client. He approached the lifeless mass and poked it in the rump with the rifle barrel.

Stoat grinned as he dusted off his mailorder khakis. "Hey, Bungalow Bill, look what I killed!"

While Durgess assembled the video equipment, Stoat inspected his newest trophy, which had cost him thirty thousand dollars, not including ammo and gratuities. When he moved the palmetto fronds away from the rhino's face, he noticed something wrong.

"You ready?" Durgess was wiping down the lens of the video camera.

"Hey, look here." Stoat pointed accusingly.

"I'm lookin'. "

"Care to explain?"

"Explain what? That's a horn," said Durgess.

Stoat gave a yank. It broke off in his hands.

Durgess said, "Now see what you done."

"It's fake, Jethro." Angrily Stoat thrust the molded plastic cone at Durgess.

"The other one's real!" Durgess said defensively.

"The other one's a nub!"

"Look, it wasn't my idea."

"You glued a phony horn on my thirty-thousand-dollar rhinoceros. Is that about right?"

Nervously Durgess cracked his knuckles.

"What'd you guys do with the real one?" Stoat demanded.

"Sold it. We cut it off and sold it."

"Perfect."