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

"They's worth a fortune in Asia. Supposably some kinda magic dick medicine. They say it gives you a boner lasts two days." Durgess shrugged skeptically. "Anyhow, it's serious bucks, Mr. Stoat. That's the program for all our rhinos. Some Chinaman over Panama City buys up the horns."

"You bastards are gypping me."

"Nossir. A jenna-wine African rhinoceros is what the catalog says, and that's what you got."

For a closer look, Stoat knelt in the scrub. The rhino's cranial horn had been taken off cleanly with a saw, leaving an oval abrasion. There the plastic replacement had been attached with white gummy industrial adhesive. A foot or so up the snout was the animal's secondary horn, the caudal, real enough but unimpressive; squat and wart-like in profile.

"The whole idea," Stoat said irritably to Durgess3 "was a head mount for my den."

"And that's a helluva head, Mr. Stoat, you gotta admit."

"Except for one tiny detail."

Stoat tossed the fake horn at Durgess. Durgess let it drop to the ground, now sodden with rhino fluids. He said, "I got a taxidermy man does fiberglass on the side, he'll fix you up a new one. Nobody'll know the difference, sir. It'll look just like the real deal."

"Fiberglass."

"Yessir," Durgess said.

"Hello, why not chrome—ever thought of that? Rip the hood ornament off a Cadillac or maybe a 450-SL. Glue it to the tip of that sucker's nose."

Durgess gave Stoat a sullen look. Stoat took the Winchester from the guide and slung it over his shoulder. "Anything else I should know about this animal?"

"Nossir." There was no point telling Stoat that his trophy rhinoceros also had suffered from cataracts on both eyes, which accounted for its lack of alarm at the approach of heavily armed humans. In addition, the animal had spent its entire life as tame as a hamster, the featured attraction of an Arizona roadside zoo.

Stoat said, "Put the camera away. I don't want anybody to see the damn thing like this. You'll get with that fiberglass man right away?"

"First thing tomorrow," Durgess promised.

Palmer Stoat was feeling better. He rubbed a hand across the rhino's bristly plated hide and said, "What a magnificent creature."

Durgess thought; If only I had ten bucks for every time I've heard that line.

Stoat produced two thick cigars and offered one to his faithful guide. "Cohibas," Stoat said, "the genuine article." Theatrically he fired up.

Durgess declined. He grimaced at the acrid comingling of fumes, stogie and rhino piss.

Stoat said, "Tell me something, little bwana."

Oh blow me, Durgess almost said.

"How old you figure this animal to be?"

"I ain't too sure."

Stoat said, "She looks to be in her prime."

"Yeah, she does," said Durgess, thinking: Blind, tame, fat and half-senile—a regular killing machine, all right.