"Scott Nicholson - Must See to Appreciate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nicholson Scott)

MUST SEE TO APPRECIATE
Scott Nicholson

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Scott is the author of six thrillers, five screenplays, numerous short stories
and writing articles. HeтАЩs also a freelance editor and award-winning
journalist, which means he pretty much lives off words. Hobbies include
raising goats, tending an organic garden, swimming, ghost hunting, and
playing guitar, but his favourite activity is writing love letters in invisible ink.
He is vice president of the Horror Writers Association and is currently
adapting his latest book They Hunger as a graphic novel. His carefully
disheveled Internet persona is found at hauntedcomputer.com

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This was the part that Reynolds hated the most.

The deal was so close he could almost smell it. The fish was nibbling,
practically had the worm between his nubby gums. Reynolds had wowed
the mark with the double bay windows, the parquet flooring, the loft
bedroom with skylight, and the view of the Appalachian Mountains
stretching a blue hundred miles in the distance. Custom cabinets and a
cherry stair railing hadnтАЩt hurt, either, and the deck was wide enough to field
a baseball game. Surely that was enough to convince anybody that this
twenty-acre piece of real estate and 7,200-square-foot floor plan was the
steal of a lifetime, especially at the sacrificial price of four hundred grand.

But the mark wanted to see the basement. They always wanted to
see the basement. It figured. Reynolds was stuck handling the only haunted
house on the local market, and these idiot buyers didnтАЩt make the job any
easier.

тАЬThe bulbтАЩs burned out in the basement, David,тАЭ Reynolds said. тАЬHad
the caretaker up here the other day, and said heтАЩd get around to changing it.
YouтАЩd think heтАЩd carry one in his truck, you know? Good help is hard to find
around these parts, David.тАЭ

Maybe he shouldnтАЩt have said that last bit. This buyer was from
Florida, and might think that poor work habits were an Appalachian
trademark. Reynolds looked David in the eye and smiled. It was ReynoldsтАЩ
plastic smile, the closer smile, the glib smarmy hypertoothiness that heтАЩd
learned in salesman school.

The man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a flashlight. тАЬI
used to be a builder,тАЭ David said. тАЬYou can tell a lot about how a house is