"Mike Resnick - Encounters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

The Count Basil de Chenza Lupo, an aristocratic werewolf.
Quesadilla, the notorious Clubfoot of Notre Dame.
Sherringford House, the world's greatest consulting detective, who is always brilliant if not
always correct.
Rupert Cornwall, a very special landlord of a very special property.
El Diablo, a bull with an attitude.
And our narrator,The Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones , a handsome, noble
and resourceful Christian gentlemen who has certain unresolved differences with ten
separate European governments over the finer points of the law.

1. The Home-Made Man
Europe is a lot different from Africa and Asia.
For one thing, it's got a lot more Europeans living there. For another, it's got better roads and
it's a little more built-up. For a third, having been told by a batch of governments that totally
misunderstood my motives that my presence was no longer desired on those first two land
masses, I was in some danger of running out of continents while still in the prime of my young
manhood.
Therefore, I made up my mind that this time I was going to keep out of trouble and obey all
the nuances of the law while seeking to establish my tabernacle and pursue my vocation
(which was preaching, no matter what Interpol and some of them other biased institutions
said). So when the train that took me out of Asia and all the way through Russia finally came
to a stop in Bucharest, I was determined thatthis time I wasn't going to spend my first night on
a new continent in the local jail.
Of course, I hadn't really counted on the fact that my Silent Partner was out to test me the
way He'd tested Job in times past, and that I'd lose my bankroll in the first twenty minutes of a
friendly little game of chance with a pack of Gypsies just outside the railroad station. I was
sorely tempted to even the odds by insinuating my own dice into the contest, but they were a
swarthy-looking lot who spoke in tongues and carried an awful lot of knives and didn't look
like they'd appreciate an effort to bring the laws of statistical probabilities under my more
direct control, and so I took my losses like a man and wandered off, looking for some place to
hole up for the night.
Well, you'd be surprised how many Romanian hotels wouldn't take an I.O.U. from a man of
the cloth, and eventually I wandered out toward the edge of the city, and just after it got dark I
found a quiet little park, and figured I'd catch a quick forty or fifty winks there before hitting all
the major banking and brokerage houses with a request for donations to my tabernacle.
Well, I was just lying there, snoring kind of gentle-like and minding my own business, when all
of a sudden I opened my eyes and looked up and realized that either the stars were moving
awful fast across the sky or someone was dragging me along the ground by my feet, and I
looked ahead and sure enough this little hunchbacked guy was pulling me across the grass
toward a wooden wagon that was attached to an old swaybacked horse.
тАЬHey!тАЭ I said. тАЬWhat in tarnation is going on here?тАЭ
He dropped my feet like they were on fire and turned to look at me.
тАЬYou're alive!тАЭ he said.
тАЬOf course I'm alive!тАЭ I said. тАЬWhy kind of country are you running here, anyway? Can't a man
take a little nap in a public park without getting hauled off to jail?тАЭ
тАЬThis isn't a park,тАЭ he said. тАЬIt's a cemetery.тАЭ
тАЬI'm the Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones, and if I've busted any laws by
camping out here, I'm sure we can work something out.тАЭ
тАЬIt makes no difference to me,тАЭ he answered. тАЬI am Ivor. I serve the Baron Steinmetz.тАЭ
тАЬThen if you ain't some kind of night watchman, why were you dragging me off to that there