Read From a Buick 8 for Free Online Page A

dragged on the puddly cement tarmac, and it billowed behind the Buick's driver as he strode toward the side of the station and the sound of Redfern Stream, which ran behind it. The sound of the stream was very loud that morning; it had swelled wonderfully in the previous night's showers. Brad, assuming that the man in the black coat and floppy black hat was headed for the seat of convenience, called: 'Door's open, mister . . . how much of this jetfuel you want?'
    'Fill 'er up,' the customer said. He spoke in a voice Brad Roach didn't much like. What he told the responding officers later was that the guy sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of jelly. Brad was in a poetical mood for sure. Maybe Hugh being gone for the day had something to do with it.
    'Check the earl?' Brad asked. By this time his customer had reached the corner of the little white station. Judging by how fast he was moving, Brad figured he had to offload some freight in a hurry. The guy paused, though, and turned toward Brad a little. Just enough for Brad to see a pallid, almost waxy crescent of cheek, a dark, almond-shaped eye with no discernible white in it, and a curl of lank Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    black hair falling beside one oddly made ear. Brad remembered the ear best, remembered it with great clarity. Something about it disturbed him deeply, perhaps even horrified him, but he couldn't explain just what it was. At this point, poesy failed him. Melted, kinda, like he'd been in a fire seemed to be the best he could do.
    'Oil's fine!' the man in the black coat and hat said in his choked voice, and was gone around the corner in a final batlike swirl of dark cloth. In addition to the quality of the voice - that unpleasant, mucusy sound
    - the man had an accent that made Brad Roach think of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show, Boris Badinoff telling Natasha Ve must stop moose und squeerul!
    Brad went to the Buick, ambled down the side closest to the pumps (the driver had parked carelessly, leaving plenty of room between the car and the island), trailing one hand along the chrome swoop and the smooth paintjob as he went. That stroke was more admiring than impudent, although it might have had a bit of harmless impudence in it; Bradley was then a young man, with a young man's high spirits. At the back, bending over the fuel hatch, he paused. The fuel hatch was there, but the rear license plate wasn't. There wasn't even a plate holder, or screw-holes where a plate would normally go. This made Bradley realize what had struck him as wrong as soon as he heard the ding-ding of the bell and looked up at the car for the first time. There was no inspection sticker. Well, no business of his if there was no plate on the back deck and no inspection sticker on the windshield; either one of the local cops or a Static from Troop D just up the road would see the guy and nail him for it . . . or they wouldn't. Either way, Brad Roach's job was to pump gas.
    He twirled the crank on the side of the hi-test pump to turn back the numbers, stuck the nozzle in the hole, and set the automatic feed. The bell inside the pump started to bing and while it did, Brad walked up the driver's side of the Buick, completing the circuit. He looked through the leftside windows as he went, and the car's interior struck him as singularly stark for what had been almost a luxury car back in the fifties. The seat upholstery was wren-brown, and so was the fabric lining the inside of the roof. The back seat was empty, the front seat was empty, and there was nothing on the floor -not so much as a gum-wrapper, let alone a map or a crumpled cigarette pack. The steering wheel looked like inlaid wood. Bradley wondered if that was the way they had come on this model, or if it -was some kind of special option. Looked ritzy. And why was it so big'? If it had had spokes sticking out of it, you would have thought it belonged on a millionaire's yacht.