Had to be some sort of custom job, and Brad didn't think it would be comfortable to handle on a long drive. You'd have to spread your arms almost as wide as your chest just to grip it. 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. Bradley wondered if that was the way they had come on this model, or if it was some kind of special option. The steering wheel looked like inlaid wood. 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 seat upholstery was wren-brown, and so was the fabric lining the inside of the roof. 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 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 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. Either way, Brad Roach's job was to pump gas. 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.

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 wasn't even a plate holder, or screw-holes where a plate would normally go. The fuel hatch was there, but the rear license plate wasn't. At the back, bending over the fuel hatch, he paused.

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. 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!īrad 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. '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.

From a buick 8 car