Trader

by Charles de Lint

“This sounds so mysterious,” Jilly said. “And I love a good mystery.”

  “Even when you’re stuck in the middle of it?”

  “Especially then.” She smiled at Zeffy. “So am I stuck in the middle of it?”

  Zeffy shook her head. “No. But I am.”

  Although that wasn’t entirely true, she realized. She didn’t owe Johnny anything—he’d earned her dislike—and there was nothing to stop her from simply walking away. Nothing, except that she’d go crazy thinking about it until she knew for sure, one way or another, what was going on and why Johnny was suddenly able to make her feel the way she was feeling now. “Well?” Jilly asked, drawing the word out. “Aren’t you going to tell all?”

  “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  “I only laugh when something’s funny,” Jilly assured her. “I can see this isn’t a joke for you.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  Zeffy took a sip of her tea to fortify herself, then plunged into her story. She was reluctant to tell everything, especially this weird feeling of affection for Johnny that overcame her while talking to him, but you couldn’t tell half a story around Jilly. She was too good a listener, utterly absorbed in a story as it unfolded and gifted with a knack for asking exactly the right question when things were unclear or she felt that the teller was holding some pertinent element back. Never pushy, but she invariably got the whole story.

  “I know what you’re liable to say,” Zeffy said, finishing up, “but really. People don’t just swap bodies.”

  “Stranger things have happened in this world,” Jilly said.

  “Not in my world they haven’t. The world I know has always been, what you see is what you get.”

  “Don’t you find that kind of limiting?”

  Zeffy shook her head. “No, I find it comforting.”

  “And yet I can hear the doubt in your voice.”

  “I know. God, it’s so confusing. When he’s talking to me, it all seems to make such sense, even when I know it can’t be true. My head says he’s mentally unbalanced—in a nice way, mind you, because the Johnny I saw this afternoon is everything Tanya would have wanted him to be. But my heart keeps asking, What if what he’s telling me is true?”

  “Oh-oh,” Jilly said. “Sounds to me as if he’s charmed you.”

  “He is charming—but not like the Johnny we know. There’s nothing smarmy about him. The man sitting there behind his eyes is simply a nice guy.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this. I can’t believe that I’m actually buying into this whole ‘Invasion of the Johnny Snatchers’ business.”

  Jilly gave her a long considering look. “You like him, don’t you?”

  “Well, he’s very likable. I don’t want to like him, but I can’t seem to stop myself.”

  Jilly nodded. “You know what I think?”

  “Why do I have the feeling I’m going to regret telling you any of this?”

  “I think you’re as mixed up about how Tanya’s going to react to what you’re feeling as you are about whether or not he’s telling the truth.”

  Zeffy’s immediate objection died before she could voice it. Because it was true. Not only was she confused about Johnny’s bizarre story and her new feelings toward him, but she could just imagine Tanya’s response to her suddenly taking up with Johnny Devlin, whether he was changed or not. There’d be no end to it.

  “What am I going to do?” she said.

  “You could start by finding out if he’s telling the truth,” Jilly said.

  Zeffy gave her a curious glance. “You’re always telling me that I should learn to accept that there’s more to the world than what we can see—as though I should be willing to take it on faith. What makes this different?”

  “I do think that,” Jilly said. “But I’m also pragmatic. In this case—because of who we’re dealing with—you need more than Johnny Devlin’s word to go on. There’s a big difference between keeping an open mind and being gullible.”

  “Some people would say they’re one and the same.”

  Jilly smiled. “People say and do things all the time that make no sense.”

  “In a perfect world, everything would make sense.”

  “This is a perfect world,” Jilly said. “The only things wrong with it are those we screw up.”

  Zeffy had to shake her head. Trust Jilly to have an answer for everything. “How come you can make a pronouncement like that and get away with it?” she asked.

  Jilly laughed. “It’s because I’m so shy and retiring.”

  “And I’m the Queen of Sheba.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Jilly told her. “See? I’m not a complete flake.” They were both still smiling, but Zeffy sensed the underlying seriousness behind Jilly’s humor.

  “You’re not going to let me drop this now, are you?” she said.

  “It won’t be me,” Jilly said. “It’ll be you. It’s going to drive you crazy until you figure it out.”

  Zeffy nodded. “Which means going to Max Trader’s shop.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Somewhere in the Market. There was an article on him a while ago, about his shop moving there. All I have to do is look up the street address.”

  “You could pretend there was something wrong with your guitar,” Jilly said.

  “Actually, there is. My bass E-string gets a buzz when I capo anywhere past the fifth fret.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “It means I’ve got a perfectly legitimate excuse to go see him.”

  An hour later, after dropping in at the bank and exchanging her rolled coins for folding money, Zeffy took a bus up Battersfield to the Market. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to go. By the time she reached Stanton Street, the bus was crammed with commuters, the bus inching its way north through the rush hour traffic. Zeffy sat on an aisle seat, knapsack on her lap, guitar case propped between her legs, her body squeezed between a portly businessman and a long-haired boy in a flannel shirt listening to a Walkman at such a volume that she could clearly make out the tinny melody, if not the lyrics, of the song that was playing. It wasn’t anything she recognized.

  She would have been quicker walking, but she hadn’t felt like hauling her guitar all that way. Every stop they came to she reconsidered, briefly, as the crowded aisles accepted another two or three passengers, but it soon got to the point where she knew it would be more trouble than it was worth to push through the press of the crowd and try to get off. Turning her head, she could look through the window at St. Paul’s. She half-expected to see Geordie and Tanya sitting on the steps, but then the bus made a right onto Stanton and the front of the cathedral was lost to her view. All she could see now was the grey-stoned bulk of the building, the gargoyles on the higher ledges, the dome and bell tower rising above them.

  She turned back to look at the stomach of the woman standing directly in front of her and dropped her gaze to the slightly more interesting view of her own lap. She hadn’t spied either Geordie or Tanya. No reason that they’d be there anyway. She sighed. The only reason she was looking for them, she realized, was that she was feeling guilty. It made no sense. There wasn’t anything happening between her and Johnny and she wasn’t keeping anything from Tanya. There was no big secret. She hadn’t seen her roommate since this morning, that was all. She’d tell Tanya all about it when she got home.

  But the feeling wouldn’t go away.

  The congestion at the corner of Stanton and Lee was the worst she’d seen in ages, but the bus finally made its turn and twenty minutes later, it reached her stop. Zeffy pushed her way through the grumbling crush of people, muttering, “I’m sorry,” though what she really wanted to tell them was “Will you please get out of my way.” They parted for her grudgingly, no one wanting to give up their precious few inches of space. The idea of a smile appeared to be a completely foreign concept to most of them.

  When she finally stepped down onto the pavement, she let o
ut a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. This, she thought, was the reason why she didn’t want to ever get a regular job. Not if it meant fighting these crowds twice a day, five days a week.

  The sidewalks were crowded as well, but they seemed positively sedate after the sardine-can press of commuters on the bus. And once she turned off Lee into the Market, all the bustle and stress of rush hour was washed away. The cobblestoned streets, too narrow for vehicles, transported her to a different time. The twentieth century didn’t really seem to intrude here, where the stone and brick houses jostled shoulder to shoulder in a friendly manner, their peaked and gabled roofs like so many wizards’ hats seen row upon row, the buildings connected only by small squares, gardens, arches and occasional overhead walkways. The store signs were all hand-painted, their windows beveled glass through which cats or dogs could be seen sleeping amongst the displays.

  The sounds of traffic from Lee Street diminished, then disappeared far more quickly than would seem logical, the cars and buses and unhappy press of commuters exchanged for the occasional bicycle, children playing, men in wooden chairs smoking pipes or playing cards while they drank dark coffee or glasses of beer, small clusters of gossiping women who looked up and smiled at her when Zeffy walked by. She still shared the street with people, there was still noise, but it was all muted in comparison with the rush-hour streets she’d so recently left behind. It was all so...civilized, if somewhat old-fashioned. There was something to be said for a lack of progress in certain regards, she decided.

  She made a few wrong turns—the Market streets had a tendency to turn back on themselves when you weren’t expecting them to—but finally found Trader Guitars. She stood in front of the wool shop across the street from it and studied the front of the three-storied brick and stone building for a long moment before crossing over. There were no cats or dogs sleeping in the display window, no real display at all since the floor of the shop ran immediately up to the panes. Which made sense, Zeffy thought, since you couldn’t exactly hang instruments where the sun would get at them and warp their necks.

  Opening the door, she stepped into musician’s heaven. The store held the smell of a woodworking shop, a distinctive aroma that enveloped her as soon as she entered, but it was the instruments that brought the involuntary smile to her lips. A dozen or so high-end guitars hung along the back wall—a smallbodied Martin New Yorker and a newer dreadnought model, a Gibson archtop, a twelve-string Washburn, two Guilds, a six-string Laskin and, of course, a Trader with a gorgeous spruce top that gleamed almost white in the overhead light. There were also a dobro, a banjo, a couple of resonator guitars, their metal grillwork gleaming, one of them an all-metal-bodied National. Two mandolins, a few fiddles. A stand-up bass. A workbench ran along another wall, covered with various parts of instruments and tools. A glass counter island held capos, strings, picks, guitar steels and other instrument supplies.

  Sitting at a rolltop desk in the far back corner, Max Trader himself lifted his head when she came in. He looked exactly as she remembered from the articles she’d seen on him: ponytailed with a slightly receding hairline, kindfaced, tall and aesthetically slender. The desk was covered with papers that he was obviously sorting through, but he laid them aside and rose to meet her.

  Seeing him like this made her realize how ridiculous Johnny’s claim was. The two men weren’t at all alike, not in looks or, with what she knew from reading about Trader, in how they lived their lives. The idea that they could have switched brains was stupid as well as impossible. But then, as Trader drew closer, she was startled to see a look of recognition come into his eyes. That was impossible, too, because they’d never met. The questions rose up in her mind all over again.

  “You look like you know me,” she said. Her tone was light, but her pulse was drumming.

  Something crossed his features, an odd look that Zeffy couldn’t quite identify. It was there and gone so quickly she was left unsure of what she’d seen, if anything.

  “I feel like I do,” Trader said.

  His voice was nothing like Johnny’s. She studied the way he moved, the way he held his body, looking for something that might remind her of Johnny in the same way that the Johnny she’d left behind in Fitzhenry Park had been so different from the man she knew.

  “Well, I think I’d remember if we’d ever—” she began.

  Trader broke in, pointed at her guitar. “I know what it is. I’ve seen you play somewhere.”

  That was certainly possible, Zeffy supposed, though she couldn’t imagine what he’d be doing in the small places she had played so far in her very fledgling career.

  “But I can’t remember where,” Trader went on. He shrugged. “It’ll come back to me.” His gaze returned to her guitar case. “So what can I do for you?”

  “I’ve got a buzz on my E-string,” Zeffy said.

  “Well, let’s have a look at it.”

  He led her over to his workbench and cleared a space for her case. Zeffy lifted it up, then got distracted by the inlay work on a mandolin that spelled out “Frank” along the instrument’s neck.

  “Do all of your instruments have names now?” she asked, trying to ease her own nervousness with a joke.

  His gaze followed hers and he smiled. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but can you believe a guy that wants his name spelled out like this on the neck? Who’s he trying to impress?”

  Zeffy shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it’s kind of neat.”

  His smile broadened. “See? I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Well, it’s just that it’d really make the instrument yours—especially when you’ve commissioned somebody like you to make it for them.”

  “Maybe I should put my own advertisements there.”

  “Doesn’t seem your style,” Zeffy said, thinking of how he’d come across in the articles.

  His eyebrows lifted questioningly.

  “Well, just from what I’ve read about you,” she said. “You know. Like in Acoustic Guitar and the profile that ran in The Daily Journal.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read. Some people still think Elvis is alive.” Zeffy smiled. “Or that he’s just left the building.”

  “Exactly.” He indicated her guitar. “So show me this buzz.”

  “Well, it’s only when I capo past the fifth fret.”

  Taking the guitar out of the case, she put the capo on to show him, apologizing for the fact that her strings were so dead. He took the instrument from her and gave it what seemed like a very cursory glance before replacing it in its case.

  “So the big question isn’t can you fix it,” she said, “because obviously you could. What I need to know is how much is it going to cost? I’m working on a tight budget these days.”

  Thanks to Johnny Devlin.

  Trader made a vague motion with his hand. “The cost’s not a big deal— it’s not like it’s a long job or anything—but I’m pretty booked up at the moment. Leave it with me and I’ll get it back to you next week.”

  “Oh, I can’t do that. I’ve got a gig this weekend.”

  “So I’ll lend you a guitar.”

  Zeffy couldn’t help it. Her gaze went to the row of instruments that hung on the back wall. She was itching to try them, but knew he wasn’t talking about any of them.

  “No,” Trader said, following her gaze. “Not one of those. I was thinking more of an old one I’ve got upstairs that I can lend you. Do you mind watching the fort while I get it?”

  “Not at all. It’s just—I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “Won’t take me more than a minute.”

  “But...”

  He was already walking toward a side door before she could reply. She watched him go, then crossed the shop to where the guitars were hanging. Looking up, she couldn’t resist running her thumb across the strings of a couple, touching the polished finish on their tops and sides. What she wouldn’t give to own pretty well any one of them. She took down the
little New Yorker and sat down on a stool, tucking its compact body under her arm. It was so small compared to her own guitar that she felt like a giant holding it, an adult trying to play a child’s instrument. She gave the strings a strum.

  Considering its size, she couldn’t believe how much sound came out of the body. The neck was a couple of frets shorter than she was used to and she didn’t think she’d like the slotted head in the long run—too much of a hassle for restringing—but it sounded sweet. Digging out a pick from the pocket of her jeans, she started playing the first few bars of “Wildwood Flower,” then immediately wanted to hear what the tune would sound like on the National resonator. She was taking it down when Trader returned, one of his own dreadnought models held casually in his hand.

  “Think this’ll tide you over?” he asked.

  Zeffy replaced the National and took the guitar from him. Sitting back down on the stool, she gave it a brisk strum with her pick. The sound that came out of it was so big she was almost startled into dropping the instrument. Trader steadied it before it could fall.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “I...I couldn’t.” She noodled on the strings while she spoke, falling in love with the instrument despite herself. Her regret was sincere when she added, “This is beautiful, but—”

  “But what? It’s not being played right now anyway, so why don’t you use it?”

  Zeffy shook her head. “You don’t even know me. I could just walk out of here with it and you’d never see it again.”

  “You are leaving your guitar,” he said. “Think of it as your collateral.” Right, Zeffy thought. Her cheapo Yamaha as collateral for a Trader. The difference in price between them was only a few thousand dollars.

  “You’re joking, right?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Look, it’s not like I wouldn’t be able to find you again. We’re all musicians. What’re you going to do? Leave the city and head off to Mexico with it?”

  “To own this I just might.”

  “Well, don’t forget to send me a postcard.”

  All she could do was look at him. “You really wouldn’t care, would you?”