A couple of minutes later—right at ten—I found out why—the dealers were in such a frantic rush. The customer gates opened then, right on time, and never mind that the dealers had been delayed. Iosef was not about to waste a chance: if he’d held up the customers, some of them might have gotten miffed and gone home.
And customers he had aplenty: Jews, Persians, Hanese and Japanese, and Indians, none of whose Sabbath rituals were disturbed by getting there on Sunday and spending money. Along with them were a goodly—but not godly—number of folks I’d have guessed to be Christian, both of Aztecan descent and every other variety. Some people of any faith feel more attachment to money than to any other god.
It may seem crazy, but every once in a while I wish the Confederation were a little less prosperous, a little less secure. In flush times, people think of themselves, and the devil with anybody and anything else. They sometimes need reminding that what’s happening now isn’t Forever.
Which probably sounds like sour grapes, since I was out there shopping right alongside everybody else. But you wouldn’t—I don’t think—have found me there on a Saturday.
Judy and I wandered up one asphalt aisle and down the next, pausing at one stall here, another one there. Judy picked up a green silk scarf that went well with her redbrown hair. I bought a new alarm clock; I was sick of the shrieking horror I had at home, and even sicker of it laughing at me. This one was made in Siam, with a native horological demon. It cost less than five crowns. If I didn’t like it, I’d toss it, too, and try one more time.
We both got sausages on buns from a Persian fellow’s pushcart. Given his own faith, he wasn’t one who’d sell pork.
I think I mentioned that one of the dealers had brought in a load of grimoires. Getting a scarf or a dock at a place like that is one thing, but it never ceases to amaze me that people think you can acquire sorcerous skill and power on the cheap. As with anything important, you need to learn from the one who’s best, not the one with the best price.
Naturally, Judy paused at the display. She flipped through a couple of volumes, turned away shaking her head. The fellow who was hawking them scowled in disappointment; he thought he’d found another sucker.
That bad?” I asked.
“Worse,” she said. “The fatter book there is one of those compendia of spells in the public domain, and they’re in the public domain because they weren’t very good to begin with.
The other one, the one in the blue binding, is one of those teach-yourself-to-be-a-mage-in-three-weeks books. I spotted a couple of typos toward the end. They might be dangerous under other circumstances.”
“Why not now?”
“Because ninety-nine people out of a hundred won’t get far enough in the course to stumble across them and the odd one, the one who does stick to it, will have learned enough to spot them before he does something stupid.”
“Okay, I see what you’re saying. That makes sense.”
But once she got rolling, Judy wasn’t one who stopped easily: “The folks who buy those things are the same women who’ll plunk down fifty crowns for a ‘magic’ cream to make their breasts bigger—or men who’ll pay a couple of hundred for ‘magic’ to make something else bigger. The only magic there is the one that the people who sell this land of junk have for spotting fools.”
She didn’t bother to keep her voice down; a couple of middle-aged ladies who’d been about to inspect the grimoires took off for another stall as if they’d been caught looking at something blasphemous. “Lady, please,” whined the guy who was peddling the junk. Tm tryingto make aliving.”
“So why don’t you try to make an honest one?” she said, but then she threw her hands in the air. “What’s the use?”
I’d seen her in those moods before. The only thing to do is get her interested in something new. I said, “Look over there at the jewelry that woman is selling. It isn’t something you see every day.”
All I’d aimed at was distracting Judy, but by sheer luck I turned out to be right. Some of the pieces from the jeweler—TAMARISK’S GEMS, her skin said—were of the modem sort, clunky with crystals, but even those were in finer settings than you usually find at a fancy store, let alone a swap meet. And the rest—Judy is enamored of things Greco-Roman. A lot of the necklaces, bracelets, rings, and other pieces were copies so skulful that, but for their obvious newness and their profusion, they might have been museum pieces. And Tamarisk, a sharp-faced brunette who wore her hair tied up in a kerchief—knew her business, too.
Her eyes lit up when Judy pointed at what looked to me like a gold safety pin and called it a fibula, and she practically glowed when Judy identified a little pendant head dangling from a necklace as a bulla. They lost me after that; as far as I knew, they might have been incanting when they started throwing around terms like repousse and lost wax. I saw how Judy’s eye kept coming back to a Roman-style ring with an eagle in low relief on a wide, flat gold bezel. It was in profile; a tiny emerald highlighted its visible eye. Normally I would have said it was a man’s ring… but Judy’s last name is Ather, after all, and AtHer means eagle.
In the most speculative voice I could come up with, I remarked, “You know, hon, I haven’t found you an engagement ring yet”
Eveiy once in a while, you say the right thing. Judy, as you will have garnered, is a steady, serious person—more so than I am, and I lean in that direction myself. Making her face light up as if the sun had just risen behind her eyes isn’t easy.
Watching it happen made me light up, too.
Then I got hugged, and then I got kissed, and all the while Tamarisk was just standing there, patient as the Sphinx, and I figure every smooch I got upped the asking price of that ring about another fifteen crowns, but so it goes—some things are more important than money. That’s what I told myself, anyhow.
We haggled for a while; considering that Tamarisk knew she had me where she wanted me, she was more merciful than she might have been—but not much. When we finally agreed on a price, she said, “And how will you pay? Cash?”
“No; I don’t like to carry that much on me. Do you take Masterimp?”
“Certainly, sir. I’d lose half my business if I didn’t.”
I dug into my hip pocket, pulled out my wallet and from it the card. Tamarisk took a receiver plate out from under her display table. When I was a kid, credit was a complicated business, full of solemn oaths and threats of vengeance from the Other Side on renegers and much default anyhow because so many people find gold and God easy words to confuse.
It’s not that way any more. A lot of the mystique is gone, but so is a lot of the risk. Modem technology again: as with the burgeoning phone system, ectoplasmic cloning has made all the difference. I put my thumb on the card to show I was its rightful possessor. Tamarisk did the same with the receiver plate. Together we declared how many crowns we’d agreed to transfer from my account to hers.
The conjoined microimps in the card and the plate completed the circuit by etherically contacting the accounting spirits at my bank, which confirmed that I did have the crowns to transfer. As soon as the transaction was complete, the card started sliding around on the plate as if it were on a ouija board. I picked it up and stuck it back in my wallet.
Then, with Tamarisk smiling the smile of a businessperson who’s just had a good day, I picked up the ring and set it on Judy’s finger. Because I’d found the style a little masculine, I was afraid it would be big. Tamarisk said,
“I’ll size that for you if you need me to.”
But Judy held up her hand and showed both of us that it fit well. She and I grinned, liking the omen. “It’s wonderful,” she said. “Thank you, David.” I got Idssed again, which couldn’t help but improve things.
Tm always glad to see my customers happy,” Tamarisk said, beaming, “and I hope you won’t take it amiss if I tell you I also do wedding rings.”
“I think we may just make a note of that,” I said in my most solemn voice as I pocketed one of her c
artes de visite.
Judy nodded. With a last backward look at the other lovelies on display, we wandered off to have a look at the rest of the swap meet.”
Judy kept murmuring, “It’s wonderful,” over and over.
She’d hold up her hand so the ring would sparkle in the sun and the little emerald catch fire as if it were the eye of a living bird. I said, “First chance you get—maybe tomorrow evening—you ought to take it to a jeweler you trust. I know it looks good and I know Tamarisk seems fine, but I want to make sure you only have the best.”
“I’ll do that,” she said, and then, a moment later, “or maybe I won’t have to. We’ve got a constabulary—quality spellchecker sitting in the office waiting for us. If it won’t tell us whether we’ve just bought faiiy gold, what good is it?”
True enough,” I admitted. “And if anything is wrong—not that I think there will be—Mistress Tamarisk will have a visit from Pete and Luke when she sets up here next week.”
“Which one of them is which?” Judy asked. “Oh, good!” I exclaimed. “I’m not the only one who couldn’t tell, then.” And when somebody like Judy has trouble telling two people apart, you know there isn’t much to choose between them.
Before long, we went back to the dealers’ gate: after Tamarisk’s stall, the rest of the meet was strictly a downhill slide. I manhandled the spellchecker out of Iosefs office, poured out a little wine to enspirit the microimps, and touched the probe to Judy’s ring.
Physically it was gold and copper in a ration of three to one: it had an 18-karat stamp, and lived up to it. The little emerald was a real little emerald. That was plenty to satisfy me, but as long as the microimps were looking at the ring, I let them examine its magical component as well.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d drawn a blank: jewelry is a trade you can, if you so choose, cany on largely without sorcerous aid. But no—Tamarisk had worked a small spell of fidelity on it, by analogy with the legionary’s faithfulness to his Eagle as a symbol of Rome. That just made me happier: what better enchantment to find on an engagement ring?
Judy was reading the ground glass upside down. When she saw that, she squeezed my hand, hard. I shut down the spellchecker, hauled it to my carpet, and took it back to the constabulary station. I got a round of applause when I brought it in. “Sign him up!” somebody shouted, which made me grin like a fool.
We flew back to my block of flats after that. When we got back up to my place… well, I won’t say I got molested, because I didn’t feel in the least that it was a molestation, but it was something on that order. Judy and I liked pleasing each other in lots of different ways, which also augured well for the days that would come after we stood under the kiwppah together.
After Sunday, worse luck, comes Monday. With Monday, worse luck, would come the weekly office staff meeting. As if that weren’t enough to start things off on the wrong foot, congealed was the only word that fit traffic on St. James’ Freeway. What with my weekend peregrinations, I was starting to think I lived on that miserable freeway It’s a curse of Angels City life.
When at last I got up to my desk, I discovered somebody had put a toy constabulary badge on top of the papers in my IN basket. “What’s this about?” I said loudly, carrying the souvenir out into the hall.
Several people heard me squawk and stuck their heads of out their offices to see what was going on. “We didn’t know till yesterday that we had a real live hero here in the office,”
Phyllis Kaminsky said. She batted her eyes at me in a way she’d evidently borrowed from the succubi she was trying to control. From her it came off as more sardonic than seductive.
“That’s right,” Jose Franco chimed in. “I wish my garlicspraying program would get as much good ethemet publicity as Dave pulled in last night.”
“Oh, God,” I said, and meant every word of it. “What have they been saying about me?” I didn’t really want to know.
One more argument against having an ethemet receiver: that way you don’t have to listen to what reporters do to things you were involved in.
“We heard what a brave fellow you were, breaking up this contraband ring and capturing the leader singlehanded,”
Martin Sandoval said. The graphic artist paused before he stuck the gaff in me: “So we all clubbed together to buy you that symbol of our appreciation.”
I looked down at the little tin badge. If it cost half a crown, whoever bought it got cheated. “I do hope it won’t bankrupt you generous people”
Bea swept into the office just then. “What won’t bankrupt whom?” she asked, which meant everybody had to tell the story all over again. I resigned myself to getting ribbed worse than Adam until people got tired of the joke. Bea said, “I know a better way to commemorate the occasion: David can lead off at the meeting this morning.”
“Thank you, Bea,” I intoned. If she’d told me I could leave after I’d given my report, that would have been worthwhile. As it was, I figured I’d taken the early lead in the running for the dubious achievement of the week award.
I went back into my office and did as much as I could till half past nine, which was meeting time. Just to make sure we couldn’t pretend to forget and so accomplish something worth doing before lunch, Rose called everyone to remind us all to come on up to Bea’s office. Even Michael Manstein was there, looking out of place in his white lab robe among all the business domes and Martin’s casual getup (since he doesn’t go out in the field, he can dress as he pleases, the lucky so and so).
“Good morning, everyone,” Bea said when we’d all assembled, bright and not too eager, before her. “I think we’ll begin with David this morning. By all accounts, he’s had the most exciting week of any of us.”
I flashed the little tin badge and growled, “Now listen up, everybody, or else.”
Actually, my report went pretty well. Michael backed me up on the sorcerous details of the potion I’d found at Lupe Cordero’s, and everyone looked suitably grim on hearing them. I told about the arrest of the curandero who’d sold Lupe the stuff, and about being lucky enough to come across Jose and Carios on Sunday.
“Your diligence does you and the EPA credit, David,” Bea said, which was enough of a brownie point to make me want to set out a bowl of milk.
The other nice thing about having been so busy with all that stuff was that I didn’t get in trouble for the too numerous tilings I hadn’t managed to accomplish during the week.
The toxic spell dump investigation perse was stalled; I hadn’t managed to get out to Bakhtiars Precision Burins, let alone Chocolate Weasel or the light-and-magic outfits. I still didn’t know whether the Chumash Powers were coming or going.
And as for the leprechauns, well, the environmental impact survey hadn’t started going anywhere, either.
All of which meant, of course, that for the next several days I’d be running around like acephalous poultry, trying to catch up on those projects and whatever else landed on me in the interim. Not a pleasant prospect to contemplate of a Monday morning.
Bea said, “Jose, you and Martin are going to report together, am I right?”
They did. Martn produced the mockup for a poster of an ugly little green fellow sinking his fangs into an orange. The text said, HE’S NOT YOUR FRIEND—DONT GIVE HIM A RIDE in English and Spainish.
That’s very good,” Bea said, “very good indeed. It ought to make a lot of people who have been raising the roof about gariic spraying see Medvamps in a whole new light You can start reproducing it right away, as far as I’m concerned.
Comments, anyone? Am I missing something?”
With a lot of bosses, you’d better not dislike something after they said they loved it. Bea, bless her, isn’t like that.
Michael Manstein stuck up his hand and said, “The poster does not accurately reflect the appearance of the Mediterranean fruit vampire.”
He was right, of course. Medvamps (not that Michael would use such a colloquialism) are as pale as any other
undead creatures, and the sap they suck from fruits and vegetables is commonly clear, too. But Bea said patiently,
“We don’t need to be precisely accurate here, Michael. We want to get across the notion that the Medvamp is a dangerous pest, not something that ought to survive and flourish in Angels City. Does the poster meet that objective?”
Manstein shrugged. “It should be obvious in any case.”
And it would be obvious, too, if everyone were as rational as Michael. The general run of people being what they are, though, rationality needs all me help it can get The poster was passed by acclamation and we went on to Phyllis. By then it was getting close to eleven o’clock, and my stomach was starting to rumble. But Phyuis had landed a project even uglier than my intertwined investigations of the Chumash Powers and the wisdom of naturalizing leprechauns: she’d started doing a study on the pros and cons of changing the way Angels City handles its sewage.
Not to put too fine a point on it. Angels City produces a whole lot of shit. For tile last many years—Phyllis, who is a very thorough person, said how many, but I forget—we’ve used the demon Vepar to process all this waste. Vepars provinces are the sea and putrefaction, so the arrangement has always seemed logical enough.
The trouble is, members of the Descending Hierarchy just aren’t reliable. Lately, as the population of Angeles City has grown, so have the number of sewage spills and the number of days the water in St. Monica’s Bay is too foul for swimming or fishing or anything else.
And so there’s been some serious discussion of transferring the job to Poseidon. If anyone on the Other Side has a vested interest in keeping the ocean clean, he’s the One. Not only that, he also has power over earthquakes. In Angels City, that matters. Having one Power in charge of both those aspects of local life might well save the taxpayer some crowns.
Or it might not Poseidon’s cult, like that of Hermes, is artificially maintained these days. Angels City would have to pay into the fund that municipalities and organizations which use the sea god’s services have set up to provide for his worship. That wouldn’t be cheap. Vepar, like any Judeo-Christian demon, has enough genuine believers to keep him active without any expense the city would have to assume.
The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump Page 18
