Making Money - Terry Pratchett [59]
—and Miss Pucci simply didn’t know how to work a crowd. She stomped and demanded attention and bullied and insulted and it didn’t help that she’d called them “good people,” because no one likes an outright liar. And now she was losing her temper, because the bidding had reached thirty-four dollars. And now—
—she’d torn it up!
“That’s what I think of this silly money!” she announced, throwing the pieces in the air. Then she stood there, panting and looking triumphant, as if she’d done something clever.
A kick in the teeth to everyone there. It made you want to cry, it really did. Oh, well.
He pulled one of the new notes out of his pocket and held it up.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he announced, “I have here one of the increasingly rare first-generation One Dollar notes”—he had to pause for the laughter—“signed by myself and the chairman. Bids over forty dollars, please! All proceeds to the little kiddies!”
He ran it up to fifty, bouncing a couple of bids off the wall. Pucci stood ignored and steaming with rage for a while and then flounced out. It was a good flounce, too. She had no idea how to handle people and she tried to make self-esteem do the work of self-respect, but the girl could flounce better than a fat turkey on a trampoline.
The lucky winner was already surrounded by his unlucky fellow bidders by the time he reached the bank’s doors. The rest of the crowd surged toward the counters, not sure what was going on but determined to have a piece of it.
Moist cupped his hand and shouted, “And this afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bent and myself will be available to discuss bank loans!” This caused a further stir.
“Smoke and mirrors, Mr. Lipwig,” said Bent, turning away from the balustrade. “Nothing but smoke and mirrors…”
“But done without smoke and in a total absence of a mirror, Mr. Bent!” said Moist cheerfully.
“And the ‘kiddies’?” said Bent.
“Find some. There’s bound to be an orphanage that needs fifty dollars. It’ll have to be an anonymous donation, of course.”
Bent looked surprised. “Really, Mr. Lipwig? I’ll make no bones about saying that you seem to me to be the sort of man who makes a great Razz Arm Ma Tazz about giving money to charity.” He made razzmatazz sound like some esoteric perversion.
“Well, I’m not. Do good by stealth, that is my watchword.” It’ll get found out soon enough, he added to himself, and then I’m not only a jolly good chap but a decently modest one, too.
I wonder…am I really a bastard or am I just really good at thinking like one?
Nothing nudged at his mind. Tiny hairs on the back of his neck were twitching. Something was wrong, out of place…dangerous.
He turned and looked down again at the hall. People were milling around, forming into lines, talking in groups—
In a world of movement, the eye is drawn to stillness. In the middle of the banking hall, unheeded by the throng, a man was standing as if frozen in time. He was all in black, with one of those flat, wide hats often worn by the more somber Omnian sects. He just…stood. And watched.
Just another gawker along to see the show, Moist told himself, and knew at once that he was lying. The man was causing a weight in his world.
I have lodged affidavits…
Him? About what? Moist had no past. Oh, a dozen aliases had managed a pretty busy and eventful past between them, but they had evaporated along with Albert Spangler, hanged by the neck until not-quite-dead and awoken by Lord Vetinari, who’d offered Moist von Lipwig a life all shiny and new—
Ye gods, he was getting jumpy, just because some old guy was looking at him with a funny little smile! No one knew him! He was Mr. Forgettable! If he walked around the town without the gold suit on, he was just another face. “Are you all right, Mr. Lipwig?”
Moist turned and looked into the face of the chief cashier.
“What? Oh…no. I mean yes. Er…have you ever seen that man before?”
“What man would that be?”
Moist turned back to point out the man in black, but he was gone.
“Looked like a preacher,