Stations of the Tide - Michael Swanwick [20]
“Is there much money in haunt artifacts?”
“Well, they aren’t exactly making any more of them.”
Chu smiled at the bureaucrat, and he realized guiltily that his face must bear that exact same expression, sharp little grins with an unclean edge to them, as if they were predators that had caught scent of blood. “I wonder what they’re hiding.”
“It’ll be interesting to find out.”
They headed back to the hotel. In the weeds by the edge of town some children had caught a nautilus. Shrieking blissfully, they rode its shell, two and three at a time, while it slowly pulled itself forward with long, fluid arms. The bureaucrat commiserated silently with the wretched creature. It was hard to imagine it as it would be within the year, soaring and swooping in Ocean’s waters, a creature of preternatural speed, of uncanny grace.
In the center of town, they passed through a loose congeries of trucks belonging to entertainers and concessionaires brought in by the local businesses as a farewell gesture. A proud-bellied man was cranking out the canopy for a puppet theater. Others were raising a Wheel into the sky. It all looked tawdry, cheap, immeasurably sad.
The bureaucrat led the way through the lobby and into the hotel bar. It was cool and dark here, cluttered with neon signs advertising discontinued brands of alcohol and behemoth tusks gone chalky with age, and redolent with a lifetime’s spillage of cheap ale. Strings of paper flowers gone gray as dust hung over adhesive-backed holos of fighters trapped in greasy rainbow smears while they threw the same famous punches over and over.
A sloppily fat bartender leaned back against a narrow counter, watching television. Their reflections swam up from the depths of a corroded mirror, rising from behind a ragged line of bottles, pale and popeyed, exotics from Ocean’s trenches. The bureaucrat put his briefcase up on the bar, and Chu with a nod slipped away to the toilets.
The bureaucrat coughed. With a lurch, the bartender straightened, turned, laughed. “Whoa! You want to know something, I didn’t see you there.” His head was bald as a toadstool and speckled with thumbprint-sized brown spots. Splaying his hands on the bar, he leaned forward leeringly. “So what the fuck can I do for—” He stopped. “That thing for sale?”
The bureaucrat looked down at the briefcase, up at the barkeep. He was the most physically repulsive man the bureaucrat had ever seen. Fleshy growths sprouted from his eyelids like small tentacles; they jiggled as he talked. His over-sly smile was a caricature of cunning.
“Why do you ask?”
“Well.” The man’s teeth were bruised and cracked, his gums purple, his breath sweet with corruption. “I know a man who might be interested in buying such a thing.” He winked. “Let’s not mention any names.”
“I could get in a lot of trouble if I went back up without this.”
“Not if it fell in the river.” The old troll touched the bureaucrat’s arm ingratiatingly, as if to draw him into a shared fantasy universe of conspiracy, treachery, and sleazy profit. “What the fuck. Accidents happen. A smart fucker could arrange for them to happen in front of witnesses.”
Suddenly the man’s face paled, and he sucked in air between his teeth. Lieutenant Chu’s reflection rose up in the mirror. The bartender turned away quickly.
“Where to next?” Chu asked. She glanced curiously at the fat man, now gazing fixedly into the television.
“I still have some things to see to upcountry.” The bureaucrat rapped the bar. “Excuse me! Do you have a gate here?”
“Back room,” the old man muttered. He didn’t look up.
More bodies were discovered today in the Plymouth Hundreds in Estuary Province, a newswoman said. Shown here are just a few of the dozens of corpses removed from shallow graves this morning. Authorities say the hands, feet, and heads