Craphound
times more at the Secret Boutique that week.
He was a lawyer, who specialised in alien-technology patents. He had a practiceon Bay Street, with two partners, and despite his youth, he was the senior man.
I didn't let on that I knew about Billy the Kid and his mother in the EastMuskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies' Auxiliary. But I felt a bond with him,as though we shared an unspoken secret. I pulled any cowboy finds for him, andhe developed a pretty good eye for what I was after and returned the favour.
The fates were with me again, and no two ways about it. I took home a ratty oldOriental rug that on closer inspection was a 19th century hand-knotted Persian;an upholstered Turkish footstool; a collection of hand-painted silk Hawaiianapillows and a carved Meerschaum pipe. Scott/Billy found the last for me, and itcost me two dollars. I knew a collector who would pay thirty in an eye-blink,and from then on, as far as I was concerned, Scott/Billy was a fellow craphound.
"You going to the auction tomorrow night?" I asked him at the checkout line.
"Wouldn't miss it," he said. He'd barely been able to contain his excitementwhen I told him about the Thursday night auctions and the bargains to be hadthere. He sure had the bug.
"Want to get together for dinner beforehand? The Rotterdam's got a good patio."
He did, and we did, and I had a glass of framboise that packed a hell of a kickand tasted like fizzy raspberry lemonade; and doorstopper fries and a clubsandwich.
I had my nose in my glass when he kicked my ankle under the table. "Look atthat!"
It was Craphound in his van, cruising for a parking spot. The Lego village hadbeen joined by a whole postmodern spaceport on the roof, with a red-and-bluecastle, a football-sized flying saucer, and a clown's head with blinking eyes.
I went back to my drink and tried to get my appetite back.
"Was that an extee driving?"
"Yeah. Used to be a friend of mine."
"He's a picker?"
"Uh-huh." I turned back to my fries and tried to kill the subject.
"Do you know how he made his stake?"
"The chlorophyll thing, in Saudi Arabia."
"Sweet!" he said. "Very sweet. I've got a client who's got some secondarypatents from that one. What's he go after?"
"Oh, pretty much everything," I said, resigning myself to discussing the topicafter all. "But lately, the same as you -- cowboys and Injuns."
He laughed and smacked his knee. "Well, what do you know? What could he possiblywant with the stuff?"
"What do they want with any of it? He got started one day when we were cruisingthe Muskokas," I said carefully, watching his face. "Found a trunk of old cowboythings at a rummage sale. East Muskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies'Auxiliary." I waited for him to shout or startle. He didn't.
"Yeah? A good find, I guess. Wish I'd made it."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I took a bite of my sandwich.
Scott continued. "I think about what they get out of it a lot. There's nothingwe have here that they couldn't make for themselves. I mean, if they picked upand left today, we'd still be making sense of everything they gave us in ahundred years. You know, I just closed a deal for a biochemical computer that'sno-shit 10,000 times faster than anything we've built out of silicon. You knowwhat the extee took in trade? Title to a defunct fairground outside of Calgary-- they shut it down ten years ago because the midway was too unsafe to ride.Doesn't that beat all? This thing is worth a billion dollars right out of thegate, I mean, within twenty-four hours of the deal closing, the seller can turnit into the GDP of Bolivia. For a crummy real-estate dog that you couldn't getfive grand for!"
It always shocked me when Billy/Scott talked about his job -- it was easy toforget that he was a high-powered lawyer when we were jawing and fooling aroundlike old craphounds. I wondered if maybe he _wasn't_ Billy the Kid; I couldn'tthink of any reason for him to be playing it all so close to his chest.
"What the hell is some extee going to do with a fairground?"
#
Craphound got a free Coke from Lisa at the check-in when he made his appearance.He bid high, but shrewdly, and never pulled ten-thousand-dollar stunts. Thebidders were wandering the floor, previewing that week's stock, and making notesto themselves.
I rooted through a box-lot full of old tins, and found one with a buckaroo atthe Calgary Stampede, riding a bucking bronc. I picked it up and stood toinspect it. Craphound was behind me.
"Nice piece, huh?" I said to him.
"I like it very much," Craphound said, and I felt my cheeks flush.
"You're going to have some competition tonight, I think," I said, and nodded atScott/Billy. "I think he's Billy; the one whose mother sold us -- you -- thecowboy trunk."
"Really?" Craphound said, and it felt like we were partners again, scoping outthe competition. Suddenly I felt a knife of shame, like I was betrayingScott/Billy somehow. I took a step back.
"Jerry, I am very sorry that we argued."
I sighed out a breath I hadn't known I was holding in. "Me, too."
"They're starting the bidding. May I sit with you?"
And so the three of us sat together, and Craphound shook Scott/Billy's hand andthe auctioneer started into his harangue.
It was a night for unusual occurrences. I bid on a piece, something I toldmyself I'd never do. It was a set of four matched Li'l Orphan Annie Ovaltineglasses, like Grandma's had been, and seeing them in the auctioneer's hand tookme right back to her kitchen, and endless afternoons passed with my colouringbooks and weird old-lady hard candies and Liberace albums playing in the livingroom.
"Ten," I said, opening the bidding.
"I got ten, ten,ten, I got ten, who'll say twenty, who'll say twenty, twenty forthe four."
Craphound waved his bidding card, and I jumped as if I'd been stung.
"I got twenty from the space cowboy, I got twenty, sir will you say thirty?"
I waved my card.
"That's thirty to you sir."
"Forty," Craphound said.
"Fifty," I said even before the auctioneer could point back to me. An old pro,he settled back and let us do the work.
"One hundred," Craphound said.
"One fifty," I said.
The room was perfectly silent. I thought about my overextended MasterCard, andwondered if Scott/Billy would give me a loan.
"Two hundred," Craphound said.
Fine, I thought. Pay two hundred for those. I can get a set on Queen Street forthirty bucks.
The auctioneer turned to me. "The bidding stands at two. Will you say two-ten,sir?"
I shook my head. The auctioneer paused a long moment, letting me sweat over thedecision to bow out.
"I have two -- do I have any other bids from the floor? Any other bids? Sold,$200, to number 57." An attendant brought Craphound the glasses. He took themand tucked them under his seat.
#
I was fuming when we left. Craphound was at my elbow. I wanted to punch him --I'd never punched anyone in my life, but I wanted to punch him.
We entered the cool night air and I sucked in several lungfuls before lighting acigarette.
"Jerry," Craphound said.
I stopped, but didn't look at him. I watched the taxis pull in and out of thegarage next door instead.
"Jerry, my friend," Craphound said.
"_What_?" I said, loud enough to startle myself. Scott, beside me, jerked aswell.
"We're going. I wanted to say goodbye, and to give you some things that I won'tbe taking with me."
"What?" I said again, Scott just a beat behind me.
"My people -- we're going. It has been decided. We've gotten what we came for."
Without another word, he set off towards his van. We followed along behind,shell-shocked.
Craphound's exoskeleton executed another macro and slid the panel-door aside,revealing the cowboy trunk.
"I wanted to give you this. I will keep the glasses."
"I don't understand," I said.
"You're all leaving?" Scott asked, with a note of urgency.
"It has been decided. We'll go over the next twenty-four hours."
"But _why_?" Scott said, sounding almost petulant.
"It's not something that I can easily explain. As you must know, the things wegave you were trinkets to us -- almost worthless. We traded them for somethingthat was almost worthless to you -- a fair trade, you'll agree -- but it's timeto move on."
Craphound handed me the cowboy trunk. Holding it, I smelled the lubricant fromhis exoskeleton and the smell of the attic it had been mummified in beforemaking its way into