Part 1 (2/2)

”Oh, my G.o.d,” I breathed, as he spread the loot out on the table.

”What are these, Jerry?” c.r.a.phound asked, holding up the 78s.

”Old records, like LPs, but you need a special record player to listen to them.”

I took one out of its sleeve. It gleamed, scratch-free, in the overhead fluorescents.

”I got a 78 player here,” said a member of the East Muskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies' Auxiliary. She was short enough to look c.r.a.phound in the eye, a hair under five feet, and had a skinny, rawboned look to her. ”That's my Billy's things, Billy the Kid we called him. He was dotty for cowboys when he was a boy. Couldn't get him to take off that fool outfit -- nearly got him thrown out of school. He's a lawyer now, in Toronto, got a fancy office on Bay Street. I called him to ask if he minded my putting his cowboy things in the sale, and you know what? He didn't know what I was talking about! Doesn't that beat everything? He was dotty for cowboys when he was a boy.”

It's another of my rituals to smile and nod and be as polite as possible to the erstwhile owners of c.r.a.p that I'm trying to buy, so I smiled and nodded and examined the 78 player she had produced. In lariat script, on the top, it said, ”Official Bob Wills Little Record Player,” and had a crude watercolour of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys grinning on the front. It was the kind of record player that folded up like a suitcase when you weren't using it. I'd had one as a kid, with Yogi Bear silkscreened on the front.

Billy's mom plugged the yellowed cord into a wall jack and took the 78 from me, touched the stylus to the record. A tinny ukelele played, accompanied by horse-clops, and then a narrator with a deep, whisky voice said, ”Howdy, Pardners! I was just settin' down by the ole campfire. Why don't you stay an'

have some beans, an' I'll tell y'all the story of how Hopalong Ca.s.sidy beat the Duke Gang when they come to rob the Santa Fe.”

In my head, I was already breaking down the cowboy trunk and its contents, thinking about the minimum bid I'd place on each item at Sotheby's. Sold individually, I figured I could get over two grand for the contents. Then I thought about putting ads in some of the j.a.panese collectors' magazines, just for a lark, before I sent the lot to the auction house. You never can tell. A buddy I knew had sold a complete packaged set of Welcome Back, Kotter action figures for nearly eight grand that way. Maybe I could buy a new truck. . .

”This is wonderful,” c.r.a.phound said, interrupting my reverie. ”How much would you like for the collection?”

I felt a knife in my guts. c.r.a.phound had found the cowboy trunk, so that meant it was his. But he usually let me take the stuff with street-value -- he was interested in _everything_, so it hardly mattered if I picked up a few sc.r.a.ps with which to eke out a living.

Billy's mom looked over the stuff. ”I was hoping to get twenty dollars for the lot, but if that's too much, I'm willing to come down.”

”I'll give you thirty,” my mouth said, without intervention from my brain.

They both turned and stared at me. c.r.a.phound was unreadable behind his goggles.

Billy's mom broke the silence. ”Oh, my! Thirty dollars for this old mess?”

”I will pay fifty,” c.r.a.phound said.

”Seventy-five,” I said.

”Oh, my,” Billy's mom said.

”Five hundred,” c.r.a.phound said.

I opened my mouth, and shut it. c.r.a.phound had built his stake on Earth by selling a complicated biochemical process for non-chlorophyll photosynthesis to a Saudi banker. I wouldn't ever beat him in a bidding war. ”A thousand dollars,”

my mouth said.

”Ten thousand,” c.r.a.phound said, and extruded a roll of hundreds from somewhere in his exoskeleton.

”My Lord!” Billy's mom said. ”Ten thousand dollars!”

The other pickers, the firemen, the blue haired ladies all looked up at that and stared at us, their mouths open.

”It is for a good cause.” c.r.a.phound said.

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