Part 3 (1/2)

”Might take a day,” I said.

”It might, it might.” He finished his beer. ”I don't suppose you'd take forty?”

I'd paid five for it, not ten minutes before. It looked like it would fit c.r.a.phound, who, after all, was wearing Scott/Billy's own boyhood treasures as we spoke. You don't make a living by feeling guilty over eight hundred percent markups. Still, I'd angered the fates, and needed to redeem myself.

”Make it five,” I said.

He started to say something, then closed his mouth and gave me a look of thanks.

He took a five out of his wallet and handed it to me. I pulled the vest and bow and headdress out my duffel.

He walked back to a s.h.i.+ny black Jeep with gold detail work, parked next to c.r.a.phound's van. c.r.a.phound was building onto the Lego body, and the hood had a miniature Lego town attached to it.

c.r.a.phound looked around as he pa.s.sed, and leaned forward with undisguised interest at the booty. I grimaced and finished my beer.

I met Scott/Billy three times more at the Secret Boutique that week.

He was a lawyer, who specialised in alien-technology patents. He had a practice on 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 East Muskoka 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, and he 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 old Oriental rug that on closer inspection was a 19th century hand-knotted Persian; an upholstered Turkish footstool; a collection of hand-painted silk Hawaiiana pillows and a carved Meerschaum pipe. Scott/Billy found the last for me, and it cost 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 c.r.a.phound.

”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 excitement when I told him about the Thursday night auctions and the bargains to be had there. 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 gla.s.s of framboise that packed a h.e.l.l of a kick and tasted like fizzy raspberry lemonade; and doorstopper fries and a club sandwich.

I had my nose in my gla.s.s when he kicked my ankle under the table. ”Look at that!”

It was c.r.a.phound in his van, cruising for a parking spot. The Lego village had been joined by a whole postmodern s.p.a.ceport on the roof, with a red-and-blue castle, a football-sized flying saucer, and a clown's head with blinking eyes.

I went back to my drink and tried to get my appet.i.te 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 secondary patents from that one. What's he go after?”