Harry Turtledove - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

I went back outside, blinking against the daylight as if I were undead myself. The black-and-white constabulary carpet had just flown in. One of the constables the looked just like Pete and Luke, except he was blond) took my statement.

“You’ll hear from us, Inspector Fisher,” he promised.

“Good enough.” I looked over to where his partner was transferring the vile potion from Jose and Carlos’ rug to the squad carpet “Handle that stuff with extreme respect. You don’t want it spilling.”

“So we’ve been warned.” He nodded back toward Luke and Pete, then touched the brim of his cap. “God give you good day.”

He went back to the carpet to keep an eye on Carlos and Jose. Judy walked over to me. She inspected the bandage on my elbow, then the knee of my trousers. She felt the material. I winced, anticipating she’d poke the raw meat under there, but she didn’t. “That’s a wonderful patch job,” she said.

“Iosef has connections,” I said. “I just wish people were as easy to repair as clothes.” The elbow and knee were throbbing again.

Luke ambled up and said, “Now that we’ve dropped on the guys you were looking for, shall we let the rest of the dealers in without running ’em past the spellchecker?” He pointed outside the gates. Nobody had gone through since the dustup with Jose and Carlos started. Now they were lined up like carpets on St. James’ Freeway on Friday night, and not moving much slower.

“Sure, go ahead,” I told him. “Like you said, we caught the people we wanted.” Glad cries came from the dealers when Luke started waving them through. I stuck my head into Iosefs office and asked if I could store the spellchecker there so Judy and I could do some shopping. When he said yes, I cut across the incoming stream of dealers and lugged the gadget back across. I wondered for a moment if it would react to the pictures of succubi, but it didn’t. Iosef sure seemed to, though.

Judy said, “I’m glad we caught them. Now we can enjoy our own Sunday knowing they won’t be spreading their poisons to anyone else.”

That pair won’t, anyhow,” I agreed, but I wondered how much other contraband would get sold right here at this swap meet, and at all the others around Angels City. A lot, unless I missed my guess. I tried not to think about that.

The dealers who’d been delayed were all setting up their stalls in a tearing hurry. When you try to rush things, a lot of the time you end up doing them wrong. Some of the dealers seemed as if they were doing music hall comedy turns: poles and awnings and signs would go up, then a second later they’d fall down again. One guy had his skin fall over three times in a row. After the third time, he gave it a good kick.

Maybe that knocked the gremlins loose, because on the fourth try it stayed where he put it.

A couple of minutes later—right at ten—I found out why—the dealers were in such a frantic rush. The customer gates opened then, right on time, and never mind that the dealers had been delayed. Iosef was not about to waste a chance: if he’d held up the customers, some of them might have gotten miffed and gone home.

And customers he had aplenty: Jews, Persians, Hanese and Japanese, and Indians, none of whose Sabbath rituals were disturbed by getting there on Sunday and spending money. Along with them were a goodly—but not godly—number of folks I’d have guessed to be Christian, both of Aztecan descent and every other variety. Some people of any faith feel more attachment to money than to any other god.

It may seem crazy, but every once in a while I wish the Confederation were a little less prosperous, a little less secure. In flush times, people think of themselves, and the devil with anybody and anything else. They sometimes need reminding that what’s happening now isn’t Forever.

Which probably sounds like sour grapes, since I was out there shopping right alongside everybody else. But you wouldn’t—I don’t think—have found me there on a Saturday.

Judy and I wandered up one asphalt aisle and down the next, pausing at one stall here, another one there. Judy picked up a green silk scarf that went well with her redbrown hair. I bought a new alarm clock; I was sick of the shrieking horror I had at home, and even sicker of it laughing at me. This one was made in Siam, with a native horological demon. It cost less than five crowns. If I didn’t like it, I’d toss it, too, and try one more time.

We both got sausages on buns from a Persian fellow’s pushcart. Given his own faith, he wasn’t one who’d sell pork.

I think I mentioned that one of the dealers had brought in a load of grimoires. Getting a scarf or a dock at a place like that is one thing, but it never ceases to amaze me that people think you can acquire sorcerous skill and power on the cheap. As with anything important, you need to learn from the one who’s best, not the one with the best price.

Naturally, Judy paused at the display. She flipped through a couple of volumes, turned away shaking her head. The fellow who was hawking them scowled in disappointment; he thought he’d found another sucker.

That bad?” I asked.

“Worse,” she said. “The fatter book there is one of those compendia of spells in the public domain, and they’re in the public domain because they weren’t very good to begin with.

The other one, the one in the blue binding, is one of those teach-yourself-to-be-a-mage-in-three-weeks books. I spotted a couple of typos toward the end. They might be dangerous under other circumstances.”

“Why not now?”

“Because ninety-nine people out of a hundred won’t get far enough in the course to stumble across them and the odd one, the one who does stick to it, will have learned enough to spot them before he does something stupid.”

“Okay, I see what you’re saying. That makes sense.”

But once she got rolling, Judy wasn’t one who stopped easily: “The folks who buy those things are the same women who’ll plunk down fifty crowns for a ‘magic’ cream to make their breasts bigger—or men who’ll pay a couple of hundred for ‘magic’ to make something else bigger. The only magic there is the one that the people who sell this land of junk have for spotting fools.”

She didn’t bother to keep her voice down; a couple of middle-aged ladies who’d been about to inspect the grimoires took off for another stall as if they’d been caught looking at something blasphemous. “Lady, please,” whined the guy who was peddling the junk. Tm tryingto make aliving.”

“So why don’t you try to make an honest one?” she said, but then she threw her hands in the air. “What’s the use?”

I’d seen her in those moods before. The only thing to do is get her interested in something new. I said, “Look over there at the jewelry that woman is selling. It isn’t something you see every day.”

All I’d aimed at was distracting Judy, but by sheer luck I turned out to be right. Some of the pieces from the jeweler—TAMARISK’S GEMS, her skin said—were of the modem sort, clunky with crystals, but even those were in finer settings than you usually find at a fancy store, let alone a swap meet. And the rest—Judy is enamored of things Greco-Roman. A lot of the necklaces, bracelets, rings, and other pieces were copies so skulful that, but for their obvious newness and their profusion, they might have been museum pieces. And Tamarisk, a sharp-faced brunette who wore her hair tied up in a kerchief—knew her business, too.

Her eyes lit up when Judy pointed at what looked to me like a gold safety pin and called it a fibula, and she practically glowed when Judy identified a little pendant head dangling from a necklace as a bulla. They lost me after that; as far as I knew, they might have been incanting when they started throwing around terms like repousse and lost wax. I saw how Judy’s eye kept coming back to a Roman-style ring with an eagle in low relief on a wide, flat gold bezel. It was in profile; a tiny emerald highlighted its visible eye. Normally I would have said it was a man’s ring… but Judy’s last name is Ather, after all, and AtHer means eagle.