Antonio Garrido - The Corpse Reader

The shouting became deafening again. The yellow cricket caught up, but then also stopped, wavering, as if unsure. And just when the blue cricket, whose owner was a giant of a man and was shouting louder than anybody, looked as though it had taken the lead, the yellow one shot forward, overtaking the blue at the last possible instant.

No one could believe it. It seemed like the devil’s work. They were all rubbing their eyes when the giant turned to the fortune-teller.

“Cheating bastard!” he roared.

But the fortune-teller wasn’t flustered. Moving the silk net aside, he picked up his cricket and held it out for all to see: its front left leg definitely was not there. In a rage, the giant knocked the insect from the fortune-teller’s hand and stomped on it. He spat and, before turning to leave, promised the fortune-teller he’d be back. The rest, grumbling, gathered up their insects and followed the giant away.

Cí went nowhere. He urgently needed that money, and he couldn’t see how the fortune-teller had won without some kind of trick. It also struck him as strange that the man didn’t seem to care that the cricket was dead, even though it had just made him all that money.

“You can get out of here as well,” said the fortune-teller.

Cí ignored him and crouched down to examine the squashed remains of the cricket. Using a fingernail, he dislodged some bright plating still attached to the abdomen. It looked like a sliver of iron or a similar metal. And he found traces of glue on the underside. What could it have been for? Wouldn’t it just weigh the creature down and make it go slower?

He was astonished when the dead insect suddenly flew from his palm and attached itself to the knife at his belt. Suddenly it all made sense…

By now the fortune-teller had gathered up his things and wandered off in the direction of a nearby tavern. Cí carefully placed the insect’s remains in a cloth and headed after him.

There was a boy at the door to the Five Pleasures Tavern looking after the fortune-teller’s folded-up betting table. Cí asked him how much he was being paid, and the boy held out two pieces of candy.

“I’ll give you this apple if you let me look at that table.”

The boy thought for a moment.

“OK. But only to look.”

Cí gave him the apple, which one of the men had dropped at the bet, and opened the table.

“I said don’t touch,” said the boy.

“I need to look at the underside.”

“I’ll tell him—”

“Eat your apple and shut up, will you?”

Cí opened and shut the channel gates, sniffed the channels, and looked closely at the underside, pulling out a small sheet of metal about the size of a biscuit, which he hid in his sleeve. Putting the table back as it had been, he nodded to the boy and entered the Five Pleasures Tavern. He had everything he needed to get his money back.

Though Cí didn’t see the fortune-teller when he first walked into the tavern, a couple of prostitutes were whispering excitedly about a man throwing money around. Cí followed their glances to the curtains at the back of the room.

He took a moment to consider his approach. The tavern was a dive like all the others near the gates—thick with greasy smoke and customers eating plates of boiled pig meat, Cantonese sauces, and Zhe fish soups. The smell of the food mingled with the stink and sweat of the fishermen, dockers, and sailors who were celebrating the end of the week as though it were their last day on earth—drinking, swinging, and swaying to the rhythm of flutes and zithers.

On the far side of the bar, on a makeshift stage, a group of “flowers” sang melodies that were barely audible over the din and tried to catch the eye of their next customer. One of them came over to Cí and made a show of concern over his wounded leg before she began rubbing her flabby rump up against his crotch. Cí pushed her away. He marched to the back of the tavern, parted the curtains, and there was the fortune-teller, shaking his pale ass over a young girl. He was clearly surprised to see Cí but seemed unbothered. He smiled foolishly, showing his rotten teeth, and then carried on. Doubtless he was drunk.

“Having fun with my money?” Cí asked. He shoved the old man, and the girl grabbed her clothes and scurried out.

“What on earth?” said the fortune-teller.

Before the old man could get to his feet, Cí grabbed him by the shirt.

“You’re going to pay me back, right down to the last coin! And I mean now!”

He was about to start rummaging through the fortune-teller’s purse when he was picked up, dragged out of the cubicle, and thrown against some tables in the middle of the dining area. The music stopped.

“No bothering the customers!” roared the manager.

The man was as big as a mountain; his arms appeared to be thicker than his legs, and he had the look of an enraged buffalo. Before Cí could respond, the manager punched him in the ribs.

“He’s a cheat!” Cí managed to say. “He swindled me!”

“As long as he pays his way when he’s in here, I don’t care.”

“Leave him. He’s just a kid,” said the fortune-teller, coming out from behind the curtain as he buttoned his pants. He looked down at Cí. “You get out of here before you really get hurt.”

Cí struggled to his feet. The wound in his leg had started to bleed again.

“I’ll go,” he said grimly, “when you’ve given me back my money.”

“Don’t be stupid. Do you really want your head cracked open?”

“I know how you do it. I inspected your maze.”

A flicker of worry crossed the fortune-teller’s face.

“Hee-hee, I see. Come now, have a seat. Tell me what you mean.”

Cí pulled out the sliver of metal he’d found attached to the cricket and threw it on the table.

“All I know is you must have lost your mind,” said the fortune-teller, but he was staring at the metal all the same.

“Fine,” said Cí, taking out the biscuit-size metal sheet and placing it under the table. “Watch and learn, since this is all new to you.”

When he moved the sheet beneath the table, suddenly, as if propelled by an invisible hand, the sliver began moving around, too. The fortune-teller shifted uncomfortably on his stool.

“Magnets,” announced Cí. “Not to mention the camphor repellent at the ends of the other crickets’ channels! Or—what else?—the trapdoor where the first cricket disappeared and the second cricket, the one with the metal sliver attached, was released? But you don’t really need me to explain all this, do you?”

“What do you want?” whispered the fortune-teller.

“My eight hundred qián —which I would have won from the bet.”

“Ha! You should have figured this out a lot earlier. Now get out.”

“Not till I have my money.”

“Listen, kid, you’re sharp, I’ll give you that, but you’re starting to bore me. Zhao!” He called the manager over. “Give him a bowl of rice and show him out.”

But Cí wasn’t giving up that easily.

“My money,” he growled.

“Enough!” said the manager.

“No,” a voice behind them boomed, “it isn’t enough!” Everyone in the tavern turned to see who it was.

A man stood in the middle of the dining area. It was the giant, the owner of the blue cricket that had nearly beaten the fortune-teller’s yellow one. The fortune-teller looked terrified as the man, who was even bigger than the manager, strode purposefully over, pushing people aside. The manager stepped forward, and the giant took him down with one punch. Then the giant grabbed the fortune-teller by the neck, and Cí, too.