Craphound Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 Cassidy 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 Japanese 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," Craphound said, interrupting my reverie. "How much would
    you like for the collection?"
    I felt a knife in my guts. Craphound 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 scraps
    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. Craphound was unreadable behind his goggles.
    Billy's mom broke the silence. "Oh, my! Thirty dollars for this old mess?"
    "I will pay fifty," Craphound said.
    "Seventy-five," I said.
    "Oh, my," Billy's mom said.
    "Five hundred," Craphound said.
    I opened my mouth, and shut it. Craphound 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," Craphound 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." Craphound said.
    "Ten thousand dollars!" Billy's mom said again.
    Craphound's digits ruffled through the roll as fast as a croupier's counter,
    separated off a large chunk of the brown bills, and handed them to Billy's mom.
    One of the firemen, a middle-aged paunchy man with a comb-over appeared at
    Billy's mom's shoulder.
    "What's going on, Eva?" he said.
    "This. . .gentleman is going to pay ten thousand dollars for Billy's old cowboy
    things, Tom."
    The fireman took the money from Billy's mom and stared at it. He held up the top
    note under the light and turned it this way and that, watching the holographic
    stamp change from green to gold, then green again. He looked at the serial
    number, then the serial number of the next bill. He licked his forefinger and
    started counting off the bills in piles of ten. Once he had ten piles, he
    counted them again. "That's ten thousand dollars, all right. Thank you very
    much, mister. Can I give you a hand getting this to your car?"
    Craphound, meanwhile, had re-packed the trunk and balanced the 78 player on top
    of it. He looked at me, then at the fireman.
    "I wonder if I could impose on you to take me to the nearest bus station. I
    think I'm going to be making my own way home."
    The fireman and Billy's mom both stared at me. My cheeks flushed. "Aw, c'mon," I
    said. "I'll drive you home."
    "I think I prefer the bus," Craphound said.
    "It's no trouble at all to give you a lift, friend," the fireman said.
    I called it quits for the day, and drove home alone with the truck only
    half-filled. I pulled it