The Dream Compass [Book 1 of The Merquan Chronicle] Read Online Free PDF Page B

glistening shoes, wade barefoot across the intersections, then rinse their feet in troughs at the other side. Enterprising urchins, grubby and brown-toothed, were at each corner charging an entire centime for a few moments’ use of aged jackboots similar to Takk’s, only much more tattered and probably leaking.
    Many of the downtown buildings, some of them two or three stories tall, butted directly against one another, and it was often impossible to tell where one ended and the next began. The procession of horse carts, mule wagons, roaring trucks, and the occasional honking passenger car created a mind-numbing cacophony.
    Takk hurried past the hotel. He had paid for two more nights, locked the door to room 24, and hung the SLEEPING sign on the doorknob. But he ducked his head to avoid recognition nevertheless, on the off chance that someone had entered his room and found a little man gagged and hanging by his wrists and ankles from the arcing bed rail.
    Away from downtown, the streets were no longer at right angles to one another, and Takk navigated by a series of landmarks he had memorized: El Mercado, a sad little grouping of vendors’ booths; the Juke, apparently a bar, with a black doorway he had no thought of entering; Happy’s Hardware, where Takk lingered over the nails and chains and wire spools, and made a few purchases from the sourfaced store owner; and finally the garage, a wood-frame hulk of a building with a tiny office at the street front and ten sets of double doors stretched along the side alley.
    Takk stopped at the fourth set of doors and released the ground bolts and latches. He wished he had used a padlock, but wasn’t sure it would have done any good. The disarray in the Supply truck confirmed that it had been searched. Not much was missing—one of the lamps—it was hard to say what else. If the garage owner had expected a bribe he would have had to return the cargo fairly intact.
    Takk flipped open a toolbox and selected a screwdriver, then walked around to the cab. The long seat cushion was mounted on a metal frame held in place by ten screws, which Takk removed. He heaved the seat up and forward. In the compartment below Takk found a flat bundle of burlap undisturbed, and he exhaled a relieved sigh. He laid the package on the cab seat and opened it. His hands were shaking. Takk eyed the garage doors. He returned to the back of the truck, took the remaining lamp, and lit it, then pushed the garage doors shut.
    Inside the burlap were bundles of centime notes, which he brushed aside, revealing a cardboard notebook. He took the notebook in both hands and turned it over, letting the papers inside fall forward. They were crisp documents, freshly printed and very authentic looking. He didn’t want to touch them with greasy hands. From the back of the notebook he drew another newly minted item, a white metal rectangle with raised lettering: A7279-88CB. Takk spat on the plate and rubbed the saliva over its entire surface, the grime from his hands darkening the fresh paint. He spat again, then scraped dirt from the garage floor and sprinkled that over the plate as well.
    At the back of the truck, the first three bolts in the license plate came away grudgingly and the last one, in the bottom right corner, was rusted fast. Takk dripped oil on the stubborn bolt and struggled with screwdriver and monkey wrench until the bolt head was hopelessly torn. Droplets of sweat formed on the tip of his beard. He glanced at the door.
    Takk bent the old license plate, forming a crease in the metal near the unmovable bolt. He bent the plate again and again along the same crease. Eventually it would break, and he would have to live with a corner of the old plate permanently affixed to the back of the truck. Maybe the new plate would cover it.
    When he drove out of the garage a new lock and chain from Happy’s Hardware clattered from the back door handles. At the end of the alley, Takk saw that a small crowd had gathered