Craphound by Cory Doctorow Read Free Book Online

East Muskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies'
    Auxiliary." I waited for him to shout or startle. He didn't.
    "Yeah? A good find, I guess. Wish I'd made it."
    I didn't know what to say to that, so I took a bite of my sandwich.
    Scott continued. "I think about what they get out of it a lot. There's nothing
    we have here that they couldn't make for themselves. I mean, if they picked up
    and left today, we'd still be making sense of everything they gave us in a
    hundred years. You know, I just closed a deal for a biochemical computer that's
    no-shit 10,000 times faster than anything we've built out of silicon. You know
    what the extee took in trade? Title to a defunct fairground outside of Calgary
    -- they shut it down ten years ago because the midway was too unsafe to ride.
    Doesn't that beat all? This thing is worth a billion dollars right out of the
    gate, I mean, within twenty-four hours of the deal closing, the seller can turn
    it into the GDP of Bolivia. For a crummy real-estate dog that you couldn't get
    five grand for!"
    It always shocked me when Billy/Scott talked about his job -- it was easy to
    forget that he was a high-powered lawyer when we were jawing and fooling around
    like old craphounds. I wondered if maybe he
wasn't
Billy the Kid; I couldn't
    think of any reason for him to be playing it all so close to his chest.
    "What the hell is some extee going to do with a fairground?"
Craphound got a free Coke from Lisa at the check-in when he made his appearance.
    He bid high, but shrewdly, and never pulled ten-thousand-dollar stunts. The
    bidders were wandering the floor, previewing that week's stock, and making notes
    to themselves.
    I rooted through a box-lot full of old tins, and found one with a buckaroo at
    the Calgary Stampede, riding a bucking bronc. I picked it up and stood to
    inspect it. Craphound was behind me.
    "Nice piece, huh?" I said to him.
    "I like it very much," Craphound said, and I felt my cheeks flush.
    "You're going to have some competition tonight, I think," I said, and nodded at
    Scott/Billy. "I think he's Billy; the one whose mother sold us -- you -- the
    cowboy trunk."
    "Really?" Craphound said, and it felt like we were partners again, scoping out
    the competition. Suddenly I felt a knife of shame, like I was betraying
    Scott/Billy somehow. I took a step back.
    "Jerry, I am very sorry that we argued."
    I sighed out a breath I hadn't known I was holding in. "Me, too."
    "They're starting the bidding. May I sit with you?"
    And so the three of us sat together, and Craphound shook Scott/Billy's hand and
    the auctioneer started into his harangue.
    It was a night for unusual occurrences. I bid on a piece, something I told
    myself I'd never do. It was a set of four matched Li'l Orphan Annie Ovaltine
    glasses, like Grandma's had been, and seeing them in the auctioneer's hand took
    me right back to her kitchen, and endless afternoons passed with my colouring
    books and weird old-lady hard candies and Liberace albums playing in the living
    room.
    "Ten," I said, opening the bidding.
    "I got ten, ten,ten, I got ten, who'll say twenty, who'll say twenty, twenty for
    the four."
    Craphound waved his bidding card, and I jumped as if I'd been stung.
    "I got twenty from the space cowboy, I got twenty, sir will you say thirty?"
    I waved my card.
    "That's thirty to you sir."
    "Forty," Craphound said.
    "Fifty," I said even before the auctioneer could point back to me. An old pro,
    he settled back and let us do the work.
    "One hundred," Craphound said.
    "One fifty," I said.
    The room was perfectly silent. I thought about my overextended MasterCard, and
    wondered if Scott/Billy would give me a loan.
    "Two hundred," Craphound said.
    Fine, I thought. Pay two hundred for those. I can get a set on Queen Street for
    thirty bucks.
    The auctioneer turned to me. "The bidding stands at two. Will you say two-ten,
    sir?"
    I shook my head. The auctioneer paused a long moment, letting me sweat over the
    decision to bow out.
    "I