Page 118 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

Arbor Vitae Cortex

He frowned. “That could be expensive. Are you sure…” His voice
trailed off. Creeping doubts! I hastily took out a checkbook and
wrote him a check for a very tidy sum.
He looked at it and froze. Uh-oh. I worried about the possible
adverse medical effects of viewing the row of zeros following the
integers on this bank draft. I ran through the emergency CPR training
I’d received in high school. Was it one breath into the victim’s nostril
per ten compressions of the chest—or was it six compressions? Or
no breaths?
He recovered spontaneously. Fortunately he had not crumpled the
check.
“Sir, Mr. Wise” he babbled, “this will do quite handsomely. You’ll
not regret your choice! I don’t know how to thank you.”
I shrugged, as if dispensing largesse were no big deal. It almost
wasn’t. “You needn’t, Mr. Betzaroff. I expect to do as well from this
transaction as you do.” Damn right: I had a guaranteed payment lined
up for it! “I’ll have a contract sent to you in the morning. As soon as
you sign and return it, that check will be valid. Now I must be getting
back to my office.”
With that I took my leave. A good day’s work, I thought, and the
afternoon was young. I wiped the gee-whiz expression off my face
and headed for the exit, impervious to the pitches thrown at me on
all sides—even from young ladies who should have been out on a
football field cheerleading in more modest outfits. It actually felt
good to help out an almost-starving character like Betzaroff; perhaps
Santa Claus did have one good day a year; at any rate, if you spend
the other 364 whipping elves into shape and peering into the morals
of your juvenile clientele, you deserve a little fun.
I went out of the expo directly to wrapping up the operation. As
per the directives of Al Magnus, once the recipient had the cash in
hand I was to disappear. My false identity would not be used again,
and I hadn’t performed in the same city twice: a limited engagement
of one-night stands, if you will. After the formalities had been
concluded via telephone, Oliver took the money and presumably
went off into the woods to harvest his tonic-yielding trees and begin
boiling them down. If the finished product ran true to form, it
probably contained a fair amount of alcohol—the basic ingredient of
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