Summer 2007

by Subterranean Press

  “Two hours after dark,” he said. “If you are late I will assume you have betrayed my trust, and I will report you to the police and claim ten percent of the Pebbles as my finder’s fee. We will both be a lot wealthier if you simply do as we have planned.”

  “I am shocked that you could think such un-Christian thoughts about me, Brother von Horst,” I said. “Just see to it that you get to Carlita’s on schedule. If you’re more than a few minutes late, I’m going to assume that the police have picked you up and I’m on my own.”

  “Fair enough,” he agreed.

  I climbed into the chariot and grabbed the reins. “Has this nag got a name?” I asked.

  “Dobbin,” said von Horst.

  “How about that?” I said. “We used to have a horse called Dobbin back on the farm in Moline, Illinois.”

  “A family pet?”

  “Until my father got drunk and mistook him for a moose, or maybe a tax collector.”

  I clucked to Dobbin, and he trotted out of the building, and a minute later we were in the thick of things, surrounded by dancers and singers and drummers and a lot of ladies what was dressed for extremely warm weather. I stayed with them for almost a mile, until I was sure van Horst wasn’t following me, and then I turned Dobbin into a side street, pulled him to a stop, and clambered out of the chariot.

  If there was one thing I knew, it was that Erich von Horst didn’t hand an honest bone in his body. This was the guy who salted the Elephant’s Graveyard in Tanganyika, stole the Crown jewels in London, and otherwise flim-flammed his way around the world, usually taking unfair advantage of innocent trusting souls like myself. But I was onto him this time. I knew if he told me the diamonds were in the crown, that was the one place they weren’t. They looked like cut class because they were cut glass.

  Still, he wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if he had the diamonds on his person, so they had to be here somewhere. I knelt down and pulled the hubcaps off each wheel, but there wasn’t nothing to be found. I went over the chariot with a fine-toothed comb, but I couldn’t find no diamonds. Then I thunk of checking Dobbin. I went over every inch of his bridle and harness, checked his teeth for shiny fillings, even pried off his shoes in case von Horst had hid the diamonds there, but I kept coming up empty.

  I’d wasted an hour and still hadn’t found the diamonds. The sun was getting a little higher in the sky, the day was warming up, and the smell of the fish was making me sick. I figured as long as Neptune had a trident he didn’t need no fish on it, and I was about to pull ‘em off and toss ‘em to a couple of stray cats that had mosied over to admire ‘em close up.

  And then it hit me. What was the one place von Horst was sure I wouldn’t look for the diamonds? Inside the fish, which were getting so high and off-putting that he figgered I wouldn’t want to have nothing to do with them, but I was just a little too smart for him.

  I pulled one of the fish off the trident. The cats started meowing up a storm, figgering I was about to toss it to them, but instead I manipulated the trident and cut the fish’s belly open with one of the tines, and sure enough, out fell half a dozen perfect blue-white diamonds. I tossed the empty fish to the cats, cut open the other one, picked up another six diamonds, and gave what was left over to the cats.

  I knew I couldn’t bring the diamonds out of town with me, because von Horst would be waiting at Carlita’s. I looked around and realized I was standing next to a lamppost. I moved Dobbin right up against to it, climbed up onto his back, removed the top of the lamp, and put the diamonds there, where they couldn’t be seen from the street. The guys who lit the lamps at night did it with these long-handled candles, so none of them ever climbed up there or got a close look, and I knew the diamonds would be safe until I got the opportunity to come back and collect them.

  I got back down on the ground, hopped into the chariot, and turned Dobbin back in the direction of the parade. When we passed a fish market a little farther down the street, I stopped, bought a pair of fish that smelled almost as bad as the two I’d left behind, and stuck ‘em on the trident.

  Then it was just a matter of joining the revelers, who never seemed to run out of energy, as they danced their way through the streets of Rio. I even saw a couple of Conchita’s brothers, but of course they never thought to look at Neptune, so we didn’t have no unpleasant or deadly encounters. In midafternoon I struck up a conversation with a mildly-naked young lady what was dressed as a harlequin from the neck up and the ankles down. I invited her to join me in my chariot so’s we could get to know each other a little better, and for a minute there I thunk she was going to oblige, but then she wrinkled her noise and said that she was happy to share the chariot and other things with me, but not with the fish. It was a tough decision, but I couldn’t be sure I’d pass another fishmonger before we left the city, so I reluctantly bid her farewell. I never saw a gorgeous underdressed lady look so surprised in all my born days, and I’ve had some pretty surprising encounters with a passel of ‘em.

  In late afternoon I let Dobbin graze on a pair of fruit stands what’s owner were off dancing. Pretty soon it started getting dark, and I realized that first, I was about three miles from Carlita’s, and second, I was getting powerful sick of samba music, so I turned Dobbin south onto the exit road. I let him stop and munch on some grass and flowers and the like, and we pulled up to Carlita’s almost exactly two hours after sunset. I didn’t want von Horst examining the fish too closely while I was still around, so I laid ‘em down on the floor of the chariot, hopped out, tied Dobbin to a hitching post, and walked into the tavern.

  There was so much cigar smoke that I almost didn’t see the sultry girl doing kind of a slow dance in the corner. She was barefoot, she had a cigarette dangling from her mouth, and she was kind of doing a solo rhumba in slow motion. The bartender was maybe 400 pounds and drenched in sweat, but just the same he never rolled up his sleeves, unbuttoned his shirt, or loosened his bowtie. There were half a dozen tables, most of ‘em filled by people who looked like they either didn’t know it was carnival week or didn’t much care.

  I sat down at an empty table. A couple of friendly young ladies wandered over from the bar, but before they could reach me von Horst entered the place, carrying a brown paper bag, and walked right over to me, waving them away kind of disdainful-like.

  “Any trouble?” he asked.

  “Only with the fish,” I said, just to see his reaction.

  His face got all tense. “What about the fish?”

  “They smelled so bad that I couldn’t get any young ladies of quality to ride with me,” I said.

  “But you still have them?” he said kind of urgently.

  “Yeah, they’re out there in the chariot.”

  He suddenly relaxed. “I’m glad to see everything went off without a hitch.”

  “I don’t suppose you brung my clothes with you?” I said. “I don’t like the way a couple of these guys are staring at my legs.”

  “As a matter of fact I did,” said von Horst. He handed me the bag. “Maybe you should go change in the men’s room.”

  And that was when I saw how I’d make my getaway.

  “Thanks, von Horst,” I said. I put a hand to my stomach. “I was about to head off there anyway. I been feeling a mite queasy all day. I think it was the smell of them damned fish.”

  “Take your time,” he said. “My fence isn’t due here for another half hour.”

  And then, because I didn’t want him coming looking for me, I had another stroke of brilliance. I took the crown off and guv it to him.

  “Here,” I said. “You hang onto this.”

  He just looked kind of surprised, and a bit curious.

  “What’s past is past,” I said, “and I just want you to know that there ain’t no hard feelings. I trust you not to run off with the Pebbles while I’m in the john.”

  “I appreciate that, Doctor Jones,” he said.

  I picked up the bag and walked to the bathroom. I’d call it
the men’s room, but from the looks of it it served men, women, children, and the occasional mule what wandered in to get out of the weather. I took off the toga and sandals, got into my clothes, and then climbed out through the narrow window.

  When I was about a block away I took a peek back. Dobbin was still tied to the post, and von Horst either hadn’t come out to check on the fish, or had maybe got as far as the front door, took a deep breath, and satisfied himself that they were still there.

  I hitched a ride into Rio in the back of a truck what was delivering a few hundred live chickens to market, which certainly got the smell of fish out of my nose. I hopped off when we were a block away from the lamppost where I’d left the Pebbles of God, then waited a few minutes until I was sure no one was out on the street where they might see me.

  I climbed up the lamppost, reached in, and found to my relief that the Pebbles were still there. I pulled ‘em out, stuffed ‘em into my pocket, clambered down to the ground, and headed off in search of a place to spend the night, preferably one what wasn’t frequented by none of Conchita’s friends and relations.

  I passed a bunch of Brazilian hotels, and finally come to an American one, and the reason I knew that was that it had a small tasteful sign, written all in American, what said: Bed and Broad, $7.

  “Howdy,” I said, walking into the lobby, which was about the size of a closet, only maybe a little better-lit. “You got any rooms for rent?”

  “Nah, we just rent airplanes and gorillas here,” said the clerk, which was the kind of answer what convinced me beyond any doubt that he was American.

  “You need a better sign painter,” I said.

  “That’s as big a sign as we could afford,” he said.

  “I wasn’t talking about the size of it,” I replied. “But it says Bed and Broad.”

  “I know what it says,” he told me.

  “And you got no problem with it?” I asked.

  “None,” he said.

  “In that case I just may stay here a month,” I said, pulling off my shoe and reaching for my folded-up bill, which I shoved across the counter to him.

  “What’s this?” he said, frowning.

  “My last ten dollars,” I said. “But don’t worry; I’ll have more tomorrow.”

  “If it’s like this, I won’t take it tomorrow neither,” he said, shoving it back to me.

  I picked it up and realized that it wasn’t no bill at all, but instead a folded-up letter. It was too dark to read in there, so I took it out and stood under a street light.

  My dear Doctor Jones:

  If there are three certainties in the world, they are death, taxes, and the nature of Lucifer Jones. If my reading of your character is correct, and thus far it always has been, you instantly assumed that the crown contained nothing but cut glass. It would have taken you less than an hour to examine your costume, your chariot, and Dobbin’s harness, come up empty, and finally realized that I must have had an ulterior motive for insisting that the fish be part of your costume. You of course would have cut them open, found the faux “diamonds”, and secreted them away before meeting me at Carlita’s. (You are welcome to keep them as a memento of our partnership.) I knew you would want to take your leave of the place before I could examine the fish, so I brought your clothes along, giving you the perfect opportunity to escape, which of course you took.

  It may interest you to know that you were indeed in possession of the Pebbles of God all day long. They were precisely where I told you they were–embedded in Neptune’s crown–but I knew that a man of your deceitful nature would never trust a man of honor and integrity like myself to tell you the truth. I feel your behavior in this endeavor clearly disqualifies you from your share of the profits.

  And profits there will be. The diamonds are only part of this little enterprise. The creature you know as Dobbin is actually the champion racehorse Phar Cry, whom I borrowed for a few days and am now returning for almost as much money as I will realize for the Pebbles of God. All in all, a good day’s work, thanks in no small part to you.

  Your obedient servant,

  Erich von Horst

  A trio of amiable young men wandered up and asked me if I’d like to join them in a samba.

  I kicked each of them in the shins.

  Fiction: Snowball’s Chance by Charles Stross

  The louring sky, half past pregnant with a caul of snow, pressed down on Davy’s head like a hangover. He glanced up once, shivered, then pushed through the doorway into the Deid Nurse and the smog of fag fumes within.

  His sometime conspirator Tam the Tailer was already at the bar. “Awright, Davy?”

  Davy drew a deep breath, his glasses steaming up the instant he stepped through the heavy blackout curtain, so that the disreputable pub was shrouded in a halo of icy iridescence that concealed its flaws. “Mine’s a Deuchars.” His nostrils flared as he took in the seedy mixture of aromas that festered in the Deid Nurse’s atmosphere–so thick you could cut it with an axe, Morag had said once with a sniff of her lop-sided snot-siphon, back in the day when she’d had aught to say to Davy. “Fuckin’ Baltic oot there the night, an’ nae kiddin’.” He slid his glasses off and wiped them off, then looked around tiredly. “An’ deid tae the world in here.”

  Tam glanced around as if to be sure the pub population hadn’t magically doubled between mouthfuls of seventy bob. “Ah widnae say that.” He gestured with his nose–pockmarked by frostbite–at the snug in the corner. Once the storefront for the Old Town’s more affluent ladies of the night, it was now unaccountably popular with students of the gaming fraternity, possibly because they had been driven out of all the trendier bars in the neighbourhood for yacking till all hours and not drinking enough (much like the whores before them). Right now a bunch of threadbare LARPers were in residence, arguing over some recondite point of lore. “They’re havin’ enough fun for a barrel o’ monkeys by the sound o’ it.”

  “An’ who can blame them?” Davy hoisted his glass: “Ah just wish they’d keep their shite aff the box.” The pub, in an effort to compensate for its lack of a food licence, had installed a huge and dodgy voxel engine that teetered precariously over the bar: it was full of muddy field, six LARPers leaping.

  “Dinnae piss them aff, Davy–they’ve a’ got swords.”

  “Ah wis jist kiddin’. Ah didnae catch ma lottery the night, that’s a’ Ah’m sayin’.”

  “If ye win, it’ll be a first.” Tam stared at his glass. “An’ whit wid ye dae then, if yer numbers came up?”

  “Whit, the big yin?” Davy put his glass down, then unzipped his parka’s fast-access pouch and pulled out a fag packet and lighter. Condensation immediately beaded the plastic wrapper as he flipped it open. “Ah’d pay aff the hoose, for starters. An’ the child support. An’ then–” He paused, eyes wandering to the dog-eared NO SMOKING sign behind the bar. “Ah, shit.” He flicked his Zippo, stroking the end of a cigarette with the flame from the burning coal oil. “If Ah wis young again, Ah’d move, ye ken? But Ah’m no, Ah’ve got roots here.” The sign went on to warn of lung cancer (curable) and two-thousand-Euro fines (laughable, even if enforced). Davy inhaled, grateful for the warmth flooding his lungs. “An’ there’s Morag an’ the bairns.”

  “Heh.” Tam left it at a grunt, for which Davy was grateful. It wasn’t that he thought Morag would ever come back to him, but he was sick to the back teeth of people who thought they were his friends telling him that she wouldn’t, not unless he did this or did that.

  “Ah could pay for the bairns tae go east. They’re young enough.” He glanced at the doorway. “It’s no right, throwin’ snowba’s in May.”

  “That’s global warmin’.” Tam shrugged with elaborate irony, then changed the subject. “Where d’ye think they’d go? The Ukraine? New ‘Beria?”

  “Somewhaur there’s grass and nae glaciers.” Pause. “An’ real beaches wi’ sand an’ a’.” He frowned and hastily added: “Dinnae get me wrong, Ah ken how likely that is.” The coll
apse of the West Antarctic ice shelf two decades ago had inundated every established coastline; it had also stuck the last nail in the coffin of the Gulf stream, plunging the British Isles into a sub-Arctic deep freeze. Then the Americans had made it worse–at least for Scotland–by putting a giant parasol into orbit to stop the rest of the planet roasting like a chicken on a spit. Davy had learned all about global warming in Geography classes at school–back when it hadn’t happened–in the rare intervals when he wasn’t dozing in the back row or staring at Yasmin MacConnell’s hair. It wasn’t until he was already paying a mortgage and the second kid was on his way that what it meant really sank in. Cold. Eternal cold, deep in your bones.

  “Ah’d like tae see a real beach again, some day before Ah die.”

  “Ye could save for a train ticket.”

  “Away wi’ ye! Where’d Ah go tae?” Davy snorted, darkly amused. Flying was for the hyper-rich these days, and anyway, the nearest beaches with sand and sun were in the Caliphate, a long day’s TGV ride south through the Channel Tunnel and across the Gibraltar Bridge, in what had once been the Northern Sahara Desert. As a tourist destination, the Caliphate had certain drawbacks, a lack of topless sunbathing beauties being only the first on the list. “It’s a’ just as bad whauriver ye go. At least here ye can still get pork scratchings.”

  “Aye, weel.” Tam raised his glass, just as a stranger appeared in the doorway.

  “An’ then there’s some that dinnae feel the cauld.” Davy glanced round to follow the direction of his gaze. The stranger was oddly attired in a lightweight suit and tie, as if he’d stepped out of the middle of the previous century, although his neat goatee beard and the two small brass horns implanted on his forehead were a more contemporary touch. He noticed Davy staring and nodded, politely enough, then broke eye contact and ambled over to the bar. Davy turned back to Tam, who responded to at his wink. “Take care noo, Davy. Ye’ve got ma number.” With that, he stood up, put his glass down, and shambled unsteadily towards the toilets.