The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction JulyAugust 2017 (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Book 133) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spilogale Inc.
Published: 2017-09-02T22:00:00+00:00

CODA

For a guy I'd never heard of before, Dick Schnabel proved harder to avoid than you'd think. Haven't seen the gimpy sonofabitch since, but his office was blowing up my phone, so I broke contract and got a new number. It rang a call from "Schnabel Properties" while I was still standing in the parking lot. Ditched it, bought a pay-by-the-minute no-contract phone at a liquor store, and two days later Schnabel called that, too. FedEx just delivered a "guaranteed anonymous burner" I bought online from some German who only accepted goddamn Bitcoin. That hasn't rung yet, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

I'm not really sweating it, though. Believe it or not, being on that real estate gangster's speed dial isn't my biggest worry.

Here's my big worry: the heartburn I've had all week, since I "escaped" the crooked house? It ain't heartburn. It's lower than heartburn, and heartburn, it burns —it doesn't pull .

Walking all over town, doing my daily, I feel myself pivoting around that inside-out pull, like a fish dragging a slack line. Maybe slack because it's broken? Maybe slack because the angler is still paying out line, letting the fish tire himself?

I don't know.

I don't know, and you don't care. It's S.E.P. to you. Your problem, as an independent real estate broker, is that you gotta live on sales commissions. Bad news: I ain't looking to buy. Good news: I've got this li'l green portrait of Ben Franklin, and it is heavy . I'm just gonna rest it on your desk while you take a second to query the Multiple Listing Service for every property associated with an architect named "Quintus Teal." Print out the sheets, hand 'em over, and I'll be so excited, I'll totally forget that I was resting this Benjamin here and be on my merry way. You, meanwhile, will be so excited by your good fortune that you'll entirely forget we ever met or you ever heard of such an architect—especially if someone from "Schnabel Properties" shows interest.

I don't know how many Quintus Teal properties you'll find. Just one? Maybe a few? Maybe dozens? But I do know this: Hunters and fishermen—be they mundane or sidereal—are tenacious mutherfuckers, serious dudes of the first order. They don't give up because the quarry gets scarce. Shit, that's part of the game. They don't quit and go home; they set up in another neck of the woods.

And I also know this: I can be a fish, mindlessly running until the line goes taut and pulls him up out of the Universe into God knows what.

Or I can go house hunting.

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