Free The Dragon Book by Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann

grasped the bag, and, heedless of the rattles and cracking of the shifting bones, dragged it down the alley to a recessed doorway out of the rain. Slinging the bag into the corner, he climbed the step and took up position, watching the apartment block. A few minutes passed. Drizzle dropped from an iron sky. A hundred yards away, the crowd noises on Bryce Street rose and fell. In the silence of the alley, Bob Choi allowed his hand to slip beneath the coat and draw out the silver flask. It was not a good time for it, but the cold and fear needed pushing back a little. No one would know. He set the flask to his lips.
    “Mr. Choi.”
    Bob Choi coughed, swore, jerked round, right hand darting to his coat. A young man stood beside him, close enough to touch. He looked the same as he had that morning and the night before: trim, blue-eyed, with blond hair slicked back behind his rimless glasses, his suit crisp, uncreased, his face bleached clean of expression. As on the previous occasions, he held a paper packet in his hand.
    Bob shoved the flask from view. “How do you do that? I should have heard you.”
    “That’s not your talent, is it?” the young man said. His brow corrugated above his little nose. “You know you’ve got to keep your gloves on , Choi. Regulations. You’re breaking the fifth protocol. Putting me at risk.”
    Bob put his glove on. He said, “What have you got for me, Parsons?”
    “Szechuan noodles. Beef and ginger. Coffee.” The young man opened the paper packet and took out a polystyrene tray, covered with film.
    “Good. I’ve been the only one round here not eating.” Bob indicated the bag.
    The young man inspected the contents, frowning with distaste. “The estate agent?”
    “I should think so. Noodles, please. I’m starved.”
    Despite the hand being safely encased in its black leather glove, the young man passed over the tray with ostentatious care, keeping his fingers out of reach and darting them back quickly. Bob said nothing. He bent a little forward to shield the noodles from the rain, picked up the little plastic fork, and began to eat. The young man stood silent, watching how the steam rising from the food veered sharply aside before it reached Bob’s face, how it rounded the contours of his head at speed and continued rising. There was a layer of cold, clear air around Bob’s skin that the steam could not penetrate.
    Bob’s mouth was full. He coughed and swallowed: “Coffee too, you said?”
    “Yes.”
    Bob nodded, twisting noodles savagely, forking them into his mouth. “Okay.”
    The young man said: “I’ll come again at nine. Will you be here or back in the street?”
    A shake of the head; the last of the food was shoveled in, soy juice drunk, the tray tossed aside. “I’m not waiting any longer,” Bob Choi said. “I know which one it is.”
    The young man had bent fastidiously and was picking up the tray. He looked up sharply. “You do? Who?”
    “The old man in 4A. He’ll be up there now, fat as a snake from the feast.”
    The pale brow furrowed. “Mr. Yang? Did you see him leave the bones here?”
    “No. I was round the front. I missed the drop. Give me the coffee, please.”
    The young man stared at his feet, moved a slim black shoe. “We don’t want another mistake, Choi.”
    “There won’t be another mistake. It’s Yang. I watched him on Bryce this morning, shuffling along in his little slippers, all white-haired and frail. Ahh! This is hot.” Bob wiped coffee from his mouth. “It’s in the way he walks , Parsons.”
    “ I’ve seen him walk,” the young man said. “I didn’t notice anything.”
    “It’s in the way he walks,” Bob Choi said again. “It’s in the jerky way the shoulders swing, the way the skinny neck cranes out as the head moves side to side. You’ve seen crocodiles at the zoo, Parsons? Seen tortoises? Watch how they move. You can get glimpses even through the cloak, if you look hard enough. If you know what you’re