Free Windup Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi Page A

shirt pauses and pisses in the alley where Tranh crouches, and only fails to see him because his partner stands on the street and wants to check the permits of the dung gatherers.
    Each time, Tranh stifles his panicked urge to tear off his too-rich clothes and sink into safe anonymity. It is only a matter of time before the white shirts catch him. Before they swing their black clubs and make his Chinese skull a mash of blood and bone. Better to run naked through the hot night than strut like a peacock and die. And yet he cannot quite abandon the cursed suit. Is it pride? Is it stupidity? He keeps it though, even as its arrogant cut turns his bowels watery with fear.
    By the time he reaches home, even the gas lights on the main thor-oughfares of Sukhumvit Road and Rama IV are blackened. Outside the Dung Lord’s tower, street stalls still burn woks for the few laborers lucky enough to have night work and curfew dispensations. Pork tallow candles flicker on the tables. Noodles splash into hot woks with a sizzle. White shirts stroll past, their eyes on the seated yellow cards, ensuring that none of the foreigners brazenly sleep in the open air and sully the sidewalks with their snoring presence.  
    Tranh joins the protective loom of the towers, entering the nearly extra-territorial safety of the Dung Lord’s influence. He stumbles toward the doorways and the swelter of the highrise, wondering how high he will be forced to climb before he can shove a niche for himself on the stairwells.
    “You didn’t get the job, did you?”
    Tranh cringes at the voice. It’s Ma Ping again, sitting at a sidewalk table, a bottle of Mekong whiskey beside his hand. His face is flushed with alcohol, as bright as a red paper lantern. Half-eaten plates of food lie strewn around his table. Enough to feed five others, easily.
    Images of Ma war in Tranh’s head: the young clerk he once sent packing for being too clever with an abacus, the man whose son is fat, the man who got out early, the man who begged to be rehired at Three Prosperities, the man who now struts around Bangkok with Tranh’s last precious possession on his wrist — the one item that even the snakeheads didn’t steal. Tranh thinks that truly fate is cruel, placing him in such proximity to one he once considered so far beneath him.  
    Despite his intention to show bravado, Tranh’s words come out as a mousy whisper. “What do you care?”
    Ma shrugs, pours whiskey for himself.   “I wouldn’t have noticed you in the line, without that suit.” He nods at Tranh’s sweat-damp clothing. “Good idea to dress up. Too far back in line, though.”
    Tranh wants to walk away, to ignore the arrogant whelp, but Ma’s leavings of steamed bass and laap and U-Tex rice noodles lie tantalizingly close. He thinks he smells pork and can’t help salivating. His gums ache for the idea that he could chew meat again and he wonders if his teeth would accept the awful luxury…  
    Abruptly, Tranh realizes that he has been staring. That he has stood for some time, ogling the scraps of Ma’s meal. And Ma is watching him. Tranh flushes and starts to turn away.
    Ma says,   “I didn’t buy your watch to spite you, you know.”
    Tranh stops short. “Why then?”
    Ma’s fingers stray to the gold and diamond bauble, then seem to catch themselves. He reaches for his whiskey glass instead. “I wanted a reminder.” He takes a swallow of liquor and sets the glass back amongst his piled plates with the deliberate care of a drunk. He grins sheepishly. His fingers are again stroking the watch, a guilty furtive movement. “I wanted a reminder. Against ego.”
    Tranh spits. “Fang pi.”
    Ma shakes his head vigorously. “No! It’s true.” He pauses. “Anyone can fall. If the Three Prosperities can fall, then I can. I wanted to remember that.”   He takes another pull on his whiskey. “You were right to fire me.”
    Tranh snorts. “You didn’t think so then.”
    “I was angry.   I didn’t