Free Catskinner's Book (The Book Of Lost Doors) by Misha Burnett Page B

metal boys and the nova crew. I guess those are other Macrobe factions?”
    He didn't look back at me. His voice was cold. “You certainly caught Madeline in a garrulous mood.”
    Catskinner answered through my mouth. “i induced a garrulous mood.”
    That earned a look back. “I expect you did. Is she still alive, by the way?”
    “She was when I left her.”
    That seemed to satisfy him. “Yes, I do business with a half dozen Macrobe envoys. There, perhaps, fifteen or twenty operating on Earth at the moment. Some don't operate in this area, some are . . . insular, and some I refuse to work with.”  We stopped before we reached the front door, and I noticed a small side door between two displays that I hadn't seen on the way in. Keith pulled a key ring from his pocket and unlocked it. “Believe me, your Catskinner isn't the worst entity on this planet, not by a long shot.”
    He pushed the door open. It led to the fenced part of the lot. I followed him out into his strange garden. The fenced area outside was just as cluttered as the shop had been. Lawn furniture, concrete fountains, statues, all of it scattered around in no obvious pattern. There were aisles between the merchandise out here, curving at seeming random through the kitsch.
    Keith lit another clove cigarette and sat down on a green painted Adirondack chair. He waved me to the bench opposite him. It seemed solid enough, so I sat down. Beside us a fountain in the shape of a leaping fish dribbled water into a bowl held by a nymph.
    “Okay,” he began, “the first thing you have to realize is that Macrobes don't deal in money—not directly. They deal in knowledge, knowledge is power, money is power, so the rewards are there. They just take a little work sometimes to monetize.”
    I nodded.
    “They have means of perception that are beyond human comprehension. They can . . . see things that we can't. They know things that we don't, and that's what they trade. Let me give you an example: suppose that one entity wants another entity's human operatives taken out. Killed. It can't just give you a briefcase full of hundred dollar bills. What it could do, however, is tell you the location of a rich vein of gold. They can sense things like that, isolate individual elements through the rock.
    “But,” he continued, “we still have to do the work of buying the land, getting a mining company to do the tests to see the gold is there, get the permits to dig, all that. You see?”  
    “I understand.”
    He smiled and puffed on his cigarette. “So I'll tell you this up front—I take a big cut. I've got my fingers in a lot of different industries, I've got a lot of contacts. People—certain select people—trust me. It takes a lot of overhead to maintain these contacts.”
    “How big a cut?” I was beginning to really dislike this man, but I wanted to keep him talking.
    “Depends on the contract.” He shrugged, stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. The smell of cloves was something else I was really starting to dislike. “I mean, how do you figure the return on something like a new invention?  Long term, short term, points after development costs? But, the thing is, I take care of my people. If it's money you're after, trust me, you'll have more than you can ever spend.”
    He leaned forward and looked me straight in the eye. “I can offer you a million in cash as a retainer. A signing bonus. I can have it in your hands by tomorrow morning.”  
    I believed him. If he was profiting from alien technology, a million was nothing. I looked around the fenced lot, the scattered statues and fountains and lawn chairs.
    He grinned. “I don't need to impress anybody. I could have a skyscraper in downtown Manhattan with my name on it, but who wants that kind of attention? Real power doesn't have to advertise.”
    I thought about it. Did I want a million dollars?  I thought about being rich, having a big house, big cars, fancy clothes, expensive electronic