Chapter 4: Product Introduction
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She looked me over. No smile now. Eyes medium to hard. Pose very straight and stiff. She waved silver fingernails at the glassed-in shelves. "What do they look like - grapefruit?" she enquired tartly. "Oh, that sort of thing hardly interests me, you know. Probably has knock-off disks and cheap printing done in China. The usual vulgarity. No. I'm sorry, no." "I see." She tried to jack the smile back up on her face. "Perhaps Mr Geiger - but he's not in at the moment." Her eyes studied me carefully. She knew as much about rare books as I knew about handling a flea circus. "He might be in later?" "I-m afraid not until late." "Too bad," I said, "Ah, too bad. I'll sit down and smoke a cigarette in one of these charming chairs. I have rather a blank afternoon. Nothing to think about but my trigonometry lesson." "Yes," she said, "Ye-es, of course." I stretched out in one chair, which had sidled up behind me as I spoke. I lit a cigarette with the lighter from the smoking stand. She still stood, holding her lower lip in her teeth, her eyes vaguely troubled. She nodded at last, turned slowly and walked back to her little desk in the corner. From behind the terminal she stared at me. I crossed my ankles and yawned. Her silver nails went out to the keyboard on the desk, didn't touch it, dropped and began to tap on the desk. Silence for about five minutes. The door opened and a tall hungry-looking man with a cane and a big nose came in neatly, the door shutting behind him quietly, marched over to the corner and placed a wrapped parcel on the desk. He took a wallet with gold corners from his pocket and showed the blonde something. She pressed a button on the terminal. The tall man went to the door in the panelled partition which opened barely enough for him to slip through. I finished my cigarette and lit another. The minutes dragged by. Horns tooted and rickshaws grunted on the boulevard. The roar of an intersystem spaceship taking off. The blonde leaned on her elbow and cupped a hand over her eyes and stared at me behind it. The partition door opened and the tall bird with the cane slid out. He had another wrapped parcel, the shape of a large book. He went over to the desk and paid cash money. He left as he had come, walking on the balls of his feet, breathing with his mouth open, giving me a sharp side glance as he passed.
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Part 1