Before any transactions can take place an elaborate ritual of sipping the fiery brandy and exchanging bland snippets of conversation must occur. Selim Suleimanyi politely inquires after the health of the monarch of Mulreany’s country and asks if it has been the case that unruly barbarians have been causing problems for them lately along their borders. Mulreany assures him that all is well in and around Chicago and that the Mayor is fine. He expresses the hope that the Empire’s far-flung armies are meeting with success in the distant lands where they currently campaign. This goes on and on, an interminable spinning of trivial talk. Mulreany has learned to be patient. There is no hurrying these bazaar guys. But finally Suleimanyi says, “Perhaps now you will show me the things you have brought with you.”
Mulreany has his own ritual for this. Schmidt opens one of the big burlap bags and holds it stolidly out; Mulreany gives instructions in English to Anderson; Anderson pulls items out of the bag and lays them out for Suleimanyi’s inspection.
Five Swiss Army knives come forth first. Then two nice pairs of Bausch & Lomb binoculars, and three cans of Coca-Cola.
“All right,” Mulreany orders. “Hold it there.”
He waits. Suleimanyi opens a chest beneath the table and draws out a beautiful ivory hunting horn encircled by three intricately engraved silver bands showing dogs, stags, and hunters. He rests it expectantly on his open palm and smiles.
“A couple of more Cokes,” Mulreany says. “And three bottles of Giorgio.”
Suleimanyi’s smile grows broader. But still he doesn’t hand over the hunting horn.
“Plus two of the cigarette lighters,” says Mulreany.
Even that doesn’t seem to be enough. There is a long tense pause. “Take away one of the Swiss Army knives and pull out six ball point pens.”
The subtraction of the knife is intended as a signal to Suleimanyi that Mulreany is starting to reach the limits of his price. Suleimanyi understands. He picks up one of the binoculars, twiddles with its focus, peers through it. Binoculars have long been one of the most popular trading items for Mulreany, the magical tubes that bring far things close. “Another of these?” Suleimanyi says.
“In place of two knives, yes.”
“Done,” says Suleimanyi.
Now it’s the Turk’s turn. He produces an exquisite pendant of gold filigree inlaid with cloisonné enamel and hands it to Mulreany to be admired. Mulreany tells Anderson to bring out the Chanel Number Five, a bottle of Chivas, two more pairs of binoculars, and a packet of sewing needles. Suleimanyi appears pleased, but not pleased enough. “Give him a compass,” Mulreany orders.
Obviously Suleimanyi has never seen a compass before. He fingers the shiny steel case and says, “What is this?”
Mulreany indicates the needle. “This points north. Now turn toward the door. Do you see? The needle still points north.”
The jeweler grasps the principle, and its commercial value in a maritime nation, instantly. His eyes light up and he says, “One more of these and we have a deal.”
“Alas,” says Mulreany. “Compasses are great rarities. I can spare only one.” He signals Anderson to begin putting things away.
But Suleimanyi, grinning, pulls back his hand when Mulreany reaches for the compass. “It is sufficient, then, the one,” he says. “The pendant is yours.” He leans close. “This is witchcraft, this north-pointing device?”
“Not at all. A simple natural law at work.”
“Ah. Of course. You will bring me more of these?”
“On my very next visit,” Mulreany promises.
They move along, after Suleimanyi has treated them to the spicy tea that concludes every business transaction in the Empire. Mulreany doesn’t like to do all his trading at a single shop. He goes looking now for a place he remembers near the intersection of Baghdad Way and the Street of Thieves, a dealer in precious stones, but it isn’t there; what he finds instead, though, is even better, a Persian goldsmith’s place where—after more brandy, more chitchat—he warily lets it be known that he has unusual merchandise from far-off lands for sale, meets with a reassuring response, and exchanges some Swiss Army knives, binoculars, various sorts of perfume, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and a pair of roller skates for a fantastic necklace of interwoven gold chains studded with pearls, amethysts, and emeralds. Even at that the Persian evidently feels guilty about the one-sidedness of the deal, and while they are sipping the inevitable wrapping-up tea he presses a pair of exquisite earrings set with gaudy rubies on Mulreany as an unsolicited sweetener. “You will come back to me the next time,” he declares intensely. “I will have even finer things for you—you will see!”
“And we’ll have some gorgeous pruning shears for you,” Mulreany tells him. “Maybe even a sewing machine or two.”
“I await them with extraordinary zeal,” declares the Persian ebulliently, just as though he understands what Mulreany is talking about. “Such miraculous things have long been desired by me!”
The sincerity of his greed is obvious and comforting. Mulreany always counts on the cheerful self-interest of the bazaar dealers—and the covetousness of the local aristocrats to whom the bazaaris sell the merchandise that they buy from the sorcerers from Chicago—to preserve his neck. Sorcery is a capital offense here, sure, but the allure of big profits for the bazaaris and the insatiable hunger among the wealthy for exotic toys like Swiss Army knives and cigarette lighters causes everybody to wink at the laws. Almost everybody, anyway.
As they emerge from the Persian’s shop Schmidt says, “Hey, isn’t that our innkeeper down the block?”
“That son of a bitch,” Mulreany mutters. “Let’s hope not.” He follows Schmidt’s pointing finger and sees a burly red-haired man heading off in the opposite direction. The last thing he needs is for the innkeeper to spot the purported dealers in pots and pans doing business in the jewelry bazaar. But red hair isn’t all that uncommon in this city and in all likelihood the innkeeper is busy banging one of the chambermaids at this very moment. He’s glad Schmidt is on his toes, anyway.
They go onward now down the Street of Thieves and back past the Baths of Amozyas and the Obelisk of Suplicides into a district thick with astrologers and fortune-tellers, where they pause at a kebab stand for a late lunch of sausages and beer, and then, as the afternoon winds down, they go back into the bazaar quarter. Mulreany succeeds in locating, after following a couple of false trails, the shop of a bookseller he remembers, where a staff of shaven-headed Byzantine scribes produces illuminated manuscripts for sale to the nobility. The place doesn’t normally do off-the-shelf business, but Mulreany has been able on previous trips to persuade them to sell books that were awaiting pickup by the duke or prince who had commissioned them, and he turns the trick again this time too. He comes away with a gloriously illustrated vellum codex of the Iliad, with an astonishing binding of tooled ebony inlaid with gold and three rows of rubies, in exchange for some of their remaining knives, Coca-Cola, cigarette lighters, sunglasses, and whiskey, and another of the little pocket-compasses. This is shaping up into one of the best buying trips in years.
“We ought to have brought a lot more compasses,” Anderson says, when they’re outside and looking around for their last deal of the day before heading back to the inn. “They don’t take up much space in the bag and they really turn everybody on.”
“Next trip,” says Mulreany. “I agree: they’re a natural.”
“I still can’t get over this entire business,” Schmidt says wonderingly. This is only his third time across. “That they’re willing to swap fabulous museum masterpieces like these for pocketknives and cans of Coke. And they’d go out of their minds over potato chips too, I bet.”