In
the Rift : Glenraven II In
the Rift : Glenraven II
Fort Lauderdale wasn't the way Callion remembered it, but unlike most things in the universe, it had changed for the better. He stood on the manicured lawn beneath a stand of India dates and Queen palms and looked over the house. It was a typical two-story stucco development home with a heavy, pale orange tile roof; every other house in the planned community was a variation on it. Behind him Callion heard the steady hum of traffic over the main highway out beyond the wall, and the rise and fall of human voices from a soccer field that lay on the other side of a tall hedge.
He turned to the real estate agent and smiled. "How much?"
"The owners are asking two hundred."
"I'd like to move in right away, and I really don't want to waste time dickering. I've already checked prices on comparable houses in the neighborhood, and they're asking too much. If they'll sell immediately, I'll pay one eighty-five in cash. That's the only offer I'll make, and I won't negotiate. If they won't sell for that, I'll find another house just like this one with a different seller who will." He let his smile broaden. "Quite frankly, dear, I intend to be in a house today, and I don't care if you sell it to me or if someone else does."
She nodded. "Let me run inside and call them." She frowned. "The paperwork will take some time, of course."
"I expect that if you want the commission, you'll find a way to expedite that, too."
She raised an eyebrow, started to say something else, then thought better of it. "Let me call and see what they say." She walked across the lawn, avoiding the sagos and the palmettos that poked out beyond the edges of their manicured beds.
When she was gone, Callion looked down at the palmetto bug that had been crawling toward him for the last couple of minutes. He crouched and grabbed it before it could escape, then popped it in his mouth, chewed it slowly, and swallowed, savoring the flavor. He liked palmetto bugs. They were a larger sort of the cockroaches he'd found elsewhere in the United States, and they were everywhere in South Florida.
Munching on the insect caused him to lose the fine focus of his concentration, though. One of his hands began to crumble, reverting to the sand he'd used to form it. He frowned, focused, and reformed the fingers into a perfect representation of human flesh. He'd decided when he went house-hunting that he would have trouble buying anything if the sellers or their agents got a look at him in his true form. Real estate people happily sold their properties to drug dealers and racketeers and pornographers, but they balked when faced with a client who bore a more than passing resemblance to an overdressed badger.
He didn't intend to be refused. He liked Fort Lauderdale for more than its ubiquitous palmetto bugs. It was the sort of place he'd spent three years looking for: it offered pleasant weather in a boomtown atmosphere, with people living right on top of each other and spending as much time as they could ignoring each other in order to preserve the little bits of privacy they could wrest from their busy, overcrowded lives.
He was willing to put up with some inconveniences to gain neighbors with blind spots like that.
The agent came bounding out the door, a big smile on her face. "Let's go do your paperwork," she said.
He smiled back at the agent. Then he smiled at the next door neighbor who was watering his lawn, and he smiled at Fort Lauderdale and then all of South Florida in general.
Almost home, he thought. Almost home free. Suckers.