I opened my mouth, and shut it. Craphound had built his stake on Earth by selling a complicated biochemical process for non-chlorophyll photosynthesis to a Saudi banker. I wouldn't ever beat him in a bidding war. "A thousand dollars," my mouth said.
"Ten thousand," Craphound said, and extruded a roll of hundreds from somewhere in his exoskeleton.
"My Lord!" Billy's mom said. "Ten thousand dollars!"
The other pickers, the firemen, the blue haired ladies all looked up at that and stared at us, their mouths open.
"It is for a good cause." Craphound said.
"Ten thousand dollars!" Billy's mom said again.
Craphound's digits ruffled through the roll as fast as a croupier's counter, separated off a large chunk of the brown bills, and handed them to Billy's mom.
One of the firemen, a middle-aged paunchy man with a comb-over appeared at
Billy's mom's shoulder.
"What's going on, Eva?" he said.
"This. . .gentleman is going to pay ten thousand dollars for Billy's old cowboy things, Tom."