“Bawstard! Tou’ll never see the bill of lading until my cut is deposited in escrow.”
“Well, might as well kiss and make up. There’s nothing mean or petty about me.”
They shake hands without without enthusiasm and peack each other on the cheek. The deal drags on for months.They engage the services of an Expeditor. Finally Marvie emerges with a check for 42 Turkestan kurds drawn on an anonymous bank in South America, to clear through Amsterdam, a procedure that will take eleven months more or less.
Now he can relax in the cafès of The Plaza. He shows a photostatic copy of the check. He would never show the original of course, lest some envios citizen spit ink eradicator on the signature or otherwise mutilate the check.

Everyone asks him to buy drinks and celebrate, but
he laughs jovially and says, “Fact is I can’t afford to buy
myself a drink. I already spent every kurd of it buying
Penstrep for Ali’s clap. He’s down with it fore and aft
again. I came near kicking the little bastard right
through the wall into the next bed. But you all know
what a sentimental old thing I am.”
Marvie does buy himself a shot glass of beer, squeezing a blackened coin out of his fly onto the table. “Keep the change.” The waiter sweeps the coin into a dust pan, he spits on the table and walks away.
“Sore head! He’s envious of my check.”
Marvie had been in Interzone since “the year before one” as he put it. He had been retired from some unspecified position in the State Dept, “for the good of the service.” Obviously he had once been very good looking