Sun Nov 30, 2008 7:12 pm by doc3d
I tried to find a web based version, and couldn't. That doesn't mean it's not there, just that I couldn't find it. I have no idea how to contact Campbell's estate. Twenty years have passed since the final print version appeared.
If anyone can turn up a copy without a geis on reprinting the whole novella, Kipple can.
Now... even a reviewer can quote a small section of a book. So here's a bit I just manually retyped, to give people an idea of what it's like. I think this is an ok thing to do... If folks out there think otherwise, just say so and I'll pull it. Somehow I'd really like to keep her memory alive. So good luck on the quest, Kipple. (The novella is centered on the missing 6th replicant, named Willy Soledad.)
doc
From "Memories of Green" by Sara Jane Campbell pages 15-6 in the original fanzine, pages 147-8 in the omnibus edition):
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Taffey Lewis was seriously scared.
It'd been even easier than Gaff had expected.
Taffey hid it well. Still, Gaff could tell by the nervous tic in Taffey's right eyelid, by the way his hand shook as he tamped out his cheap "Lamp Unto My Feet"--brand happy-cigar, that Gaff's visit was everything the sleazy hotelier had most feared.
At first Taffey had clearly hoped to wiggle his way out of the situation. He'd greeted Gaff with thick effusiveness. Led him to the shadowy "business" end of the Snake Pit bar, where the yowly noise of the floorshow was somewhat muffled. Reminded him that they were old acquaintences, like friends even, and that Gaff had practically been on Taffey's payroll when he'd first broken in.
Gaff had to smile at that. In his rookie days with Vice, Gaff had overlooked Taffey's mostly because he just couldn't be bothered. He'd even waived the payroll offer, though it was perfectly okay as per the Influence Statutes. Taffey Lewis was widely considered too slippery to even carry through on the usual gratuities, so it wouldn't have been worthwhile to do business, anyway. Gaff had always figured *when in doubt, avoid,* and he'd been able to avoid being part of Taffey's pocket-stable through the usual-- his family connections to the Tong Mafia Dreads.
Even Taffey Lewis didn't care to pester Uncle Kimura's proteges.
In the shadowy bowels of the bar, Gaff watched a smile sidle its way across the puffy expanse of Taffey's face. "It's like this, pal," Taffey grated. "I didn't know about Miss Salami and all. She just comes in here, ID looks okay, she tries out and I like her and I take her on, see, and--"
"And its guts end up all over the sidewalk," Gaff said.
"Not my fault, pal."
"Your employee created a situation." (Gaff liked the sound of that. In his opinion Deckard's encounter with Zhora had been such a mess, such a travestissement, and this made it sound as neat as a cardboard cutout.) "Our officer in charge was almost forced to leave some bystanders' brains all over the pavement-- what if they'd been some of your client types, or your girls?"
Taffey Lewis grinned. A cloud of happy-smoke hung about his bloated face. "But then your officer in charge was a pretty good shot. So what's to worry, pal?"
It was like a switch had been thrown, or some secret signal. A drink was whapped down before Gaff, a drink with two ersatz-cherry globs hanging impaled on tiny plastic swords in its sinister blue depths; and at that same instant a woman-creature, thin and pallid and gauzy-gowned, wraith-like, drifted over and looped an arm around Gaff's shoulders.
Taffey waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
She was strung out bad. Languorous, she brushed a strand of fine flaxen hair from her white cheek and stared at Gaff with sunken aqua-blue eyes. She swayed; her thin arm tightened across his neck, and with deep dreadful intensity she whispered, "Hey... gimme one of those cherries, mister?"
Impassive, Gaff slid her an entire bowl of Yugoslav peanuts from down the bar. The pale-tressed fungirl fell upon them voraciously.
Taffey looked startled.
Gaff fixed a chilly stare upon him. "Your place here is becoming a well-known hangout for illegal dangerous types. Skinjobs. Escaped replicants."
"There was just one," Taffey mumbled.
"There's a whole mess of them left," Gaff said coldly. "They seem to like your place. A lot. Voulez-vous tasukeru?"
Taffey's thick fingers tightened about the forgotten happy-cigar. "Skip the pat-wah."
"I said, you'd love to cooperate. Do you wanna be a known shelterer?"
Taffey stared at Gaff, his pulpy face settling into an expression as close to fright as it might ever get. He was probably thinking about the feared Rep-Detect Division, or Vice... or even the Tong Mafia Dreads, for that matter.
Last edited by
doc3d on Sun Nov 30, 2008 10:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
