The night hustlers were an intense, predatory lot who seemed willing to trade for some of your money only if they felt like they couldn’t simply knock you down and take it all directly. The day people, on the other hand, seemed to be more like low-budget retailers who stood quietly behind their makeshift briefcase stands or blankets and smiled or made their pitches to any passersby who chanced to pause to look at their displays. If anything, their manner was furtive rather than sinister, and they kept glancing up and down the street as if they were afraid of being observed at their trade.
“I wonder what they’re watching for?” I said, almost to myself. I say almost because I forgot for the moment that Kalvin was hovering within easy hearing.
“Who? Them? They’re probably watching for the police.”
“The police? Why?”
“For the usual reason . . . what they’re doing is illegal.”
“It is?”
I had no desire to have another run-in with the police, but I was genuinely puzzled. Maybe I was missing some thing, but I couldn’t see anything untoward about the street vendors’ activities.
“I keep forgetting. You’re from the Bazaar at Deva,” the Djin laughed. “You see, Skeeve, unlike the Bazaar, most places require a license to be a street vendor. From the look of them, these poor souls can’t afford one. If they could, they’d probably open a storefront instead of working the street.”
“You mean this is it for them? They aren’t distributing for a larger concern?”
On Deva, most of the street vendors were employees of larger businesses who picked up their wares in the morning and returned what was unsold at the end of their shift. Their specific strategy was to look like a small operation so that tourists who were afraid of dickering at a storefront or tent would buy, assuming they knew more and could get better prices from a lowly street peddler. It never occurred to me that the street vendors I had been seeing really were small, one-person operations.