Going Postal

said. “Aargh, my tongue. It feels like it was caught in a mousetrap.”
    He half crawled, half rolled across the bed of letters and managed to stand up just outside the door.
    “I need new clothes,” he said. “And food. And a toothbrush. I’m going out, Mr. Pump. You are to stay here. Do something. Tidy the place up. Get rid of the graffiti on the walls, will you? At least we can make the place look clean!”
    “Anything You Say, Mr. Lipvig.”
    “Right!” said Moist, and strode off, at least for one stride, and then yelped.
    “Be Careful Of Your Ankle, Mr. Lipwig,” said Mr. Pump.
    “And another thing!” said Moist, hopping on one leg. “ How can you follow me? How can you possibly know where I am?”
    “Karmic Signature, Mr. Lipvig,” said the golem.
    “And that means what, exactly?” Moist demanded.
    “It Means I Know Exactly Where You Are, Mr. Lipvig.”
    The pottery face was impassive. Moist gave up.
    He limped out into what, for this city, was a fresh new morning. There had been a touch of frost overnight, just enough to put some zest into the air and give him an appetite. The leg still hurt, but at least he didn’t need the crutch today.
    Here was Moist von Lipwig walking through the city. He’d never done that before. The late Alfred Spangler had, and so had Mundo Smith and Edwin Streep and half a dozen other personas that he’d donned and discarded. Oh, he’d been Moist inside (what a name, yes, he’d heard every possible joke…) but they had been on the outside, between him and the world.
    Edwin Streep had been a work of art. He’d been a lack-of-confidence trickster, and needed to be noticed. He was so patently, obviously bad at running a bent Find the Lady game and other street scams that people positively queued up to trick the dumb trickster and walked away grinning…right up to the moment when they tried to spend the coins they’d scooped up so quickly.
    There’s a secret art to forgery, and Moist had discovered it: in a hurry, or when excited, people will complete the forgery by their own cupidity. They’ll be so keen to snatch the money from the obvious idiot that their own eyes filled in all the little details that weren’t quite there on the coins they so quickly pocketed. All you needed to do was hint at them.
    But that was just for starters. Some customers never even discovered that they’d put fake coins in their purse, thus revealing to the incompetent Streep in which pocket they kept it. Later on they learned that Streep might be rubbish with a deck of cards but also that his lack was more than made up for by his exceptional skill as a pickpocket.
    Now Moist felt like a peeled prawn. He felt as though he’d stepped out naked. And yet, still, no one was taking any notice . There were no cries of “Hey, you!”, no shouts of “That’s him!” He was just another face in the crowd. It was a strange new feeling. He’d never really had to be himself before.
    He celebrated by buying a street directory from the Guild of Merchants, and had a coffee and a bacon sandwich while he thumbed, greasily, through it for the list of bars. He didn’t find what he was looking for there, but he did find it in the list of hairdressers, and grinned when he did so. It was nice to be right.
    He also found a mention of Dave’s Pin Exchange, up in Dolly Sisters, in an alley between a house of negotiable affection and a massage parlor. It bought and sold pins to pin fanciers.
    Moist finished his coffee with a look on his face that those who knew him well—a group consisting, in fact, of absolutely nobody—would have recognized as the formation of a plan. Ultimately, everything was all about people. If he was going to be staying here for a while, he’d make himself comfortable.
    He went for a walk to the self-styled “Home of Acuphilia!!!!!”
    It was like lifting an unregarded stone and finding a whole new world. Dave’s Pin Exchange was the kind of small shop where the owner knows every single one of his customers by name. It was a wonderful world, the world of pins. It was a hobby that could last you a lifetime. Moist knew this because he expended one dollar on Pins by J. Lanugo Owlsbury, apparently the last word on the subject. Everyone had their funny little ways, Moist conceded, but he wasn’t entirely at home among people who, if they saw a pinup, would pay attention to the pins. Some of the customers browsing the book racks ( Misdraws, Double Pointers, and Flaws, Pins