“Oh, I intend to. Would you mind tellin’ me what the president of a corporation from Deva is doin’ in our fair dimension? Are you here on business?”
“Well ... I guess you could say that.”
“Good. Then I’m sure you won’t mind givin’ me the names of our citizens you’re dealin’ with.”
Too late I saw the trap. As a businessman, I should have local references. This may seem like a silly oversight to you, but you’ll have to remember my background up to this point. Most of my ventures into the various dimensions had been more of the raider or rescue mission variety, so it never occurred to me there was another way of doing business. Of course, admitting this would probably do little toward improving the impression I was making on this stalwart of the law.
I considered my alternatives. I considered trying to lie my way out of the predicament. Finally, I decided to give the truth one last try.
“There isn’t anyone specifically that I’m dealing with,” I said carefully. “The fact of the matter is that I’m looking for someone.”
“Oh? Then you’re hirin’ for your corporation? Out to raid some of our local talent?”
That didn’t sound too good either.
“It’s not a recruiting mission, I assure you. I’m trying to find my ... one of our employees.”
The policeman straightened a bit, looking up from his notebook once more.
“Now, that’s a different matter entirely,” he said. “Have you been by a station to fill out a missing person report?”
I tried to imagine Aahz’s reaction if I had the police pick him up.
Mercifully, my mind blocked the image.
“Are you kidding? I mean ... no, I haven’t.”
“ ... Or do you think you’re better at locatin’ folks than the police are?”
I was getting desperate. It seemed that no matter what I said, it was getting twisted into the worst possible interpretation.
“He’s not really missing. Look, officer, I had a falling out with my old partner, who happens to also be the co-founder of the corporation and a Pervect. He left in a huff, presumably to return here to Perv. All I want to do is locate him and try to convince him to come back to the company, or at least make amends so we can part on more agreeable terms. In short, while it’s business related, it’s more of a personal matter.”
The policeman listened intently until I had finished.
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place, lad?” he scowled, flipping his notebook shut. “I’ll have you know my time’s too valuable to be wasting chatting with everybody who wants to tell me his life story.”
“Nice going, Skeeve!” Kalvin winked, flashing me a high sign. “I think we’re off the hook.”
I ignored him. The policeman’s comment about wasting his time had reignited my irritation. After all, he had been the one who had prolonged the interrogation.
“Just a moment,” I said, as he started to turn away. “Does this mean you won’t be running that check on me?”
“Skeeve!” the Djin warned, but it was too late.
“Is there any reason I shouldn’t?” the policeman said, turning back to me again.
“It’s just that you’ve taken up so much of your valuable time asking questions about a simple fainting, I’d hate to see you waste any more.”
“Now don’t go tryin’ to tell me how to do my job, Mister Skeeve,” he snarled, pushing his face close to mine. “Fer yer information, I’m not so sure this is as simple as you try to cut it out to be.”
“It isn’t?”
That last snappy response of mine was sort of squeaked out. I was suddenly aware that I was not as far out of the woods as I had believed.
“No, it isn’t. We have what seems to be a minor disturbance in a public restaurant, only the person at the center of it turns out to be travelin’ in disguise. What’s more, he’s from off-dimension and used to usin’ aliases, and even though he claims to be an honest businessman there doesn’t seem to be anyone locally who can vouch for him, or any immediate way of confirmin’ his story. Now doesn’t that strike you as bein’ a little suspicious?”
“Well, if you put it that way ... ”
“I do! However, as I was sayin’, we’re pretty busy down at the station, and for all yer jabberin’ you seem harmless enough, so I don’t see much point to pursuin’ this further. Just remember, I’ve got you down in my book, boyo, and if there’s any trouble you’ll find I’m not so understandin’ next time!”
With that, he turned on his heel and marched out of the restaurant.
“That was close,” Kalvin whistled. “You shouldn’t have mouthed off that last time.”
I had arrived at much the same conclusion, but nodded my agreement anyway.
The waiter was still hovering about, so I signaled him for our check. The last thing I needed to do now would be to forget and try to walk out without paying.
“So where do we go from here?” the Djin asked.
“I think we’ll settle up here and head back to the hotel for some sleep. Two run-ins with the police in one day is about all the excitement I can handle.”
“But you haven’t eaten anything.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow. Like I said, I don’t relish the thought of risking another brush with the law ... even accidentally.”
Despite his advice to go easy with the police, the Djin seemed unconcerned.
“Don’t worry. So far it’s been just talk. I mean, what can they do to you? There’s no law against being polite on the sidewalk or fainting in a restaurant.”
“They could run that check on me. I’m not wild about having the police poking around in my affairs.”
The Djin gave me a funny look.
“So what if they do? I mean, it’s annoying, but nothing to worry about. It’s not like you have a criminal record or have connections with organized crime or anything.”
I thought about Don Bruce and the Mob. Suddenly, my work with them didn’t seem as harmless as it had when I first agreed to take the position as the Mob’s representative on Deva. Fortunately, no one on Deva except my own crew was aware of it, and they weren’t likely to talk. Still, with the way my luck had been running lately, there was no point in risking a police check. Also, I could see no point in worrying Kalvin by letting him know what kind of a powder keg I might be sitting on.
I HAD PLANNED to sleep late the next morning. I mean, I was eager to locate Aahz and all that, but it was rare that I had the opportunity to lounge in bed a couple extra hours. Business had been brisk enough that I usually headed into the offices early to try to get some work done before the daily parade of questions and problems started. Even when I did decide to try to sleep in, the others would be up and about, so I felt pressured to rise and join in for fear I might be excluded from an important or interesting conversation. Consequently, now that I had a chance to laze about I fully intended to take advantage of it. Besides, between the restaurant and the police it had been a rough night.
Unfortunately, it seemed the rest of the world had different ideas about my sleeping habits.
I had had trouble dozing off anyway, what with the unaccustomed traffic noise and all. When I did finally manage to get to sleep, it seemed I had barely closed my eyes when there was a brisk knocking at the door of my room.
“Wazzit?” I called, struggling to get my eyes open far enough to navigate.
In response, the door opened and the bellhop who had brought my luggage up the day before came bustling into the room.
“Sorry to bother you so early, Mr. Skeeve, but there’s ... ”
He stopped abruptly and peered around the room. I was still trying to figure out what he was looking for when he returned his attention to me once more.
“Mr. Skeeve?” he said again, his voice as hesitant as his manner.
“Yes?” I responded, trying to hold my annoyance in check. “You had something to tell me? Something I assume couldn’t wait until a decent hour?”
If I had hoped to rebuff him, I failed dismally. At the sound of my voice his face brightened and he relaxed visibly.
“So it is you. You had me going there for a minute. You’ve changed since you checked in.”
It took me a second to realize what he was talking about. Then I remembered I hadn’t renewed my disguise spell since I had my run-in with the law the night before. I suppose it could be a little jarring to expect to find a Pervect and end up talking to a Klahd instead. I considered casting the spell again, then made a snap decision to leave things the way they were. The Pervect disguise seemed to be causing me more trouble than it was averting. I’d try it for a day as a Klahd and see how things went.
“Disguise,” I said loftily. “What is it?”
“Well, there’s ... Is this the disguise or was the other?”
“This is the real me, if it matters. Now what is it?”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter to me. We get folks from all sorts of strange dimensions here at the hotel. I always say, it doesn’t matter where they’re from, as long as their gold is ... ”
“WHAT IS IT??”
I have found that my tolerance for small talk moves in a direct ratio to how long I’ve been awake, and today was proving to be no exception.
“Oh, sorry. There’s a cabbie downstairs in the loading zone who says he’s waiting for you. I thought you’d like to know.”
I felt the operative word there was “waiting,” but it seemed to have escaped the bellhop entirely. Still, I was awake now, and my search wasn’t going to get any shorter if I just sat around my room.
“Okay. Tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes. Sure thing. Oh ... the other thing I wanted to ask you ... Is it okay if this guy Aahz finds out you’re looking for him?”
I had to think about that for a few moments. Aahz had left without talking to me, but I didn’t think he was avoiding me to a point where he’d go into hiding if he knew J was on Per v
“That shouldn’t be a problem. Why?”
“I was thinking of running an ad in the personal section of the newspaper, but then it occurred to me that he might owe you money or something, so I thought I’d better check first.”
“The personal section?”
“It’s a daily bulletin board the paper prints,” Kalvin supplied as he joined us in mid-yawn. “Notes from people to people ... birthday greetings, messages from wives to wayward husbands, that sort of thing. A lot of people read them faithfully.”
Somehow that didn’t sound like Aahz’s cup of tea, but there was always a chance that someone who knew him would see it and pass on the information. In any case, it couldn’t hurt.
“Oh, right. The personal ads. Sorry, I’m still waking up. Sounds like a good idea,” I said, rummaging around for some loose change.
“How much does it cost?”
To my surprise, the bellhop held up a restraining hand.
“I’ll go the cost on my own if you don’t mind, Mr. Skeeve.”
“Oh?”
“Sure. That way, if it works, there won’t be any doubt who gets that reward you mentioned.”
With that, he flashed me a quick grin and left. It occurred to me that I should start watching my spending to be sure I’d have enough to actually pay a reward if the bellhop or one of his friends managed to locate Aahz for me.
“So what’s the plan for today, Skeeve?”
Kalvin followed me into the bathroom and asked his question as I was peering at my face in the mirror. Things were getting to a point where I had to shave, but only occasionally ... and I decided today wasn’t one of those occasions. It’s funny, when I was younger I used to look forward to shaving, but now that it was fast upon me I tended to see it as the nuisance it was. I began to understand why some men grew beards.
“Well, I don’t think we should just sit around here waiting for Aahz to answer the bellhop’s personal ad,” I said. “Besides, it won’t produce any results today, anyway. I figure we should do a little looking on our own.”
As soon as I said it, I realized how simplistic that sounded. Of course we were going to go looking for Aahz. That’s what we would have done if the bellhop hadn’t come up with his “personal ad” idea. If Kalvin noticed, however, he let me get away with it.
“Sounds good to me. Where do we start?”
I had been giving that some thought. Unfortunately the end result was that I was embarrassed to realize how little I knew about Aahz’s background ... or the background of any of my other colleagues, for that matter.
“The main things Aahz seems to specialize in are magik and finances. I thought we’d poke around those circles a while and see if anyone can give us a lead.”
As it turned out, however, there was one small episode which delayed the start of our quest.
We had just stepped out of the doors of the hotel and were looking around for Edvik when I noticed the street vendors. They had been there the day before when we checked in, but I had failed to really notice or comment on them. Today, however, they caught my attention, if for no other reason than their contrast to the hustlers who populated the same area at night.
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 something, but I couldn’t see anything untoward about the street vendor’s 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.
“That’s right,” Kalvin was saying. “What you see is what you get. Most of those people have their life savings tied up in ... Hey! Where are you going?”
I ignored him, stepping boldly up to one of the vendors I had noticed the day before. He was in the same spot as yesterday, squatting behind a blanket full of sunglasses and cheap bracelets. What had caught my eye yesterday was that he was young, even younger than I was. Considering the longevity of Pervects, that made him very young indeed.
“See anything you like?” he said, flashing an expanse of pointed teeth I would have found unnerving if I hadn’t gotten used to
Aahz’s grins.
“Actually, I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me.”
The smile disappeared.
“What are you? A reporter or something?”
“No. Just curious.”
He scowled and glanced around.
“I suppos it’s all right, as long as it doesn’t interfere with any paying customers. Time’s money, ya know.”
In response, I tossed a gold coin onto his blanket.
“So call me a customer who’s buying some of your time. Let me know when that’s used up.”
He made a quick pass with his hand and the coin disappeared as his smile emerged from hiding.
“Mister, you just got my attention. Ask your questions.”
“Why do you do this?”
The smile faded into a grimace.
“Because I’m independently wealthy and get my kicks sitting in the rain and running from the cops ... why do you think? I do it for the money, same as everybody else.”
“No. I meant why do you do this for money instead of getting a job?”
He studied me for a moment with his Pervish yellow eyes, then gave a small shrug.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll give you a straight answer. You don’t get rich working for someone else ... especially not at the kind of jobs I’d be qualified for. You see, I don’t come from money. All my folks gave me was my name. After that I was pretty much on my own. I don’t have much school to my credit, and, like I say, my family isn’t connected. I can’t get a good job from an old pal of my dad’s. That means I’d start at the bottom ... and probably end there, too. Anyway, I gave it a good long think, and decided I wanted more out of life.”
I tried to think of a tactful way of saying that this still looked pretty bottom of the barrel to me.
“ ... So you think this is better than working at an entry-level job for someone else?”
His head came up proudly.
“I didn’t say that. I don’t figure to be doing this forever. This is just a way to raise the capital to start a bigger business. I’m risking it all on my own abilities. If it works, I get all the profits instead of a wage and I can move on to better things. What’s more, if it works well enough, I’ve got more to pass on to my kids than my parents did. If it doesn’t ... well, I’m no worse off than when I started.”
MA08 Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervections Page 7
