Garn shrugged. "They were playing The Mall's sales music. Had to go, man. Had to be there."
"Cool," Oive and Wassup breathed in unison.
"I liked it. Otherwise, the day's been dry, dry, dry. I was following the visitors, like the Big Cheese told me? You know? I was trying to get facts about them so Ratso could make a card out of them? I'd like to be the green guy. He's as strong as a horse, man. But no-ooo-oo. They wouldn't give me names, or anything."
"Tough nuts," Oive offered, sympathetically.
"They're totally nuts, man," Wassup complained. "Hey, you hear? Like, they cut off my Skeeve account!"
"What?" Garn exclaimed, outraged.
"I know." Wassup sighed. "The Big Cheese isn't going to like it. But I better tell him before he picks it out of my mind. He's going to have to come up with something else." The Deveel spa owner picked up a hank of Massha's hair and examined it critically.
"Darling, you're overprocessing this poor stuff just hideously," he proclaimed. "You need a hot oil treatment." He aimed a casual hand toward the sinks, where an Imp was boiling a barrelful over a salamander-controlled flame. "You, too, tall, dark, and hairy," the Deveel informed Chumley, walking around him. He tilted an avid glance up and down the Troll's huge body, to Chumley's embarrassment. "You're just letting yourself go to pieces. I hate to see a big, good-looking Troll like you neglecting that pelt. Come in in the morning when I give this little girl her treatment, and I'll condition the both of you. Friend-of-the-family rates."
"Thanks," Chumley grunted out.
"Sorry I couldn't help you find this fellow," the Deveel added, tapping the portrait of Skeeve with a long, pointed fingernail. "I certainly never did his hair, because if I did, he wouldn't be wearing his hair like that. Cute, though."
"What's wrong with my friend's hair?" I demanded. Chumley put an arm around my shoulders and hauled me out into the corridor.
Eskina tittered. "Broscoe is very scathing about anyone's talent but his. I thought it was very funny when he wanted to give Aahz a facial right there."
"Like he'd understand about Pervects and being stylishly scaly," I grumbled.
"If we have a moment, I might let him do my hair," Massha mused. "To be honest, Queen Hemlock's too cheap to attract really first-class stylists to the capital."
"I will, too," Chumley confided. "Can't get back to my barber for ages. May as well take advantage of the local talent."
Eskina's eyes flew wide open. "Did you just say all that?"
"Please, keep your voice down," Chumley whispered. "As long as we are to be allies, we must lay all our cards upon the table." "One thing I would have thought you'd have figured out," I added, "is that not everything is always as it seems." Eskina regarded us all with respect. "I see," she said.
Eskina was a pretty quick learner. I began to feel a lot of respect for the intrepid little investigator. She'd put up with a lot of hardship in pursuit of her case. I could tell from Par's nonstop gibes as she led us from one establishment to another that Mall security had not given her any kind of a hand, but she'd pretty much made her own way, making friends with most of the longtime owners. Besides the Deveel barber who let her use his spa every morning, the Djinni cousins furnished her with clothing samples, cast-off books, shoes, and other merchandise they claimed that otherwise they "couldn't sell." The Shire horses who'd given me a hard time let her cadge free meals once in a while. So did most of the other restauranteurs. Out of admiration for her devotion to her mission, which incidentally would help keep them in business, they kept her housed, fed, and groomed. I was impressed; I'd before never seen a Deveel part with anything for which he wasn't well paid. Either he was soft, which I doubted, or she made him and the others feel safer than Mall security did. Par didn't like that aspect a whole bunch. He had to stand back and let the Ratislavan look like a hero or diminish his own status in their eyes by making a fuss about it.
"Let us go on," Eskina proclaimed, leaping up as soon as she had finished a snack furnished by the owner of the Jolly Dragon pub on the corner across from Troll Music, a huge bardic emporium which sold little magikal boxes that played dozens, even hundreds of songs when opened. I hadn't finished the rest of my fifth beer, but I was glad to get away from the racket pouring out the door across from us. The way the cacophony blended or, rather, failed to blend with the bands within earshot made me lose my appetite. Not that a ham, a dozen-egg omelette, and a broiled half pineapple was more than a light snack.
"You don't sit down long," I observed, as we strode out again. The innkeeper had promised to keep a discreet eye out for the fake Skeeve. "This must be an exciting new case for you."
"No," she contradicted me. "I have been on this assignment five years. We of the Ratislavan Intelligence are nothing if not... dogged." She grinned, showing her sharp little incisors. "I pursue Rattila, and I will continue until I have arrested him and brought him back to face Ratislavan justice. Many leads have come and gone, but I am sure mine is right, and I shall be vindicated. That is what gives me energy."
"Mmmph," Parvattani grunted, skeptically. But no matter what he thought, most of the denizens of The Mall were on his rival's side.
"Any friend of Eskina's a friend of mine," was a litany we heard over and over again. And we heard plenty of stories about how the shapechangers had ripped them off. If they'd been in the Bazaar, the Merchants' Association would have caught up with the thieves and traced them back to their master in nothing flat, with none of this five-year delay because of a mental turf war.
"There are procedures," Parvattani argued, as we left another stall.
"Tell me," I confronted Par, "if you'd figured out yourself there was a foreign master criminal running a crime syndicate in your Mall, you'd go after him mach schnell, wouldn't you?"
"Maybe," Par admitted. "But then I would be approaching it with evidence. She has never produced anything that I can call evidence. Show me, and I'll believe!"
"Bah." Eskina waved a dismissive hand. "This is the closest he has ever come to showing me professional courtesy, by listening, and it is all because of you."
They marched ahead of us. Par strode rapidly, covering a lot of distance with each pace, but Eskina stayed abreast of him, trotting on her little legs. I grinned. The rivalry between them disguised the fact that they had a lot in common. I thought they even admired each other a little, but they would rather have had the floor open up, swallow them, and burp before they'd admit it. But they went on trying to impress us with their knowledge, all the time pretending they didn't care if they impressed the other.
"That is Banlofts," Eskina explained, nodding toward a two-headed Gorgon trying on a pair of hats at a stall. "They're a personal shopper on Gor. Very popular in The Mall. Very good taste, too."
"Always pays cash," Parvattani added. "No problem with theft, either, since they can shop and keep an eye on their purse at the same time."
"Their business flourishes because they always compare their impressions before they buy."
"So two heads are better than one," I chortled. "But in the case of a tie you have to let the right prevail, huh?" Chumley and Massha shot me pained looks. "What?"
"Arrest her," Eskina whispered suddenly, pointing to a long, skinny Wisil sauntering toward us. She was dressed in a fancy blue satin dress and a picture hat and carrying a big handbag studded with jeweled beads.
"Why?" Par demanded.
"She has stolen that purse! It is from Kovatis's shop."
"How do you know she didn't buy it?" I asked.
"Because Kovatis only works to order," Eskina hissed urgently. "And I was in the store with the Klahd lady who ordered it."
"Do you see, Master Aahz?" Par asked, furiously. "This is the kind of nonsense she has been treating us to for years!"
I might have agreed with him, but something about the Wisil's too-careful walk pushed my alarm buttons, too. "Get her," I instructed Chumley.
"Right ho," he agreed. He stuck out a large hand, raised
the Wisil by her shiny satin scruff, hauled her over until MYTH-TAKEN IDENTITY95
she was eye to eye with him, and boomed out, "Give purse back."
"Oh! Oh!" the Wisil screeched, twisting this way and that to escape. "Don't hurt me! I—I just wanted to take it for a test walk to see if I wanted to buy it! Here, here!" Hastily, she shoved the jeweled bag into my hands,
Parvattani hadn't hesitated once he'd realized he was wrong. A quick word into his long-distance orb brought a pair of uniformed guards running. They took the Wisil and the bag into custody.
We started walking again. Palpable in the air between Eskina and Par was the phrase "I told you so." Again, I had to give the little raterrier credit: she didn't say it, but boy, could Par hear it. After another block or two, he cleared his throat.
"Good call," he murmured.
Eskina's head turned slightly toward him, then away to scan the shops on her left. I could see that she was smiling.
"Aren't they adorable?" Massha sighed. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear the two of them were a little sweet on each other. I love a budding romance. It reminds me of me and Hugh."
"For pity's sake, don't say anything like that where they can hear you," Chumley warned her. "That would surely nip it in the bud, so to speak."
"I'm with him," I added, although in a million years I would never have seen a comparison between the wall-pounding lust fest that she and Hugh had indulged in before they got married and a couple of shy kids who happened to be rivals in the same profession. "Let them discover it."
"Oh, well." Massha shrugged, but she agreed. "It'll be hard not to say anything. They make a cute couple."
"Give 'em time," I advised. "If they don't figure it out before we leave, you can play matchmaker then."
Since I had a chance to watch die goings-on in The Mall, I realized that the gestalt was very much like that in 96Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye the Bazaar. It wasn't long before I could tell a denizen from an occasional customer. The people who frequented The Mall, both employees and visitors, were a lot classier in demeanor and dress, but the merchants had the same summing eye to decide whether the warm bodies walking in had money or not.
Just like in the Bazaar magik served as a deterrent here. I watched a party of rowdy young werewolves push their way into a store selling personal music boxes. In no time they materialized out in the corridor in front of us, shaking their heads, not sure how that had happened. I grinned as they marched back in again. And got beamed out. They tried again. On the third trip out, Eskina strode up to them and took them each by an ear.
"Now, they told you to go away, yes?" she asked. The teenage werewolves grimaced but remained silent. She tightened her grip. "Yes?"
"Yes," they grunted at last.
'Then come back when you wish to buy something. You can listen to music free in the dance halls and clubs, no?" She let go of her grip. The boys shook free, then retreated a few paces. With my keen hearing I overheard them agreeing with her suggestion, but they would rather be shaved bald than tell her so. "They ought to pay you to patrol this place," I suggested. Parvattani looked offended.
"I have my mission," she replied simply.
So did we. I kept my eyes open, and Massha read her magik detector as we watched the crowd. I really hoped the fake Skeeve would show his face again. The longer this investigation took, the more I really wanted to get my hands on him.
A loud buzzing sound erupted from Par's pocket. He brought out the orb.
"We have a situation," he informed me. "I think we have your Klahd."
NINE
"Get the hell out of my way!" I yelled.
Shoppers of all species dove shrieking for the walls to avoid the wall of flesh of a Pervect, Troll, and Jahk bearing down on them.
For obvious reasons teleportation within The Mall was outlawed, and magikal interference existed to keep it from happening. I cursed Mall policy as we ran and floated toward the far end near Doorway L. With the globe to his ear, Parvattani kept us posted with a running commentary.
"A yellow-polled Klahd, yes. Above average height, yes. He's-a doing what? With what?"
"What?" I bellowed.
Parvattani was clearly embarrassed to reply to my question.
"He's taking off his clothes."
"DA-da-da-da-DA-da! DA-da-da-da-DA-dum," the music blared. "Da-DUM-DUM-da-DAH! Da-dadada-DA-dum!" The crowd never seemed thicker as we pounded into the raked amphitheater area just behind the troop of guards responding to Par's call. Thousands of shoppers hooted, clapped, and laughed at the figure down at the bottom of the wide bowl. It was the phony, all right. A manic grin on his face, he balanced unsteadily on the brink of the third tier of a huge ornamental marble fountain in the center. He hopped up and down on one foot, trying to pull off his left boot. His right was already off, leaving him clad in one magenta sock. The boot came free with an audible pop, to the delight of the audience. "Skeeve" whirled the suede shoe over his head and let it fly, all the time swinging his hips in time to the band behind him.
Massha gasped. "The boss would be red as a beet."
The impostor slipped and fell with a splash into the water. The crowd went wild. He climbed out and bowed, as if he had meant to do that. I felt as though I could shoot steam out of my ears. This guy was dead. He climbed out, grinning, and started to undo the lacings of his tunic.
"Get him!" I roared.
Chumley plowed downward into the crowd with me in his wake. Massha scooped up Eskina and carried her overhead. Blocked by Chumley's furry back, I lost sight of the faker, but by the roar of the audience, he had just untied his belt and thrown it into the front row.
"Do you feel that?" Massha asked.
"Yes," Chumley replied, surprised. "A ... pull."
"What kind of pull?" I demanded. "I don't feel a thing."
"It's magikal," Massha explained.
"That is the draw of power," Eskina insisted.
I looked up, then scowled as I realized, for the millionth time, that I couldn't see the lines of force in this dimension—or any other dimension. What a pain in the butt it was not to have my powers!
"He's drawing power from force lines?" I asked.
"No, from the people around us," Massha explained. "Some of them get their energy from the force lines, and it's flowing down to him."
"We have to stop him," I insisted. "Now!"
"Clear the area," Parvattani ordered, flashing the badge he was carrying. The green-skinned captain barked out orders to surround and disperse the mob.
Easier said than done. The phony had their full attention. Young women, and some young men, hopped up and down to look over the heads of the people in front of them. Little old ladies clambered up on the backs of Deveels and Ginorms to get a better view. As the crowd shifted, I got the occasional glimpse of a skinny arm or a bare foot down below.
"Da-DUM-DUM-da-DAH!Da-dadada-DA-dum!"
A howl of laughter arose from the watchers. Massha zipped upward as a tunic came flying overhead past her. I pushed apart the two Imps blocking my way, and caught sight of the impersonator still a hundred feet away. Now bare-chested, he started to fumble with his trouser fastenings. I stumbled down three more levels.
"Stop that Klahd," I bellowed.
"Catch, big guy!" Massha shouted. We glanced up. Massha dropped Eskina into my arms and started fumbling with the pouch of jewelry at her belt. A big plum-colored gem popped out into her hand.
Suddenly, the room went dark. The band music died away. The audience wailed with disappointment. I set Eskina down in the dark and started moving down toward the center of the arena. I kept my orientation by focusing on the sound of the fountain tinkling, pushing aside all the bodies I encountered, seeking out the right one. I didn't have to see the Skeeve-clone. Klahds had a pretty distinctive smell, and the fake copied it down to the last olf. If only he didn't change form before I got to him.
The next moment I caught a scent. It was him!
"He's down there!"
I shouted. "Chumley, Massha!" I sped up, climbing over bodies where I had to. The aroma got stronger. I must have been within ten, maybe twenty feet. I threw out my hands, flailing for the impostor.
"I have him, captain!" a voice shouted. I felt arms go around me.
"Let go, you idiot!" I roared. I threw my weight forward, then spun, grabbing a pair of uniformed shoulders and shoving them away. I kept going toward the laughing sound of the water, but the invisible guard tried to tackle me again, leaping on me from behind. "I said, let go!" Tugging him over my shoulder with one hand, I heaved him up over my head and threw him into the crowd. If there was no mosh pit for him to land in, that was his problem.
I reached the cold marble lip of the fountain just as the lights went on again. Chumley, Massha, and I had all reached it at the same time. Except for the twinkling waters, the tiered marble basins were empty. No, not quite. A heap of clothes, including a blue, sequined G-string, lay draped over the edge.
"Awwww!" the crowd bleated. But without an attraction to keep it there, the audience finally drifted away. I kept my eyes open.
"He's around here somewhere," I yelled, waving the handful of garments, "and he's naked as a jaybird!"
Parvattani arrived at my side, already transmitting this information into the globe held to his ear. The other hand waved wildly in emphasis. "Be on the lookout for a naked Klahd. Above-average height, and-a . .. never-a mind! He's naked! That ought-a to be distinctive enough!"
"What the hell is wrong with your guards, Par?" I demanded. "I would have gotten him if one of your men hadn't jumped on my back! They're supposed to help, but I'd do better with a rubber crutch!"
"Whattayou mean?" the captain asked, his ears twitching defensively. He took a step back, but came right up to me again, his fists clenched.
"I mean," I explained, reining in my temper, "that just as I was about to take down that phony, that bad Xerox copy, that fake, one of your guys wrapped me up and tried to apprehend me! Even in the dark, how could anyone mistake my Pervect physique for a Klahd?"
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