Salmoneus snorted.
Hercules explained.
Salmoneus leaned far back in his chair and stared at the rafters until the chair fell over. Then he set the chair right, sat, and folded his hands across his paunch and twiddled his thumbs. "You're out of your mind. No offense, Hercules, but that's—"
"Impossible?"
"Of course."
"Why?"
Salmoneus tugged at his beard. "I don't know. Because things like that don't happen to me, I guess."
Hercules laughed. "Salmoneus, things like that happen to you all the time."
"Okay, but still—"
"I'll prove it to you tonight, after the show."
Surprisingly, Salmoneus shook his head sadly. "I don't know if there will be a show, Hercules. Not after what happened last night." He jerked a thumb over one shoulder. "I don't think they'll be in the mood."
Not good, Hercules thought; not good.
"Listen—"
Salmoneus waved a hand. "No, don't even try. I know you're upset with what I made you do, and I'm sorry. I guess I should have known better."
"What you made me do?"
"The Red Power Beast."
"Oh. Well—"
"I think maybe I'll just cut my losses—as we say in the business—and move on." He sighed so heavily the table almost shook. "If, that is, there's anyplace to move on to."
Worse than not good, Hercules realized; it was a disaster.
"Salmoneus, don't be silly." He reached across the table and poked his finger in the man's chest. "You, my friend, are exactly what this town needs after last night."
"What?"
Hercules nodded excitedly. "A diversion, Salmoneus. Don't you get it? A way to make them feel good again. And only you can provide it."
"Oh." Salmoneus rubbed a temple thoughtfully. "1 hadn't thought of it that way."
"It's the only way to think about it."
It took a few seconds, but Salmoneus finally smiled.
"Good. Now, get on out there, friend, and put together the best darn show you can. The people of Phyphe need you."
Salmoneus leapt to his feet, saluted, laughed, and practically sprinted from the inn.
Hercules was horrified. By the gods, he thought with a shudder, I'm actually starting to sound like him.
He shuddered again, hoped he wasn't making a mistake, and asked the innkeeper where a man, or men, with little money might find places to stay.
The innkeeper, by the insulted look on his face, suggested that Phyphe had no places like that. It was a decent town. At least until those show business people came around.
Hercules, by a tilt of his head and a gesture, agreed that Phyphe was indeed a decent town, a great town, but even a great town, man to man, had places like that, even if no one liked to speak about it in public.
The innkeeper, reluctantly, admitted that yes, Phyphe, for all its greatness, might have a place like that.
He just didn't remember offhand where it might be.
Hercules saw the discreet, outstretched palm.
The innkeeper saw the look on Hercules' face, saw the loosely clenched fist at Hercules' side, and saw the way Hercules' muscles bulged a little, which made them approximately larger than most of his body.
The outstretched palm withdrew, and was replaced by a finger that sketched a quick map on the tabletop.
Hercules thanked him.
The innkeeper told him it was no problem, glad to help a fellow out, especially one who spent fortunes on the kind of meals one found in a place like this.
Hercules got out before he got confused.
Less than an hour later, he reached his destination.
It was an inn in only the loosest sense of the word—so disreputable and grungy it didn't bother with a name. Which was pretty much the best way to describe the neighborhood as well.
When Hercules stepped inside and paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, he heard muttering and grumbling from a half dozen patrons at the tables scattered around the large room. He also heard a gasp off in the far corner to his right, followed quickly by another.
The bartender, a burly giant, ominously tapped a large club against his palm. “You got business here, friend?"
Hercules walked over, plucked the club from the bartender's hand, broke it in half over his thigh, smiled to mask the sudden pain in his leg, and said, "Yep."
The bartender smiled back gamely. "Good. Otherwise I would have to ask you to leave the premises."
"Good," Hercules said. He dropped the two halves of the club onto the bar, changed his mind, grabbed one of them, and walked over to the corner.
The four men at the table hadn't moved. "Gentlemen," he said pleasantly, "if I bought you all a drink, you probably still wouldn't want to talk to me peacefully, would you?"
Sid snickered; Chicus chortled; the mute one grunted derisively; the good-looking one, who also had more brains than his friends, held up his hands to indicate that he would sing like a bird if only he could leave with his bones intact. Preferably with them still on the inside of his skin.
"Hey," a voice said over Hercules' left shoulder, "you leave my buddies alone, creep."
Hercules didn't look around. He snapped his left arm up at the elbow and caught the man square on the nose with his fist. A grunt. A thud. A scraping back of chairs and the shuffling of booted feet hurrying toward the exit.
Hercules smiled and shrugged. "Manners," he said to no one in particular. "It all comes down to manners."
He pressed his hands against the table and leaned forward, forcing each of the bandits in turn to meet his gaze. "Are we talking?"
Chicus glanced toward the rafters. "You got that monster with you?"
"Maybe."
The mute one's lips began to quiver.
"The thing is," Hercules said, "if you answer my questions, and convince me you're not lying, nobody gets hurt and we all go home. If you lie..." He stared at the piece of club in his right hand, waited until he was sure they were looking, too, and squeezed.
Sid snickered; Chicus snorted derisively; the mute's lips quivered; the handsome one rolled his eyes in preparation for a faint.
And the piece of club shattered into sawdust.
Hercules shook his head and brushed the debris to the floor—smiling, shaking his head as if to say that sometimes he even amazed himself.
"Well?"
Sid snickered; Chicus smacked him on the arm; the mute leaned over and smacked his brother on the other arm; the handsome one's face began to lose its color.
"What do you want to know?' Chicus asked, doing his best to keep his image tough while, at the same time, making sure Hercules knew that cooperation was very much a part of the conversation.
"Which one of you drugged my drink the other night?"
None of them answered.
Hercules reached down, grabbed a handful of sawdust, and poured it into a pile on the table. He stared at it pointedly.
"Lutus," Chicus said quickly, and pointed at the mute.
"Good." He brushed some of the sawdust away. "Who are you working for?"
"What?" Chicus sounded insulted. "We're our own gang!"
"Who," Hercules repeated slowly, "are you working for?"
Sid growled a shut up when Chicus opened his mouth to answer, and Lutus went almost as pale as his brother.
Hercules had just about run out of patience. He rose to his full height, paid no attention when the handsome one fainted off his chair, and slammed a fist onto the table. Which split in half.
"Who paid you to drug me?" he demanded. ' 'Who paid you to keep me out of town last night? And," he added, glaring right at Chicus, "have you told him who I am?"
Lutus' hands sprang into action, weaving a pattern so complex it nearly crossed Hercules' eyes. Oddly enough, he understood some of it—the part that assured him they had said nothing to anyone about who he really was.
For no reason at all Hercules believed him.
"Well?" he said to Sid
. "What did he say?"
"He said mind your own flamin' business," Sid sneered.
"That's it," he said wearily. He reached over and snatched Sid out of his chair, held him up until they were nose-to-nose, and said, "One more useless answer, friend, and I'll give you to my feathered friend."
That did it.
Sid told him.
Hercules dropped him onto the wreckage of the table, dusted his palms, and suggested that they, having now become rather unreliable in terms of their employer, might find it healthier to seek employment somewhere else. Somewhere else far, far away.
"Can I pack?" Chicus asked. "I've picked up these really swell—"
Hercules stared.
Chicus and Lutus immediately picked up their unconscious brother and hustled from the inn. Sid, after some face-saving posturing that included kicking a lot of sawdust around, ended up only a half step behind them.
By the time Hercules reached the street, all the gang had left behind was a lingering cloud of dust.
One down, one to go, he thought, and headed for the arena.
He had nearly reached it when he heard a woman scream.
14
She stood in front of an elegant house whose portal was flanked by modestly ornate pillars, whose marble lintel was carved into delicate swirls of grape leaves and roses, and whose walls were decorated with hideous green triangular designs.
No one stood near her. In fact, no one stood within a hundred feet of her. Yet a crowd had gathered nonetheless, and when Hercules pushed his way through, all he saw was a woman whose deep black hair had fallen loose of its coils, whose belted robe matched the green tiles, and whose richly sandaled feet stomped the marble stoop in time to her shrieks.
Curious, he moved toward her, wondering why none of the others had offered to help.
She shrieked, she stomped, she looked at him and said, "Who ... are . .. you?"
He began to understand. "I'm—" He caught himself just in time, and managed to cover by muttering that he worked with the Salmoneus Vaudalville troupe, had heard her distress, and wanted to offer his services. If he could.
She folded her hands arrogantly at her waist. ' 'Are you trained in the recovery of valuable jewels?'
He admitted as how he wasn't, not really.
"Are you skilled in the tracking of dastardly criminals who have sullied my home simply by breathing the same air as I?"
"No," he said.
"Then you are of no use to me."
She shrieked.
He shrugged and walked away, stopping only when she called to him—as someone might call a particularly filthy, but faithful, dog.
He looked over his shoulder.
"Virgil," she said, pursing her thick red lips.
"Virgil?"
She stared haughtily at him for a moment before nodding. "Ah. You're the strongman."
The way she said it indicated that strength, in her opinion, equaled severely diminished brain power.
It was all he could do just to nod.
"Virgil is one of your employers, young man," she said, managing to look down at him without coming anywhere near his height. ' 'Do tell him that Olivia Stellas requires his presence immediately."
And she shrieked.
Hercules wondered how much trouble he could get into with how many gods if he popped her one, decided it wasn't worth finding out, and made his way back down the street. He did not head for the arena, however. He went directly to the Gold Leaf Inn, which he found on a quiet street filled primarily with the kind of shops only someone like Olivia Stellas would frequent.
It was, he thought, a curious place for a simple Vaudalville act to stay. Especially one that didn't receive very large compensation.
The innkeeper, a woman of airs nearly as rarefied as Olivia's, took one look at him and tried to shoo him away. Took another look and decided he was worth looking at a third time—so boldly that Hercules almost checked to be sure he still had his clothes on.
When he spoke, she nearly swooned; when he requested permission to visit one of her guests, she simpered, as well as anyone he had ever seen, without actually groveling; when she suggested none too coyly that he visit her before he left, his response was a noncommittal shrug that made her grab weakly for the nearest chair.
Weird, he thought as he took the stairs to the second floor two at a time; weird, and dangerous.
He found the right door he needed without any trouble. Nor did he have any trouble getting in, because he didn't bother to knock; he just pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold.
Clova Junarus, wearing a snug tunic and sitting on a low bench in front of a polished copper mirror, didn't jump, didn't flinch, didn't yell. She stared at him, scowled, and called, "Aeton, that creature is here."
From the next room, Aeton called, "What creature?"
"Me," Hercules said.
Aeton appeared in the doorway, drying his hands on a long white cloth. Other than that, he was pretty much naked. "Oh. You. What do you want?"
"Oh, do get dressed, Aeton," Clova said wearily.
Aeton shrugged, tossed the cloth over his shoulder, and left.
Clova sighed the sigh of one who had too many responsibilities and none of the glory. ' 'What do you want?"
Hercules walked over to the table beneath the mirror, reached over her shoulder, and picked up a necklace of red and green gems set in silver blossoms. "Very nice. You two are married, right? Not brother and sister."
"Right." She snatched it away. "Beast."
"That's me."
Aeton returned, hastily belting a tunic that barely reached mid-thigh. "Clova, what's going on?"
"He barged in."
"He didn't knock?"
"No," said Hercules, "he didn't." He grabbed the necklace back, ignored the woman's huff of protest, and spotted two large chests set against the far wall. Three strides took him over, one hand flipped up a lid, and the other snapped out to stop Aeton when he made a move to interfere.
"I don't like you," Hercules said as he reached in for the clothes neatly folded inside. "1 don't like you two at all," he added as he tossed the clothes onto the floor.
"Aeton, stop him!" Clova snapped.
"I say," Aeton said without moving. "I say, this isn't right. We'll have you fired, you know."
"Hell, we'll have him hanged," Clova snarled as she jumped to her feet.
Aeton smiled tolerantly. "Now, Clova." He walked over to Hercules and peered into the chest. "She gets that way sometimes, you know. Pre-performance jitters." He looked up at him slyly. "What's your excuse?"
Hercules looked back at him, looked into the now empty chest, and shifted to the second one.
"Oh," Aeton said nervously. "Say, I really don't think—"
"Aeton, will you please stop him?" Clova demanded, red-faced.
More clothes, a few leather belts and straps, a heavily studded wrist band, amazingly heeled boots, and...
"Aha," he said.
"Oh," said Aeton.
Clova only growled.
Hercules closed the chest and sat on it, the necklace dangling from his hand. "You hired four men to work with you. They created diversions in each town you went to, while you—the both of you— made nightly visits to the richest houses. Not too difficult with your ... talents." He held up the necklace. "Does this belong to Olivia Stellas?"
Aeton said nothing; Clova glared.
"I had a meeting with those four men, by the way." He tossed the necklace to Clova, who grabbed it one-handed and clutched it against her chest. "They've left town. Permanently. You two, on the other hand, will probably find yourselves new places to stay. Like a cell, for instance."
"Kill him," Clova said flatly. "Kill him."
Aeton scratched the top of his head. "Alone?"
"Hell, no, I'll help you."
"Well," he said, looking apologetically at Hercules. "That's all right, then." And he pulled an astonishingly long dagger from the back of his tunic. "Just be c
areful of the blood, dear. It's too late to wash again."
Hercules hadn't really expected them to put up much of a fight, but it wasn't long before he had the sinking feeling that being caught in a whirlwind was something like this.
Aeton feinted with the dagger, causing Hercules to jump back onto the chest, and because the ceiling wasn't very high, he was forced into an awkward half-crouch.
Then Clova tossed the mirror to Aeton, who sidearmed it at Hercules, who jumped onto the other chest just before Aeton stabbed with the dagger, forcing him to jump back and nearly lose his balance. Which was when Clova sidearmed a candlestick, forcing him to leap onto the first chest again.
Aeton stabbed.
Hercules jumped.
Clova disappeared into the other room.
"It isn't going to work," Hercules said, bracing himself to leap at Aeton.
"Sure it will."
Clova returned, juggling a number of clubs at such a speed that he couldn't count how many there were.
They also, he noted, had little spikes around their tips.
Suddenly one flew from the pack into Aeton's waiting hand, and he instantly spun it at Hercules' head.
Hercules ducked, jumped to avoid a second one, a third, tried to jump up to avoid the one aimed at his feet, hit the ceiling, saw stars, and slipped off the lid to the floor. He landed on his hands and knees and scuttled sideways, but not quickly enough to avoid being struck on the left shoulder.
The spikes weren't long, but they hurt like hell.
"Nice," Clova said, adding the dagger and a chair to the remaining clubs in the air.
"I try," Aeton replied modestly.
Hercules crouched against the wall, realizing that watching Clova was wrong—he needed to watch her husband, watch for the hand that twitched just before she sent him another weapon. "You won't get away,"
he said.
Aeton grinned. "He's trying to distract us, dear."
"Now, Aeton, you know that means he thinks he's smart."
Another club, which slammed into the wall over Hercules' head and stuck there.
He reached up for it, and snatched his hand down when another club tried to sever it at the wrist.
Next time, Hercules thought; it has to be the next time. If Aeton gets the dagger next...
Timothy Boggs - Hercules Legendary Joureneys 03 Page 9
