"Kissur! Firstly, I can buy low and sell high but I've never acquired securities yet with a bandit's lock pick. Secondly, exactly five minutes after this story comes out, not a single bank will agree to finance me. Thirdly, this story will surely come out, since the headman will complain about one of the robbers being a foreigner and there are not that many foreigners…"
"He won't run to complain," Kissur said, "or he will have to explain, how he got the shares as a gift."
Bemish gestured with his hand and became silent.
It took them an hour to drive back to the beginning of the destroyed overpass, where Bemish and McCormick had abandoned the car in the morning — the car was still there. Kissur got out of the truck, threw the stolen stuff on the back seat and took the clean clothes out of the trunk.
"Change you clothes."
Kissur drove the car and Bemish grouched, kept silence and, looking at Kissur, thought, "He is not a man, he is a walking scandal." They arrived at a crumbly town and stopped in front of a red lacquered gate. Bemish realized that it was a district precinct. It was probably the same precinct where Krasnov was whipped for an attempt to acquire the shares.
"Are you going to rob another precinct head?"
Kissur, not responding, knocked in the gate. The district head, having learned about the Emperor favorite's visit, put the clothes on and went out to meet them. Kissur introduced Bemish to him.
"We were inspecting the construction till the nightfall and we were barely able to get out," Kissur explained.
In the morning, even before Kissur and Bemish walked downstairs, a bustle issued in the house. The official reported, bowing.
"Mr. Kissur! Your manor is located nearby, and a modest man named Khanni is the headman there. Yesterday night, two bums robbed the house and stole four hundred thousand! Probably, these two guys also killed his servant and lifted his money — the servant's body was found today in the riverside bushes!
Bemish understood some of the official's talk and froze.
They drove to the headman — a dozen Kissur's servants, that he called that night from the capital, joined them on the way. The district head entered the yard, with a large crowd already assembled, and Kissur stayed in the crowd screened by his servants.
The murdered servant's body was delivered, two peasants were brought in and the headman accused them.
"Everything is clear. These two made a deal with the bandits and robbed and killed my servant — they didn't expect me recognizing the money. You were going to rob the manor together next but, since you were arrested, the bums went ahead on their own. Answer me — where did you bump into them? Imagine it, I was trying to protect you before your lord, turned your sister over to him, so that he would become lenient."
Here, the crowd moved and Kissur moved out of it surrounded by three sturdy chaps.
"Hey, Khanni! What was this girl you turned over to me?"
The headman went gray in the face with horror. The crowd reacted.
"How much, are you saying, they stole from me?" Kissur continued.
"Four hundred thousand," the headman fretted. Here Kissur took the sack of his shoulder and emptied it right out for everybody to see.
"Khanni," Kissur stated, "when I gave you this manor, I said, 'Don't oppress the people, only take one tenth.' Yesterday, I was passing by, with a friend, and I decided to check, how you obey my orders, and when you arrested the people I gave money to, claimed this money for yourself, and told them that I dishonored their sister that I haven't even met, it looked to me, that you obeyed my orders like a pig you are — that you sucked on the people's marrow and drank their blood. I decided to look in your safe and I carried away from it not four hundred thousand but, rather, six and half thousand and, secondly, I carried away from it the loan agreements signed with my signature — and this is a fake signature. Then I realized that I didn't waste my time poking into this safe, because you would doubtfully have shown me these faked agreements!"
The headman could not speak — he bleated and crawled at Kissur's feet.
"Spit it out," Kissur barked. "How many girls have you sold to the whorehouses in my name?"
"Twenty of them, at least," somebody in the crowd responded.
Here, Kissur leaped at the headman and crushed his nose and many other parts, and then ordered to "hang this fucker on the gate" — Bemish could barely persuade him to call the lynching off.
They still stuffed the headman in the stocks at the punishment pole. By mid afternoon, hundreds of peasants drifted into the manor.
"That's what happened," the peasants were saying, "the damned headman lied to us and cheated the master! Thanks to the master for coming here and sorting things out!"
Kissur ordered to set a table across the pole, sat down at the table and started to hand the loan agreements out to the peasants while the district head, happy to still have his nose whole, was certifying that the deeds were fake.
By the evening, the headman was taken away in the stocks and the satisfied crowd dispersed.
X X X
Kissur and Bemish stayed in the orphaned manor overnight.
"So, how was I?" Kissur inquired Bemish at the dinner. He reminded Bemish of a victorious fighting cock.
"If a society's fairness," Bemish said, "depended on the number of squashed noses, then your Empire would be the fairest place in the Universe. However, the situation is reversed."
Kissur frowned.
"The objective is," the Earthman said instructively, "not to break the corrupted officials' noses. The objective is to position the officials in such a way that they couldn't harass the people."
"How do you like this place?"
"Wonderful place," Bemish said, "one could build a heaven here or, at least, a wondrous chicken farm."
Kissur burst out in laughter and slapped him on the shoulder.
"It's all yours, then!"
Bemish was astonished.
"I can't accept such a gift."
"Why? You just stated that the goal is not to kick a bad owner's butt, but to find an honest one. You are all bark and no bite."
"But I don't even speak the language."
Kissur, however, wasn't even going to listen.
"Also, you need to live somewhere," he declared, "you will surely get this company in your pocket, don't worry! I will wheedle it out of the sovereign for you."
And he started enthusiastically treating Bemish with wine.
X X X
Bemish woke up late. The sun was pushing in the open window and dancing on a deity's jade mug, grinning above the door, on an ancient silver lantern where an electric light bulb bloated like a white bubble. With an effort, Bemish recalled yesterday events. "There was a fight… We drank… Oh, my God! He granted me the manor!" Bemish jumped up in the bed — the house deed and a note from Kissur lay on the table — he returned to the capital.
In an hour, Bemish thoughtfully consumed breakfast on a veranda. Frightened servants ran around. He could barely talk to the servants and was absolutely unable to understand their replies. He thought for a moment, went inside and called to Mr. Shavash's office.
"Mr. Shavash," the Earthman said, "could you recommend me a really honest administrator?"
The first finance vice-minister assured him, in a slightly ironic voice, that he would be happy to find for Mr. Bemish anything in the world — an eternal phoenix, three-headed dragon, and even an honest administrator.
X X X
At the other end of the line, Shavash hung up the receiver. He pondered for a moment and, then, he called the secretary and gave the necessary orders.
Soon, a young man, with a round face and pleasant but sad azure eyes, entered his office. The young man's face was unusually pale, a raw dough color. An Earthman or another ignorant person would think that the face's owner was unhealthy or hadn't left home for a while. A Weian would immediately suspect that the guy had been in jail.
So, the young man named Adini, approached to the official
's table and froze three steps away, waiting for orders.
"Kissur," Shavash said, "bestowed to a Earthman, named Terence Bemish, a manor next to Assalah and the Earthman is looking for a manor's headman. I would like to bestow you to him."
"Yes, master," Adini said deferentially.
"You will watch him and report all his meetings and plans to me."
Shavash picked a sheet of paper with a personal seal out of a folder. "The moment Bemish leaves the planet," Shavash said, "this sheet of paper will be destroyed. It is in your best interests, to operate so that Bemish leaves the planet quickly. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, master."
"Terence Bemish is a smart man and he, most certainly, expects me to use this opportunity to send him a spy."
"Why did he ask you for a headman, then?"
"He hopes to allure the spy to his side. Once he has given you enough favors, you may pretend that it indeed has happened. Remember, however, that Bemish can give you money or a stipend but only I can get rid of this paper for you. Also remember that, if Bemish had this sheet, he would not act as a good Samaritan towards you. He will be kind to you only because he doesn't have another weapon."
X X X
Bemish was enjoying the ancient mosaic overlaying the walls on the second floor, when he heard a descending flyer's characteristic rustle. He walked out to the gallery — a white flyer stood in the yard, the last "rainbow" shimmers were beating above its wings. In a moment, the "rainbow" dimmed, the flyer's roof opened up like a poppy flower carpel, and two people got out of the car — a handsome lithe youth in a strict white suit and another guy, more scrawny than slim, in a checked shirt with torn-off sleeves and a red flower in his hair, following the contemporary rebel fashion.
"You can live here two months and more," the youth in the strict suit said loudly in English, evidently being sure that nobody could understand him, "no one will say a word. The local headman has sinned quite a bit and he won't even tell my brother about you."
"And how much has he sinned?"
"Not more than any damned bank director."
Here, the older youth turned around and noticed Bemish who was standing openly at the gallery encircling the villa at the second store.
"Hey, who are you?" the youth called out in Weian.
"I am Terence Bemish and I am the villa's owner."
"That's nonsense! The villa belongs to my brother."
"That's true. However, Kissur threw out the manor's headman yesterday and gave the manor to me."
The youth span his head nervously and Bemish said,
"You are welcome. I don't think that Kissur would be happy to know that I showed his brother and his guest off."
Bemish ordered the servants to serve the terrace table and, soon, he and his unexpected guests were devouring an ample breakfast. Kissur brother's name was Ashidan and his companion introduced himself, not without sarcasm, as John Smith.
"What do you do?" Ashidan asked.
"I am a financier."
"My brother makes strange acquaintances," Ashidan noticed.
"What do you do?" Bemish inquired from the new guest.
"It's none of your business, shithead."
Bemish was a bit flustered.
"Excuse me," he asked, "didn't we meet two minutes ago? I don't know anything about you. What do you know about me to call me a shithead?"
"What class did you fly coming here?"
"First class."
"That's it. How can a man with enough money to fly first class not to be a shithead?"
"Are you an anarchist," Bemish wondered, "a communist?"
"I am a sympathizer"
"Whom and what do you sympathize with? Esinole? Marks? Le Dan?"
"I sympathize with the people that the likes of you shit on with money."
"Why do you sympathize with them on Weia?"
"This planet is interesting for me," Smith said. "People here haven't choked on their money.
"Yes," Bemish agreed, recalling peasants, crawling in the fields, "they haven't. But I hope to fix it."
"Eh?"
"I will help them to choke on their money," Bemish stated.
"It's nonsense! You don't care about anything except your profits!"
Bemish was unhurriedly eating the morning soup. Last time he heard the same thing from the former ADO general director, whom he kicked out from a comfortable for him, but burdensome for the company, armchair.
"Don't push it, Johnny," Ashidan said sarcastically, "or he will be calling police in a second."
"I would certainly call police," Bemish said, "if I saw you making a bomb. Since you are just yakking, why the heck should I call them?"
"Will you tell my brother?"
Bemish carefully looked at Ashidan. "What a brood," a thought passed his mind, "one drives tanks down the foreign companies' facilities and another reads Marx in Princeton… Why didn't Kissur give him the villa?" Bemish fished a satellite phone out of his pocket and handed it to the youth.
"Tell him yourself," Bemish suggested.
Ashidan got up and walked to the garden to make a call. Right then, the servants rushed to the terrace to announce the district head's arrival.
The district head brought gifts with him — three dishes of grilled meat with garlic, a suckling pig, salads in flat baskets and, also, a plate of walnut shaped cookies and a round sweet quince pie decorated with the Bemish's last name misspelled on top.
Bemish walked the guest to the garden gazebo. The official bowed to him with the pie and said, "It's a great honor for us, Mr. Bemish that you will now, in a way, live with us. I am happy to express my gratitude to you. Thanks to your help and Kissur's courage, a crime of unimaginable magnitude and horror was uncovered.
"I think you were aware of it," Bemish said.
"Hola, how can you say so?! I was shocked, squashed like a frog under a wagon!"
Bemish shrugged his shoulders. A servant knocked and appeared in the door with a steaming teapot and sweets in woven baskets.
The guest and the host treated each other with tea and, then, the district head inquired,
"They say that you will be in the charge of our construction?"
"It's too early to say," Bemish said.
Here it seemed to Bemish that the district head winked his eye at him in a coarse and canny way.
"Well, say," the district head said, "there is no reason to doubt now. Believe me, I and the others around will be utterly happy to do everything they can for Kissur's friend and their future colleague."
"Did you whip Krasnov?" Bemish asked.
"Eh?"
"I mean the trader, who came to Assalah for the stocks. You said, that you wouldn't allow foreigners to rob the people."
The district head nodded understandingly. His face became now important and benevolent.
"Unfortunately," he said, "the people are like children and officials should protect them. How can I let them sell invaluable property for two cents?"
"You can't let them sell it for two cents but you can let them sell it for free? To pay for the taxes you invented?"
"Hola!" the district head exclaimed, "how can you say so?"
His round kind face reddened and tears appeared on the wide open eyes.
"Do you have company shares? Did you pay a cent for them?"
The district head's eyes looked at Bemis honestly and directly.
"From now on," the district head said, "the meaning of my life is to serve you! What would you like me to do? Tell me and I will carry it out."
"I would like you," Bemish said, "to sell me the Assalah shares at the same price the peasants sold them to you — for free."
The official choked.
"Otherwise," Bemish continued, "the sovereign will know how you chased foreign vultures from here with a brined whip to bleed the people on your own."
The official was silent for a moment and then bowed and pronounced, "It will be my honor to serve you."
"I should
get him fired," Bemish thought, "so that a man grateful to me for the appointment and not the man hating me because of the shares is head of the precinct.
X X X
When Bemish walked down in the garden, Ashidan was standing on the swimming pool edge and throwing thin well sharpened darts into a fat pot.
"Well, did you talk to this mongrel? Ashidan asked, "How much money did he give you, so that you didn't prosecute him?"
"Don't be rude, Ashidan."
"This district head is a real weirdo, "the youth continued, "He is the only local official who spends every day in the office. Do you know what he engages in in there?"
"Well?"
"He locks himself with his young male secretary since his wife comes from a much better family than he does, and she doesn't allow these little tricks at home."
THE FOURTH CHAPTER
Where Kissur tells investment bankers how to train a highwayman's horse while Terence Bemish makes an acquintance with other contenders for Assalah stocks
The next day after his return to the capital, Bemish found himself at a party thrown by the district prefect to celebrate the plum blossoming or some other divine occasion.
The party was grand. All of the high society arrived.
The officials discussed the inflation and the importance of the preservation of the customs. The people from the stars discussed the inflation and the importance of the preservation of the customs.
In a corner, the foreign entrepreneurs shared more particular impressions from the local business surroundings with each other.
"So, this abbot comes to me and offers to bless the bank against a misfortune and he asks for two hundred thousand dinars for the ceremony. I refuse and the next night a fire starts in the office. The next day this vermin comes to me again, expresses its condolences, and asks for two hundred thousand again. When I complained to the police, they gave me the advice — don' buck and cough up the money — the abbot is connected to Horn's gang."
"By the way, speaking about banks — do you know that only the companies, with accounts in Shavash controlled banks, received the budget financing this month? They say that Shavash had a ten percent kickback.
And so on. And so forth.
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