Wages of Sin

by Robert Asprin

  "If you do settle on a Time Tours package, you might still consider a private guide." Drawing on the patter he'd heard Malcolm Moore use so frequently, he added, "There are some extraordinary experiences the package deals simply skip over, because they can't herd that many people around and not be noticed. Hiring a freelancer to go along with you lets you break away from the main tour group whenever you want. You could," he dredged up an example he'd researched on the computers, "go down towards Ostia, for instance, and look at the big Claudian harbor under construction. Magnificent sight, that harbor, but it isn't on the package tour."

  He smiled again, winningly.

  Farley merely pocketed his card. "Thanks for the advice. I'll consider it."

  Without another word, he simply turned and walked off.

  Skeeter stood rooted, silly grin still pasted on his face. His insides seethed. Goddammit, I'm losing my touch, Just when I need it most, too. What's with people this month?

  He had to get access to that guy's money belt.

  Skeeter headed for the library and started checking hotel registries on one of the computer terminals. Farley had to be staying somewhere. He started with the less expensive hostelries and worked his way up to the luxury hotels before he found the entry he sought: Farley, Chuck. Room 3027 Neo Edo. Skeeter just groaned and leaned his brow against the cool monitor screen. The Neo Edo. It figured. Kit Carson's hotel.

  Well, he hadn't run out of disguises yet.

  If he could get into the hotel without being recognized, he could get into Farley's room. And if he could get into the man's room, he could steal anything in it. If he were lucky, he'd catch the guy during a shower and simply make off quietly with the money belt around his own waist. He still couldn't quite believe the guy had turned him down as a freelance guide.

  Swearing softly under his breath, Skeeter headed home to try out one of his disguises on the employees of the Neo Edo Hotel.

  Goldie Morran found Chuck Farley seated at a table in Wild Bill's, a saloon-style bar in Frontier Town. He was reading the latest copy of the Shangri-La Gazette with apparent interest.

  "Mind if a lady joins you?" she purred.

  He glanced up, blinked, then set the paper aside. "Suit yourself"

  The measuring look he gave her and the coolness of his greeting didn't bode well, but he did signal for a waitress. The rinky-tink jingle of the upright piano at the back of the room, its player costumed with gartered shirtsleeves and a battered beaver hat, rose above the sound of laughter, conversation, and the clink of glasses. The waitress, a saucy downtimer who, if rumor were correct-had earned more gold flirting with miners than the miners themselves had earned over an average year's digging, winked at Goldie, one hustler to another, friendly-like. Goldie smiled.

  "What'll it be?" She rested hands on well-curved hips, while her breasts all but spilled out of her tight-laced costume. If Chuck Farley were affected by the sight, it didn't show in anyway Goldie could see. Maybe he preferred men? Goldie didn't care who he slept with, or why, so long as she obtained possession of his money.

  "A drink for the lady. I presume," he added sardonically, "that she's buying, since I didn't invite her."

  Goldie managed to keep smiling, although she'd vastly have preferred slapping him. "Whiskey Rebecca. Thank you. And yes," she added smoothly, "I am buying. I did not come here to steal a drink or two off an unwary tourist."

  Some hint of mirth stirred far back in his eyes. "Very well, what did you come here for?"

  As Rebecca threaded her way back through the crowded bar to fill Goldie's order, Goldie leaned back in her chair. "I am given to understand you're looking for something besides the usual tours."

  Farley's smile was thin. "News certainly moves around fast in this place."

  Goldie laughed. "That is too true. Which is why I wanted to talk to you before someone disreputable tried to swindle you." She handed over her card. "I have a shop on the Commons. Money-changing, rare coinage, gems, that sort of thing. My expertise is considerable."

  Farley's thin smile came again, although it didn't touch his dark, watchful eyes. "I've heard of you, yes. Your reputation precedes you."

  How he meant that, Goldie wasn't quite sure. Nor was she at all sure she liked the way he continued to watch her, like a waiting lizard.

  "Not knowing what you had in mind, of course," she said, accepting the whiskey glass Rebecca brought and pointedly dropping money onto the table to pay for it, "I thought we might chat for a few minutes. Since you didn't seem interested in any specific tours, I thought perhaps you'd come to Shangri-La with something else in mind."

  His eyes narrowed slightly. "Such as?"

  "Oh, there are all sorts of reasons people come here," Goldie laughed. "Some people come just to eat at the Epicurean Delight. Then there's that Greek prophetess all those wacky uptime bimbos follow around like she was Christ on Earth." She smiled at the memory of Ianira's hordes. Goldie had made more than a little profit from them.

  "But I didn't come here to talk about oracles and the fools who believe them. Occasionally we're visited by the shrewd individual or two who understands the investment potentials a place like Shangri-La has to offer."

  The corners of Farley's lips twitched. "Really? What sort of investments?"

  Goldie sipped her whiskey. Farley was cool, all right. Too cool by half. "Well, there are any number of lucrative ventures a man with wit and capital could turn to his advantage. There are, for instance, the shops that supply the tourists, restaurants-even the small ones turn a fabulous profit. Captive audience, you know." She laughed lightly. Chuck Farley allowed a small smile to touch his lips. "When there are businesses like mine. Capital invested in rare coins obtained by downtime agents could increase nine, ten times the initial investment."

  Again, that small, sardonic smile. "I thought the first law of time travel was, `There will be no profiteering from time.' The ATF has copies of it posted everywhere, you know."

  Somehow, Goldie received the impression from the mirth far back in those dark eyes that Chuck Farley didn't give a damn about the first law of time travel.

  "True," she smiled. "But money exchanged from downtime purchases which is then invested right here in Shangri-La isn't covered by that law. You're only in violation if you try to take your profit uptime,

  "So, the possibilities for shrewd investment are limitless for a man with capital and imagination." She sipped at her whiskey again, still watching him over the rim of the glass. "Best of all, the money you invest in, say, a business here on Shangri-La is taxed only at the rate it would be uptime. Frankly, you can make a killing without ever breaking a single law."

  She smiled politely while he leaned back in his chair and studied her face. The corners of his lips moved slightly. "You interest me, Goldie Morran. I like your style. Gutsy, polished, sincere. I'll be in touch later, perhaps."

  He tossed some coins onto the table to pay for his own drink, gathered up his copy of the Gazette, and left her sitting there, seething. She knocked back the remaining whiskey and followed him out, but he'd vanished into the mob milling around the Commons.

  People gawking at the stores, the ramps, the chronometers, the gates, the waiting areas, the prehistoric beasts picked up from that absurd, unstable gate into the age of the dinosaurs-that was all she could see every direction she turned. She compressed her lips, furious that he'd turned her down and then simply vanished.

  Just what the devil was Farley after, anyway?

  Disgruntled in the extreme, Goldie set out for her shop. She'd gone only a few strides when she noticed Skeeter Jackson deep in conversation with a tourist. Drat the man! She was seriously of a mind to march over and tell that luckless tourist what a cheating fake he was, to spoil whatever profit he expected to pick up. Why she had ever agreed to this idiotic bet-

  Goldie blinked. Someone was stalking Skeeter. A reddish-haired man in Western-style clothing that somehow didn't match the way he moved... Her eyes widened as recognition hit
home: the downtimer who'd chased Skeeter before. Then she noticed the truly wicked blade he was silently drawing from beneath a set of leather chaps. Goldie drew in her breath sharply.

  For an instant, spite and malice held her silent. Spite, malice, and greed. If Skeeter were dead, all bets were off and she could stay in La-La land with no one to fault her. The man crept closer. Goldie's stomach churned at the look of hatred in the stranger's eyes, etched into his attentive, absorbed face. Skeeter was Goldie's rival and a scoundrel and probably deserved what he was about to get more than anyone she knew. But in that instant, she realized she didn't want to watch him die.

  Not particularly because she cared what happened to Skeeter, but murder was messy. And bad-very bad-for business. And for a fleeting instant, she also realized victory by default over a dead man would be about as sweet as vinegar on her tongue. So she found herself moving across the Commons faster than she'd moved in years.

  Skeeter and his target were deeply engrossed in conversation near the waiting area for the Wild West Gate. The man creeping up on him sidestepped around an ornamental horse trough filled with colorful fish and tensed, ready for the final lunge. Goldie glanced around, wondering if she could find a weapon, or someone from Security, even something to use as a diversion.

  Overhead, ten leathery, crow-sized pterodactyls perched in the girders, eyeing the fish in the horse trough. Skeeter talked on, oblivious to the closeness of impending death. Ah-ha! Goldie darted over to a vending cart which sold hats, T-shirts, and other trinkets, and said, "Sorry, gotta borrow this," to the startled cart owner.

  She snatched up a toy bow and arrow set and nocked the arrow, pulled back expertly, then let fly. The arrow whizzed true to its mark: the rubber tip smacked right into the flock of startled pterodactyls. The whole lot of them took wing with ear-bending screeches and dove straight down. Goldie ducked under the cart. Skeeter jerked his gaze up and around, and saw the man with the long knife. His eyes widened.

  Then he took off faster than Goldie had ever seen him run.

  The man with the knife swore in what had to be Latin and bolted after him. Angry pterodactyls swarmed in his way, screaming like maddened crows mobbing a jaybird. Leathery wings buffeted the man's face. Claws raked his hair. He yelled something furious and tried to cut at them with his long knife. Skeeter's tourist, a pretty redhead, screamed and took refuge behind the horse trough. Other tourists scattered while those at a safer distance started to point.

  Someone shouted for Security. Someone else yelled for Pest Control. The man fighting off the pterodactyls abruptly realized he was attracting attention to himself. He swore again and took off in the opposite direction Skeeter had taken-none too soon, as Security arrived hard on his heels.

  "What's going on?"

  The shaken tourist Skeeter had been trying to swindle crawled out from behind the trough. "A man with a huge knife! He tried to attack the guy I was talking to-then those things-"she pointed at the pterodactyls still flitting angrily above their heads "-started diving everywhere and-and I don't know where he went. I just hid behind this."

  Security officers took the man's description from the shaken tourist while Goldie slipped quietly away in the confusion. The vendor she'd borrowed the bow and arrow from just gaped after her. Goldie returned cautiously to her shop, making sure no one from Security had followed, then locked the door and sat down to do some very serious thinking. Skeeter Jackson had picked up a lethal enemy somewhere. Or somewhen. He had changed an enormous sum of money after that last trip of his through the Porta Romae. Goldie would've bet the very gold in her teeth that Skeeter's attacker had been swindled downtime and had somehow come through the gate looking for revenge.

  She shivered slightly behind her glass cases filled with coins, gems, and other precious items brought uptime by various gullible tourists. Wager or not, she was glad she'd acted. But there was one thing she intended to find out, or her name was not Goldie Morran, and that was the identity of the man who'd come so close to killing Skeeter.

  Yes, finding out who he was and why he was after that wretched little con artist might just come in very handy. She might not want to see Skeeter murdered, but she had no qualms at all about seeing him arrested. Tapping her fingers thoughtfully against the cool glass countertop, Goldie wondered who to contact about the mystery man's identity. She had all sorts of agents spotted about the station, willing to do a little spying for her as well as the odd downtime courier job. Goldie sniffed autocratically and picked up the phone.

  Time was running, but she would find out.

  There were, after all, only so many places in La-La Land a man could hide. Someone would know. And once she knew, the man chasing him would know. And when he knew, Skeeter Jackson's days on Shangri-La would be over for good. She started calling her paid agents all over the station.

  Chapter Thirteen

  MARCUS MADE HIS way home and entered the cramped apartment. It was echoingly empty. Ianira had packed in haste, leaving most of her own things in favor of taking the children's necessities. He touched one of her Greek gowns, breathing in its scent, almost smiled at the sight of prosaic jeans hung neatly on hangers in her half of their closet. He crushed the heavy fabric beneath his hands.

  Marcus had known this day would eventually come.

  He just hadn't known it would tear his vitals so mercilessly.

  Marcus swore savagely in a language no other man, woman, or child on TT-86 ever used-with the rare exception of his beloved Ianira, to whom he had taught a little of it-then found the aspirin in the medicine cabinet. He downed five tablets to relieve the fierce throbbing in his head and wished bitterly he could afford strong alcoholic beverages like Kit's special bourbon, brought to TT-86 from some secret, downtime escapade. But he didn't have the money for such luxuries.

  He didn't have money for anything.

  Marcus swore again, hating himself for the tremors he couldn't quite suppress. He'd come to believe in himself as a free man. But the man who had purchased and brought him here would-sooner or later demand an accounting. Marcus brought out the notes he had laboriously compiled over years of bartending and listening to the talk of men and women far gone in their boasting. He brought out the money he had so carefully stockpiled from the little metal box at the top of the bedroom closet. He changed out of his working clothes into a clean pair of blue jeans and a respectable shirt, one Ianira had surprised him with from a shop in Frontier Town on his last birthday. He smoothed down the fringe with unsteady fingers and swallowed down a throat gone dry. His face in the mirror was ashen despite the stubble of beard along his chin.

  If he tried shaving now, he'd cut himself to ribbons.

  Able to think of nothing else to do to prepare himself, he sank into a chair facing the door to wait. When the telephone shrilled, Marcus actually knocked the chair over. He disentangled himself, and made it to the phone before the answering machine switched on.

  "Hello?"

  "Marcus," that familiar voice said-notably in English, not Latin. "We have business to discuss. Come to the Neo Edo, Room 3027. Bring your records."

  The line clicked in his ear.

  Marcus swallowed once in the silence. He still didn't even know the man's name. He swallowed again, against unreasoning fear. Nothing could really happen to him. And it was Kit's hotel he'd be going to, not some out-of-the-way corner of the terminal. Kit Carson was a friend. A powerful friend. Marcus clung to that thought.

  Then he gathered up moneybox, records, and his courage and headed resolutely toward Kit Carson's world-famous hotel.

  Getting into the Neo Edo was simple.

  There were lots of ways into the luxury hotel besides the main lobby. Probably more, in fact, than Kit Carson knew existed, unless the previous owner, the legendary Homako Tani, had left blueprints behind when he'd deeded the enormous hotel to his long-ago time scouting partner. The Neo Edo's architect, working under Tani's direct supervision, had put in more melodramatic secret passageways, hidden en
trances, and blind rooms built into the rocky foundations of the Himalayas themselves than even the gods of the mountaintops knew.

  Skeeter had tried to pick locks on those doors more than once, slipping in through one of at least fifteen secret entrances he'd discovered thus far (and he hadn't even attempted the top three floors of the five-storey hotel yet, for fear of opening a hinged panel and emerging straight into Kit Carson's palatial office on the fifth floor. A gilt-and-wood dragon-shaped balcony, whose "scales" were Imperial Chrysanthemums, snaked completely around the open, atrium-style upper floor, which boasted bedrooms larger than his biological parents' entire home floorplan.

  Rumor had it (and Skeeter's sources were pretty reliable) that Kit had discovered he owned the Neo Edo when a bunch of lawyers he didn't know had been allowed into La-La Land just long enough to hand-deliver a copy of Homako Tani's will, a brief letter, and the deed to the hotel.

  Lawyers, however, were barred from conducting any official legal business (never mind set up a law firm!) in La-La Land by edict of none other than Bull Morgan. The squat, fire-plug of a station manager, who chewed cigars the way eight-year-olds chewed bubble gum, had put into place iron-clad rules he bent only when the "official lawyering" dealt with wills and inheritances.

  In its way, so long as you obeyed the rules (or didn't get caught breaking them), La-La Land was a sanctuary beyond compare. He grinned. No one-probably not even Kit knew whether or not the Neo Edo's builder was really dead. Rumor (and here, even Skeeter's sources were of wildly mixed opinions) ran the gamut from Homako Taw dying at the hand of Japan's greatest warrior-artist-poet-swordsmith ever to live, Miyamoto Musashi, to walking up into the ceiling of the world and ending his last years as Dalai Lama in Tibet (not so far, actually, from the geographical, if not temporal, site of TT-86).

  The world-famous temple at the roof of the world had finally been refurbished after tidal waves, earthquakes, famine, disease, and war with their hated northern neighbors had caused the great, sprawling bastion of communist socialism to crumble and finally leave Tibet to its prayer wheels, its solitary temples, its bamboo-munching pandas, and its mountains, where new snow falling on the great Himalayan peaks blew harshly.