Wages of Sin

by Robert Asprin

  Whatever the true story, Skeeter simply strolled into the lobby in his disguise, passed the huge mural of Sunrise over Edo Castle, which was supposed to be a copy of one that the same Musashi (who might have killed Homako Tani, for any possible reason, given Musashi"s temper) had painted. Skeeter reached the elevator and pinged the little lighted circle.

  Moments later, he was on the third floor, stealing toward Charles Farley's expensive room on a carpet thick and fine as any the kings of Persia might have ordered woven for their winter pavilions. The subtle pattern of black and white reminded him of snow leopards, or those elusive creatures of the Mongolian steppes, the silent white tiger glimpsed through blasts of snow and wind. Skeeter shivered, recalling his terror when ordered by Yesukai to join a winter hunt in the sacred mountains of the Yakka clan's homeland. He still didn't know whether it had been skill or luck that his arrow had brought down the snow leopard before the huge cat could claw him to death, but he would take to his grave the scream of his pony, knocked from under him and mortally wounded before he knew anything was near.

  Skeeter shook off those memories with some irritation and concentrated on the matter at hand: breaking into Room 3027. First, he listened, ear bent to the door with a stethoscope to hear what might be taking place beyond the closed door. He caught the sound of the shower and a man's voice singing Gilbert and Sullivan off key. Skeeter smiled, carefully slipped the lock while disabling the alarm with a little tool he'd invented all on his own, and entered the darkened hotel room.

  Farley sang on, as Skeeter began a methodical hunt of the well-appointed bedroom. He rifled through the discarded clothing on the bed, searched every drawer, under the mattresses, in the closet, under every piece of furniture, even managed to open the room safe, only to find it empty.

  Where? Skeeter fumed.

  He eased the bathroom door open and risked a peek inside.

  Steam hit his face, along with an unpleasant bellow about mausers and javelins, but there was no sign of a moneybelt draped over the toilet, sink, or towel rack. Had he worn the damned thing into the shower?

  The song-and the spray of water-came to an abrupt end. Farley's shower was over. Skeeter cursed under his breath and ran for the hall. He slipped outside, locked Farley's hotel room door behind him, and leaned against it, breathing heavily as his heart raced.

  "What are you doing here?" a familiar voice demanded.

  Skeeter yelped an came at least three inches clear of the floor. Belatedly he recognized Marcus. "Oh, it's only you," he gasped, sagging again into the door for support. "For a second, I thought Goldie'd set Security on me again."

  Marcus was frowning intensely. "You were attempting to steal from the room."

  Skeeter planted hands on hips and studied his friend. "I do have a wager to win," he said quietly, "or had you forgotten that? If I lose, I get tossed off station."

  "Yes, you and your stupid bet! Why must you cheat and steal from everyone, Skeeter Jackson?"

  Marcus' anger surprised him. "I don't. I never steal from 'eighty-sixers. They're family. And I never steal from family."

  Marcus' cheeks had flushed in the soft lighting of the hall. His breathing went fast and shallow. "Family! When will you learn, Skeeter? You are not a Mongol! You are an uptimer American, not some unwashed, stinking hordesman!"

  Shock detonated through him. How had Marcus known about that?

  "`A Mongol doesn't steal from his own kind,' " Marcus ranted on, evidently quoting some conversation Skeeter didn't remember at all. "Pretty morals for a pretty thief, yes? That is all you are. A thief. I am sick of hearing how the tourists deserve it. They aren't your enemies! They are only people trying to enjoy life, then you come and smash it up by thieving and lying and-" His eyes suddenly widened, then went savagely narrow. ""The money you gave to me. The bet you made in Rome. You did not win it honestly."

  Skeeter wet his lips, trying to get in a word edgewise.

  "He came to me for help, damn you, because you'd stolen the money for his new life! Curse you to your Mongolian hell, Skeeter Jackson!"

  Without another word, Marcus turned and strode toward the distant elevators, passing them and opting for the staircase, instead. The door banged against the wall in an excess of rage. Skeeter stood rooted to the snowy carpet, swallowing. Why did he feel like bursting into tears for the first time since his eighth birthday? Marcus was only a downtimer, after all.

  Yeah, a voice inside him whispered. A downtimer you called friend and were drunk-or stupid-enough to confide the truth to. Skeeter could lie to any number of tourists, but he couldn't lie to that voice. He had just watched his only real friendship shatter and die.

  When the door to Room 3027 opened and Farley stuck his head into the corridor, Skeeter barely noticed.

  "Hey, you. Have you seen a guy named Marcus, about your size, brown hair?"

  Skeeter stared Farley in the eyes and snarled out yet another lie. "No. Never heard of him."

  Then he headed for the elevators and the nearest joint that served alcohol. He wanted to feel numb. And he didn't care how much money it took. He closed his eyes as the elevator whirred silently toward the Neo Edo's lobby.

  How he was going to regain the friendship he'd managed to shatter into pieces, Skeeter Jackson had no idea. But he had to try. What was the point of staying on at TT-86, if he couldn't enjoy himself? And with the memory of Marcus' cold, angry eyes and that wintery voice sinking into his bones, he knew he would never enjoy another moment in La-La Land unless he could somehow restore good faith with Marcus.

  He stumbled out of the elevator, completely alone in a lobby crowded with tourists, and realized that Marcus' anger was infinitely worse than all those long-ago baseball games where he'd played his heart out, alone, while a father too busy to bother stayed home and stole money from customers who didn't need the expensive junk he sold to any sucker he could pin down longer than five seconds.

  The comparison hurt.

  Skeeter found that nearest bar, ignoring tattooed Yakuza and wide-eyed japanese businessmen, and got roaring, nastily drunk. Had his luck gone sour? Was all this a punishment for screwing over-and thus guaranteeing the loss of-his only friend? He sat there amongst the curious japanese businessmen and thugs who stared at the gaijin in "their" bar, and wondered bitterly who he hated worse: His father? Marcus, for pointing out how much Skeeter had turned out like him? Or himself, for everything he'd done to end up just like the man he'd grown up despising?

  He found no answers in the japanese whiskey or the steaming hot sake, which he consumed in such enormous amounts even the japanese businessmen were impressed, eventually crowding around to compliment and encourage him. A girl dressed as a geisha-hell, she might have been one, since time terminals could afford to pay the outrageous salaries their careers demanded-refilled his cup again and again, attempted vainly to flirt and draw him out with conversation and silly games the others played with enthusiasm. Skeeter ignored all of it, utterly. All he wanted was the numbing effect of the booze.

  So he let them talk, the words washing over him like the cutting winds of the wide, empty Gobi. There might not be any answers in the whiskey, but alcohol made the emptiness a little easier to bear.

  Three sheets to the wind (a sailing term, Skeeter had discovered years earlier when his father had taken them on a short cruise so everyone of any importance would see his new sloop), Skeeter was just about to give into to drunken stupor when the phone rang. He snagged the receiver, tripping and knocking over a chair on the way. "Yeah?"

  "Mr. Jackson? Chuck Farley, here."

  Surprise rooted him to the carpet. "Yes?" he asked cautiously.

  "I've been thinking about your offer the other day. About time guiding. You had a good point. If you're not engaged, I'd like to hire you."

  Skeeter recovered from his surprise gracefully "Of course. What gate did you have in mind?"

  "Denver."

  "Denver. Hmm..." He pretended to consult a nonexistent guiding calendar
while pulling himself together. "The best time for Denver's just a tad over two weeks from now, after the Porta Romae makes a complete tour cycle. Yes, I'm free for that Denver trip."

  "Wonderful! Meet me in half an hour in Frontier Town. We'll discuss details. There's a little bar called Happy Jack's ..."

  "Yes, I know it. Half an hour? No problem. I'll be there."

  "Good."

  The line clicked dead. Happy Jack's was a wild place, where anything could happen. Especially to one particular fat money-belt. Skeeter grinned as he emerged from his apartment.

  Profit, here I cone!

  Happy Jack's bore an enormous wooden sign over the entrance, of dancing, dueling cowboys shooting at one another's feet. A large glass window was painted in bright Frontier Town colors, as well, proclaiming the bar's name in red, blue, and garish gold. Skeeter pushed open the Hollywood-style saloon doors and entered the raucous establishment, where a piano player was already busy pounding out tunes popular in Denver-the lyrics of which would've given the NAACP a collective fit of apoplexy. Many of those popular old tunes, heard and bellowed in dance halls and saloons from New York to San Francisco during the 1880s, were not flattering to the darker races.

  There was a running war between uptime delegations and Frontier Tar owners over the playing of those songs, but no resolution was in sight. So the pianists played on, accustoming patrons to what they'd actually hear downtime-shocking, crude, racist, and all. Skeeter figured it beat having some uptime type throw a fit in the real downtime Denver, were more modern attitudes publicly and forcefully expressed would get a tourist into hot water fast.

  Skeeter shook his head. Some folks just didn't get it. Human beings weren't nice, given half a chance not to be. If crusaders with legitimate gripes wanted to fix things, getting into legal wrangles with station bar owners wasn't the way to do it. Couldn't change the past, no matter what you did, and the bar keepers were just doing their part to acclimatize customers, after all. Crusaders needed to stay uptime and pour their resources into causes that might actually do some good: like raising the level of education for uptimers of all colors and breeds of human being. Same went for those enviro-nuts who wanted to go downtime and save the environment. Besides, it was plain wrong to murder a bunch of downtime commercial hunters and loggers for doing what their time thought perfectly normal.

  For a half-wild, adopted Yakka Mongol, Skeeter just couldn't figure out what was so horrible about taking a good, long, clear-eyed look at one's past and facing whatever one found in it. Making up the past to fit whatever idea some politically correct group wanted to pass off as reality this week seemed a lot more dangerous to him than facing brutal facts, but then, he was just a half-wild, adopted Yakka Mongol in his innermost heart. What did he know from social theory and uptime politics?

  Chuck Farley was there ahead of him, sitting at a table near the front and sipping whiskey. Skeeter smiled his best and slid into a chair. Above the roar of piano and human voices, he said, "Evenin' pardner."

  Chuck smiled slowly. "Evenin'. Have a drink with me?"

  "Don't mind if I do."

  Farley signaled the waiter. A moment later, Skeeter was sipping some fine whiskey. Ahh ... "Now. You wanted to plan a trip to Denver?"

  Farley nodded. "What I really need is an experienced time guide to set up my trip and show me the ropes before I go through the gate."

  "Well sir, then I'm your man. But my fee is high."

  Farley reached into a coat pocket and extracted a bulging envelope. "Half of this is yours before we leave, half when we get back."

  "You realize, sir, that tickets to the Denver Gate go quickly; we'll need to purchase them right away." Skeeter half hoped that Farley would hand over the money right then.

  Instead, Farley put the envelope back and said, with the air of a man relieved not to have to bother with petty details, "I'll leave it to you, who knows the ropes, to make arrangements, then."

  Skeeter grinned philosophically. "Sure thing. Where and when shall we meet next?" If this envelope was only a fraction of what Farley carried in that undeclared money belt, Skeeter would soon be a rich man.

  Farley named a spot off the Commons in a quiet corridor near the Epicurean Delight. "We'll meet there in, say, an hour?" Farley added.

  "I'll be there." Skeeter smiled.

  "I'll be lookin' for you, pardner." Farley lifted his glass. "To adventure."

  Skeeter clinked glasses and drained his whiskey. "To adventure. See you in an hour." Perfect, he gloated. Just where I want him. Goldie's gone for good.

  He strolled out of the saloon and headed straight to the nearest money machine. He regretted having to front the ticket money himself, but he figured he needed to bait his hook with high-class worms to catch a rich fish. He then made his way to the Wild West Gate Time Tours ticket booth. "Hi, I'd like two spots on the Denver trip two weeks from now."

  "Sure, plenty of tickets left." The woman behind the glass-who knew Skeeter as well as any long-time 'eighty-sixer-frowned and said, "But let's see the cash, Jackson."

  He grinned, producing it with a flourish. The woman groaned. "Poor sucker. I pity him-or her. All right, here are your tickets."

  She stamped generic tickets for the correct departure date and handed them over. "Don't forget to tell your rube he'll need his time card with him," she added sarcastically.

  Clearly, she didn't expect Skeeter's supposed victim to make it anywhere near the Wild West Gate. Skeeter cheerfully blew her a kiss, then headed for the assignation with Farley behind the Delight. He whistled as he walked, tickets in his pockets, along with a little remaining cash of his own to buy supper with. He chuckled midwhistle. After he got possession of that money-belt, the little bit of his own money he carried would be insignificant by comparison.

  Dinner at the Delight would be a welcome change from frozen soy patties with "seared-in" so-called grill patterns to look like beef After the diet he'd grown accustomed to as a boy, they made him want to gag, but they kept body and soul together and just now, with the wager on, he couldn't afford luxuries like real beef in his freezer.

  The corridor behind the Delight was long and deserted at the moment. Bins and chutes leading to composting rooms and incinerators in the bowels of the station lined the walls. Skeeter propped his back and the sole of one foot against the wall, whistling still, and waited. A sound off to his left distracted him. He glanced down that way-

  Pain exploded through the back of his skull. He went down, knowing he was hurt, and felt his face connect with a monstrously hard floor. Then a cloth soaked in foul-smelling liquid covered his nose and mouth. He struggled briefly, cursing his stupidity and carelessness, but slid inexorably into a black fog even as hands searched his pockets.

  Then the darkness closed over him and left him inert against the floor.

  When he regained his senses, slowly, with a taste like the Gobi on his tongue and a sandstorm pounding the insides of his head, Skeeter groaned softly, then wished he hadn't. Drugged ... He struggled to sit up and nearly retched, but made it to a sitting position propped more or less against the wall. Fumbling hands searched, but the tickets and all of his money were missing. Had Farley rolled him? Or some opportunist amateur new to the station? Or just as likely-one of Goldie's agents?

  He cursed under his breath, winced, and gingerly touched his throbbing head He couldn't exactly report this mugging to Bull Morgan, now could he? "Hi, I was about to scam this uptimer when somebody jumped me with a sap and a chloroformed rag ... ."

  No, he wouldn't be talking to the Station Manager or anyone else about this one. Skeeter managed to gain his feet, then slid dizzily back to the floor and spent several miserable minutes bringing up the contents of his stomach. He was still coughing and wishing for a glass of water to rinse his mouth when hasty footsteps ran lightly his way.

  "Skeeter?" a female voice said anxiously.

  He looked up, wondering who she was. He didn't remember seeing her before.

  "Sk
eeter, you are ill! Oh, Ianira will be so upset! Here, let me help you."

  Her accent pegged her as a downtimer, probably Greek. Legs so wobbly he could barely stand unaided, he let her guide him through the back corridors to his own apartment, where she levered him expertly into the shower, stripped him down, and sluiced lukewarm water over his shivering body to clean up the mess. He leaned against the tiles, groaning, and pressed gingerly at the swelling on the back of his head.

  Whoever she was, she reappeared with a towel and helped him out of the shower, dried him expertly, and got him into a comfortable robe, then assisted him across the short stretch of floor to his bed. He couldn't have made the walk unaided. She disappeared again, returning with a glass of liquid.

  "Here. Sip this. It will settle your stomach and ease the pain in your head."

  He sipped. It didn't taste as bad as he'd expected. Skeeter finished the glassful, then groaned softly and leaned back into the pillows. She pulled the covers up over him, switched off the lights, and settled into a nearby chair to watch over him.

  "Hey," Skeeter mumbled, "thanks."

  "Sleep," she urged. "You have been hurt. Sleep will heal."

  Unable to argue with either her logic or the heaviness stealing across him, Skeeter closed his eyes and slept.

  Marcus found Lupus Mortiferus in Urbs Romae, skulking near the entrance to the Epicurean Delight. The gladiator's eyes widened when Marcus charged right toward his place of concealment. He thrust his hand into the box of money he'd so carefully saved up and yanked out a fistful of coins from a bag that matched the amount Skeeter had given him.

  "Here. This is yours."

  Lupus took the wad of heavy pouch without comment, just staring at him. He glanced down at the money, then back at Marcus. "What has happened?"

  Marcus laughed, a bitter sound that widened Lupus' eyes. "I have discovered an ugly truth, friend. I am a very great fool. The man who stole from you gave me that money. I thought he had won it fairly, betting at the Circus. Why I thought that, when he has never done an honest day's work in his life ... "