Chapter 8
From the moment Valiant set hoof inside the city, Tats could feel a certain energy. Within two blocks, he had seen at least two businesses that had to be brand new, so fresh and clean were their exteriors. And even those that weren’t seemed as if they had been recently refurbished. But there was something else. It was in the air—invisible but nearly palpable. Perhaps it radiated from the people he passed on the streets, a kind of optimism. It certainly was a sensation he had never felt in Sivingdel.
He knew just what kind of establishment he needed to look for in order to begin his search for Becca, but that made it no less daunting. He didn’t have even the slightest idea where such businesses were located, and his weak grasp of Sodorfian wasn’t going to be the slightest help.
But as businesses of every time and locale often make liberal use of that medium which requires literacy in no language, Tats decided he would carefully scan the images outside each establishment for clues as to what services might be rendered therein. He also considered that any place selling alcohol would be a worthwhile object of investigation, especially if he did not soon encounter any locale that advertised the services of women in a more audacious manner.
Before entering town, he had made certain to carefully secure his large sample of Green (about a pound) within a hidden pocket on the inside of his right pant leg. The last thing he wanted was for some pickpocket to divest him of the only thing making this trek worthwhile.
After about thirty minutes, he had seen several saloons but not a single location openly offering the service of ladies. That didn’t surprise him too much, as in Sivingdel such locations were usually only in the seediest parts of town, and most preferred to advertise by word of mouth, as that was also more preferable to the police and the general community.
By the time a full hour had gone by, he decided he was going to enter the next saloon he saw. About five minutes later, he saw one, tied up Valiant outside, and dismounted. He had paid several thousand falons for the rope used to tie up Valiant, as it possessed tightly wound steel threads in its center.
The seller had produced a sample, tied it between two points, and invited Tats to try his luck at cutting through it with the knife of his choice. Tats had pulled out his own dagger, which was sharp enough to shave with, and put all his back into it, sawing and hacking, but it had been of no use.
Tats had then happily purchased such a rope, and he felt it was worth every falon now, as it eased his mind considerably as he parted company with his beloved Valiant and headed towards the saloon.
He soon realized that finding his first whore was not going to be that difficult. There was a woman in his face practically before the door had even shut behind him. He didn’t understand every word she was saying, but he felt he had the gist of it, so he simply asked, “How much?”
She giggled when she heard his accent, revealing a beautiful smile. She apparently seemed more confident in her Seleganian than his Sodorfian, so she responded in his language, “A hundred velurs, one hour,” with no lack of awkwardness in her implementation of the Seleganian accent.
He wasn’t quite sure what the falon was trading at relative to the velur, but based upon what Mr. Brass had told him he expected the nearly once-equal falon was now beginning to lag behind its foreign neighbor, so he pulled out 120 falons and asked, in Sodorfian, “Enough?”
She giggled slightly and nodded her head and then introduced herself as “Rose.” He wasn’t quite sure if he had accurately calculated the currency or if she merely had sympathy for her bungling foreign client. Either way, her soft fingers were soon interlaced with his somewhat calloused ones, and she was leading him towards a stairway.
The longer he walked with her, the more nervous he felt. He had come in here for nothing other than intelligence-gathering, and yet he could not ignore the fact that Rose was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life, far prettier, for sure, than any woman he had ever been with, and not that he had been with so many. Deep down, he was a bit of a romantic at heart, and while he had visited such establishments in Selegania enough times to make sure he had been properly educated on such matters, he had always hoped deep down to find a woman he could truly fall in love with.
While logic would clearly dictate Rose was not the one, the heart rarely listens to reason, and he felt his heart pitter-pattering at treble the rate of his footsteps. She was dark-haired, curvy but not ostentatiously so, and with sparkling white teeth and a kind countenance. As soon as they reached their destination, she quickly showed Tats a fiercer side, but that only served to further sequester his heart.
About forty minutes later, they both lay side by side, sweaty and talking in a combination of broken Sodorfian and Seleganian. Tats realized that around a year ago, before he met Mr. Brass, he would have been thinking about one thing and one thing only—the painful bruise $120 would leave on his wallet. But that was about as significant to him now as the purchase of a single piece of candy. He had a million falons buried in his miserable shack that he called his house, but he had been starting to look for a more suitable set of walls to call home.
The average man often says what he would and would not do in certain situations, but he is unaware of the drastic extent to which harsh financial realities shape his paradigm for what is, and what is not, practical behavior. Tats himself would have denied most vociferously a year or two ago what he was about to do.
Running his hands through Rose’s hair, he looked at her in the eye and said, “Marry me.”
Rose burst out laughing. She had had her fair share of older suitors, and they could perhaps be forgiven for presuming themselves capable of sweeping a damsel off her feet with their impressive displays of currency, but the audacity of this young, foreign man both amused and perplexed her.
“I your first?” she asked, giggling uncontrollably.
“No,” Tats said, smiling but not laughing. “But I know what I want when I find it,” he said with a relaxed, but confident, tone.
“You pay now,” she said. It wasn’t exactly a war cry, but her giggling was gone. She didn’t want this young romantic getting hurt by one of the ferocious bouncers outside, but if it was going to come to that she supposed it would be better to have it happen sooner rather than later, as she herself had felt more than typically fond of this young man.
“Easy,” Tats said in a soothing tone, as he put $500 falons into her hand with casualness of a man supplying a tissue.
Rose’s head was certainly spinning now. She had taken this young man for a well-meaning young fool on a crash course with some rather nasty enforcers who worked for the establishment, but clearly this young man had a lot more to him than met the eye. She looked him over closely, wondering how her perception of him could have been so misguided the first time. There was a strength in his eye that she had missed, or perhaps he had been hiding it from her. But she saw it now.
Returning to her more jovial mood, she handed him back three of the one-hundred falon bills that he had given her.
“Tip too much you!” she said giggling.
“No, no,” Tats said. “I need help.” He handed her one of the hundred-falon bills back while simultaneously pushing a small picture in front of her face. It was a painting of Becca done about ten years ago. She had likely aged since then, but it was a lot better than a verbal description in broken Sodorfian.
Rose quickly pushed the picture back to him.
“Who are you? Policeman?!” she asked. She did not appear happy.
“Brother,” he said, pointing to himself. “Sister,” he then said, pointing to the picture.
Rose looked at him suspiciously. She had certainly never met such an intriguing customer. She was twenty-one and had been doing this job for five years. Whereas most in her profession spent their earnings on booze and cards—or on Smokeless Green, although that was a new phenomenon—Rose had saved a significant portion of money, for she ha
d promised herself she wouldn’t do this job more than ten years.
She studied his eyes closely, and sure enough, she did see a faint resemblance to the gaze of Rucifus, one of the most feared people in the underworld of Sodorf City and certainly the most feared woman. She was the madam of about half the city’s brothels and of about nine-tenths of the upscale ones. Rose had only met her once up-close and seen her from a distance on half a dozen or so occasions, but the memory of her terrible gaze had seared itself into her memory like a scalding brand onto cowhide.
Yet in this young man, she saw only a semblance of that gaze. It contained much of the strength, but little of the malevolence. Her intuition told her he was telling the truth.
Tats noticed poor Rose was trembling slightly.
“It’s okay,” he reassured her. “She’s my sister. I haven’t seen her in many years,” he said in Seleganian, hoping at least the gist of his message was understood.
She knew where Rucifus lived, although she wasn’t supposed to. It was a large mansion in an affluent part of town, and a braggart client had once boasted to her of a magnificent party there. Sheer curiosity had prompted Rose to ask where it was, and the same force had prompted her to ride by it one day on horseback.
She had paused on her horse for a brief moment, looking at what little of the castle-like mansion could be seen from afar like a peasant gazing upon a royal palace. Rolling, well-manicured lawns added to the beauty of the palatial abode, although much of the view was blocked by tall pine trees along the edge of the property.
She wondered what it might be like to one day live in such a fine estate, but her reverie had been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a scowling guard, after which she had prodded her horse to move along quickly.
Tats sensed something was keeping Rose on the fence, so he put the other $200 falons into her hand. This time she clasped them tightly, for she now knew she was going to earn every last one of them.
“You remember,” she began, with apprehension pulsating from her voice, “you never met me. You no know me. I not tell you anything.”
Tats nodded.
“You leave now. Go drink downstairs or something. I leave 3 a.m. You wait outside. You follow but stay far. I stop in front of her house and fix hair. You turn around and go other direction. You no come back until next day. You hear?”
Tats nodded.
The International Businessman Page 9