The policeman stared at me stonily.
“All right. We’ll stick to cases. Do you know a street vendor named J.R.?”
The sudden change of subject threw me off-stride.
“J.R.? Sure I know him. Don’t you remember? The last time I was here he was sitting ... ”
“How would you describe your relationship with the individual in question?” the captain interrupted.
“I guess you’d say we’re friends,” I shrugged. “I’ve been chatting with him off and on since I arrived on Perv, and, as you know, he helped me out that time I got into a fight.”
“Anything else?”
“No ... except we’re going into business together. That is, I’ve put up the money for a venture of his.”
The captain seemed taken aback. “You mean you admit it?” he said.
A little alarm started to ring in the back of my head.
“Sure. I mean, what’s so unusual about a businessman investing in a new enterprise?”
“Wait a minute. What kind of an enterprise did you think you were buying into?”
“He said he was going to open a retail storefront,” I said uneasily. “But he did say something about supplying the other street vendors for a while to build up his operating capital. Exactly what he was supplying I was never really sure.”
“You weren’t sure?”
“Well, the truth is I was in a hurry and forgot to ask. Why? What was he ... ”
“We just picked him up for smuggling! It seems your buddy and business partner was using your funds to buy and sell contraband!”
Needless to say, the news upset me. It had never occurred to me that, in his enthusiasm, J.R. would go outside the law for the sake of quick profits.
“How serious is it, Captain? Can I post bail for him ... or arrange for a lawyer?”
“Don’t worry about him,” the Pervect advised. “It turns out he has some information on the ax murderer we’ve been looking for and is willing to share it with us if we drop the smuggling charges. No, you should be more worried about yourself.”
“ME?”
“That’s right. You’ve admitted you’re his partner in this, which makes you just as guilty as he is.”
“But I didn’t know what he was going to do! Honest!”
Now I was worried. The whole thing was absurd, but I was starting to think I should have insisted on having a lawyer after all.
“That’s what you say,” the Captain said grimly. “Would you like to see what he was smuggling?”
He gestured at one of the other policemen in the room who held up several plastic bags with small items in them. I recognized them at a glance, a fact which did nothing for my peace of mind.
“Those are all products of the Acme Joke and Novelty Company,” the captain intoned. “A company I believe you’ve worked with in the recent past?”
“A team of my employees did some work there on a pilferage case,” I mumbled, not able to take my eyes off the items in the bags. “Are those things really illegal on Perv?”
“We have a lot of ordinances that try to keep the quality of life on Perv high. We haven’t been able to stop porn, but we have managed to outlaw trashy, practical joke items like Rubber Doggie Doodle with Realistic Life-Like Aroma that Actually Sticks to Your Hand.”
It seemed like a very minor achievement to me, considering the crime on the streets I had already been exposed to. I didn’t think that it was wise to point this out just now, though.
“Okay, Captain, let me rephrase my question,” I said, looking at the floor. “How much trouble am I in? I mean, what’s really involved here ... a fine, a jail term, what?”
The Pervect was so silent I finally raised my head to meet his gaze directly. He was looking at me with a flat, appraising stare.
“No charges. I’m letting you go,” he sighed finally, shaking his head.
“But I thought ... ”
“I said it depended on how the questioning went! Well, I just can’t believe you’d be stupid enough to get involved in this smuggling thing knowingly. If you had, you’d have protected yourself better than you did. What you did was dumb ... but just dumb enough to ring true.”
“Gee, thanks Captain. I ... ”
“No thanks necessary. Just doing my job. Now get outta here ... and Mister Skeeve?”
“I know,” I smiled, “don’t change hotels or leave the dimension without ... ”
“Actually,” the captain said drily without a trace of warmth in his voice. “I was going to suggest the exact opposite ... that you leave the dimension ... say, by tomorrow morning?”
“What?”
“I still think you smell of trouble, and these reports confirm it. The smuggling thing just seems like too much small potatoes for you to bother with. I’d rather see you gone than put you in jail on a piddling charge like that ... but it’s going to be one or the other, get me?”
I couldn’t believe it! Perv was the nastiest, roughest dimension around and I was being thrown off as an undesirable!!
I WAS SURPRISED to find Pookie waiting for me when I got back to the hotel. The police had been nice enough to wait until I had given her her check before hauling me off, so I had thought I’d never see her again.
“Hello, Pookie. What brings you here?”
“I wanted to talk a little business with you,” she said. “It didn’t seem the right time before, so I waited.”
“I see.”
After my last experience, I wasn’t wild about the idea of doing business with Pervects ... especially ones who didn’t want to talk in front of the police. Still, Pookie had given me no reason to distrust her.
“Okay. Come on upstairs and say what’s on your mind. It seems I’m leaving ... on request.”
If my statement seemed at all strange to her, she never let on. Instead, she fell in step with me as I entered the hotel.
“Actually, what I have to say shouldn’t take too long. If I understand correctly, you’re on your way off-dimension to rejoin your regular crew in a campaign against someone named Queen Hemlock. Right?”
“That’s a fair summation,” I nodded. “Why?”
“I thought I’d offer my services to you for the upcoming brawl. I can give you a special discount for work away from Perv because off-dimension prices are lower. That keeps my overhead down.”
She flashed me a smile that was gone almost as soon as it appeared.
For some reason, it had never occurred to me to hire her for the Hemlock campaign. Still, the idea had merit.
“I don’t know, Pookie,” I said, trying to weigh the pluses and minuses without taking too much time. “I’ve already got a couple of bodyguards waiting for me.”
“I know,” she nodded. “I can do more than bodyguard, and from the sound of the odds you can probably use a little extra help.”
“I can use a lot of help!” I admitted.
“Well, even though you couldn’t find your friend, it does show that you and yours don’t mind working with Pervects. Besides, I can travel the dimensions well enough to get us to Klah directly.”
That settled it. I had been unsure that my plan to simply remove my monitor ring would be an effective way to signal Massha for a pickup, and Pookie had just come up with a good way to get there. Whatever Massha was doing right now, I wasn’t wild about her dropping everything just to provide me with transport.
“All right. You’ve got yourself a job,” I announced. “Just give me a minute to get things together and well be off.”
That was my original plan, but as I opened the door to my room, I realized I had a visitor.
“Well, don’t just stand there with your mouth open. Are you coming or going?”
If there was any doubt in my mind as to who my visitor was, that greeting banished it.
“
AAHZ!”
After all my searching—and soul-searching—I couldn’t believe my mentor, friend, and partner was finally in front of my eyes, but there he was!
“That’s right. I heard you wanted to talk to me ... so talk.”
“I suppose it’s reassuring to know that some things never change, Aahzmandius ... like you.”
That last came from Pookie as she slipped past me into the room.
“Pookie!? Is that you?”
For the moment, Aahz seemed to be as dumbstruck as I was.
“You two know each other?”
Surprised and off-stride, I returned to familiar patterns and asked a redundant question.
“Know each other?” Aahz laughed. “Are you kidding? We’re cousins.”
“Distant cousins,” Pookie corrected without enthusiasm.
“Really? Why didn’t you say anything, Pookie?”
“You never asked.”
“But ... you knew I was looking for him!”
“Actually, it took me a while to put it together, and when I did, I didn’t know where he was either. Besides, to tell you the truth, from what I recall, I figured you’d be better off without him.”
“Well, well. Little Pookie! Still have the razor tongue, I see.”
“Not so little anymore, Aahzmandius,” the bodyguard said, a dangerous note creeping into her voice. “Try me sometime and you’ll see.”
It was clear the two of them weren’t on the best of terms. I felt it best to intercede before things got ugly.
“How did you get into my room?”
“Bribed the bellhop,” my old partner said, returning his attention to me. “Those guys would sell the key to their mother’s store if there was a big enough tip in it for them.”
An awkward silence followed. Desperately, I cast about for something to say.
“So how have you been, Aahz?” I ventured, realizing how lame it sounded. “You look great.”
“Oh, I’ve been swell ... just swell,” he spat. “As a matter of fact, it’s a good thing I saw your ad in the personals when I did. I was about to head off-dimension. I had forgotten how high the prices are around here.”
I made a mental note to pay off the bellhop. It looked like his idea of placing an ad had paid off better than all my running around.
“You can say that again,” I agreed. “I sure got ambushed by the cost. Of course, I’ve never been here before, so I couldn’t know ... ” I broke off, realizing he was staring at me.
“Which brings us back to my original question, Skeeve. What are you doing here and why do you want to talk to me?”
My moment had come, and if Aahz’s mood was any indication, I had better make my first pitch good. I probably wouldn’t get a second chance. Everything I had considered saying to him the next time we met face to face whirled through my head like a kaleidoscope, mixing randomly with my recent thoughts regarding myself.
My search had given me new insight into Aahz. Seeing the dimension that spawned and shaped him, having learned about his schooldays, and having met his mother, I had a much clearer picture of what made my old partner tick. While I was ready to use that information, I resolved never to let him know how much I had learned. Someday, when he was ready, he might share some of it with me voluntarily, but until then I felt it was best to let him think his privacy was still unbroached. Of course, that still left me groping for what to say here and now. Should I beg him to come back with me? Should I play on our friendship ... or use the campaign against Queen Hemlock to lure him back for just one more job?
Suddenly, Kalvin’s advice came back to me. There was no right or wrong thing to say. All I could do was try, and hope that it was good enough to reach my alienated friend. If not ...
Taking a deep breath, I gave it my best shot. “Mostly, I came to apologize, Aahz.”
“Apologize?”
My words seemed to startle him.
“That’s right. I treated you rather shabbily ... back before you left. I’ve got no right to ask you to come back, but I did want to find you to offer my apology and an explanation, for what it’s worth. You see ... ”
Now that I had started, my words poured out in a rush, popping out without conscious thought on my part.
“I was so afraid in my new position as head of M.YT.H. Inc. that I went overboard trying to live up to what I thought everybody expected of me. I tried to cover up my own weaknesses ... to appear strong, by doing everything without any help from anybody. I wouldn’t even accept the same help that had been given to me before I accepted the position, and either ignored or snapped at any offers of advice or assistance because I saw them as admissions of my own shortcomings.”
I looked at him steadily.
“It was a dumb, immature, jackass way to act, but worst of all it hurt my friends because it made them feel useless and unwanted. That was bad enough for Tananda and Chumley and the others, and I’ll be apologizing to them, too, but it was an unforgivable way to treat you.”
Licking my lips, I went for it.
“I’ve never been all that good with words, Aahz, and I doubt I’ll ever be able to tell you how much you mean to me. I said I couldn’t ask you to come back, and I won’t, but I will say that if you do come back, you’ll be more than welcome. I’d like a chance to show you what I can’t find the words to say ... that I admire you and value the wisdom and guidance you’ve always given me. I can’t promise that I’ll be able to change completely or immediately, but I’m going to try ... whether you come back or not. I do know it’ll be easier if you’re there to box my ears when I start to slip. I wish ... well, that’s all. It doesn’t start to even things out, but you’ve got my apology.”
I lapsed into silence, waiting for his response.
“You know, Skeeve, you’re growing up. I think we both forget that more often than we should.”
Aahz’s voice was so soft I barely recognized it as his.
“Does that mean you’ll come back?”
“I ... I’ll have to think about it,” he said, looking away. “Let me get back to you in a couple of days. Okay?”
“I’d like to, but I can’t,” I grimaced. “I’ve got to leave tonight.”
“I see,” Aahz’s head snapped around. “You could only allow so much time for this little jaunt, huh? Work piling up back at the office?”
An angry, indignant protest rose to my lips, but I fought it back. From what he knew, Aahz’s assumption wasn’t only not out of line, it was a logical error.
“That’s not it at all,” I said quietly. “If you must know, the local police have told me to be off-dimension by morning.”
“What!!?? You’ve been tossed off Perv?”
My old partner’s eyes fixed on Pookie with cold fury.
“What have you two been up to that could get you tossed off a dimension like this?”
“Don’t look at me, cousin! This is the first I’ve heard of it. The last thing I knew he was heading off-dimension because he couldn’t find you.”
“That was before my last interview with the police,” I supplied. “Really, Aahz, Pookie had nothing to do with it. It’s a little mess I got into on my own over ... the details aren’t really important right now. The bottom line is that I can’t hang around while you make up your mind.”
“Well someday I want to hear those ‘unimportant details’,” Aahz growled. “In the meantime, I suppose you can go on ahead and I’ll catch up with you after I’ve thought things out.”
“Um ... actually, if you decide to come, I’ll be over on Klah, not on Deva.”
I tried to make it sound casual, but Aahz caught it in a flash.
“Klah? What would take you back to that backwater dimension?”
There was no way around the direct question. Besides, my old mentor’s tone of voice called for a no-nonsense answer.<
br />
“Well, there’s a problem I’ve got to deal with there. Remember Queen Hemlock? It seems she’s on the move again.”
“Hemlock?” Aahz frowned. “I thought you cooled her jets with a ring that wouldn’t come off.”
I decided it wasn’t the time to ask what a jet was.
“I did,” I acknowledged. “She sent it back to me ... finger and all. It looked like a pretty clear announcement and a warning that she was all set to launch her world conquest plans again ... and wasn’t about to put up with any interference.”
“ ... And you’re about to go up against her alone? Without even mentioning it to me?”
“I ... I didn’t think it would be fair to try to pressure you with it, Aahz. Face it, the way things seem to go there will always be some kind of trouble cropping up. You can’t be expected to spend your life covering my tail every time I get in a scrape. Besides, I’m not going to try to take her on myself. In fact, the rest of the team is already there. I sent them on ahead while I came to look for you.”
I was expecting an explosion and a lecture. Instead, Aahz seemed to be studying my face.
“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” he said finally. “Your home dimension is under attack ... and instead of leading the team in the campaign, you put it all on hold to come looking for me?”
When he put it that way, it did sound more than a little irresponsible.
“Well ... yes,” I stammered. “But I told Massha to come pick me up at the end of a week. I figured that I’d have to go and pitch in at that point, whether I had found you or not.”
Aahz started to say something, then shook his head. Heaving a great sigh, he tried again.
“Skeeve ... don’t worry about not being able to find the right words. I think you’ve given me a pretty good idea of what I really mean to you.”
“I did?”
He nodded.
“Enough that I’ve decided I don’t need any more time to make up my mind. Grab your stuff, partner. Let’s get going. Are you square with the hotel, or do you still have to settle accounts?”
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