“Haven’t asked. Too thirsty,” Aahz said, draining his bucket of beer. He caught the eye of a barmaid, who hurried over. I didn’t complain. What was another moment or two in what could prove to be a lengthy search?
A small, brown-skinned fellow in a high-necked robe appeared beside him. I couldn’t place the style of the puffy, illustrative embroidery, but it was of high quality. Gold and silver thread had been couched among the more ordinary silks.
“Hey, Looie! Skeeve, I want to introduce you to Looie. He’s the client I told you about.”
“This is Skeeve the Magnificent?” Looie asked, bald brow ridges rising on his forehead. “This is a boy!”
“Looks can be deceiving,” I intoned in a sepulchral voice. “Would I have gotten friendly information from the innkeeper looking like . . . this?”
With that, I spread out my arms and assumed my elderly-wizard disguise. Looie backed up a pace.
“Er, no . . . I suppose not.” He whipped his hand in a deferential circle and inclined his head. “Duke Looistankos de Mishpaka, at your service.”
I tilted my head an inch. “Your Lordship. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. May I introduce the rest of our company? Tananda and Chumley. Markie. Gleep . . .”
“Gleep!” said my dragon, snaking his head up on his long neck. He shot his tongue out to lave the face of our visitor. I whipped a fragment of magik in his way, and Gleep licked the air. He dropped his chin with a look of deep disappointment toward me. I gestured sharply. My dragon slunk to my side and set his chin firmly on my foot. I favored our visitor with a wintry smile.
“And this is my employer, Bunny.”
“Your employer?” Looie asked. I had no idea that somebody could pour so much scorn into a single word. Then he gasped.
Disguise magik can conceal, but one of the things it’s really good for is enhancement. Digging deep into the thick blue force line running along just outside the inn, I gave the spell all I had.
Bunny normally wore her hair cut short around her ears, but I gave her the flowing, waist-length crimson locks of a fairy-tale princess. Her skin, though very nearly perfect, now had a literal inner glow. She exuded light. The diaphanous silk dress of the same pale blue as her real clothes hugged curves I did not need to enhance in any way. I did tweak the appearance of the neckline down most of the way to her navel. I drew on my memory of how Bunny had looked in an abbreviated bathing suit to get the, er, details right. Precious stones gleamed from her ears and wrists, but those only emphasized her beauty. I could tell by the breathless expression on Looie’s face that I had succeeded in impressing him.
“Dear lady,” he said, unable to keep his eyes from sweeping up and down Bunny’s form. “I had no idea that such a vision as you was behind this, er, company.” He stumbled closer, almost dazed. Bunny stuck a perfect hand into his face, stiff-arming him at a distance.
“Put your eyes back in your head and sit down,” Bunny said. A glance from her told me I had better show her later how she looked. I was not afraid that she could handle Looie. She was the niece of Don Bruce, leader of the Mob, as well as our president, and was used to dealing with difficult people.
Looie felt for the nearest empty bar stool and pulled it close, all without taking his eyes from her.
“If I may say so, my beautiful maiden, I would not have believed that such a marvel as you would be found in this ersatz wonderland.”
Bunny smirked.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” she said, extending a delicate little hand. Looie reached for it and planted a smacking kiss on the back. He turned it over and pursed his lips for another kiss on the plump palm. Bunny snatched her hand back, wiping her skin with a handkerchief. She dropped the now-soiled cloth to the floor.
“Wait until we know each other better,” she said.
“I hope that’s soon,” Looie said, a dreamy look on his face like those of the Mooncalfs of Olwinnie. He cleared his throat and regained his composure. “My lady, I hate to sound disapproving, but your representative here said you would find my treasure for me immediately. I am paying top coin for your services. It has been the better part of a day already. I want it back now!”
Aahz growled.
“I never said we could whip it together in one day, pal,” my partner said. “I said we’d start looking for it immediately.”
“That’s not acceptable!” Looie exclaimed, bounding up and down impatiently. “You have to find it before someone uses it! It disappears the moment you invoke its spell! I want it now!”
“Come on over here, Mr. Looie,” Bunny said, patting the bar stool next to her. He hurried to hop up on it, never taking his eyes from her. She signaled to the barmaid, who hurried over, carrying a tray laden with glasses. “Now, just how long have you been looking for this Loving Cup?”
“Two months!” Looie exclaimed. He gulped half the beer the barmaid set down in front of him. “I must have it back at once! The future of my kingdom depends on it!”
Bunny reached out to where his hand rested on the table and touched the back of it with one fingernail. He quivered visibly. She flicked the nail back and forth. Looie sat mesmerized.
“Now, you know things don’t happen that quickly, especially when it comes to important magik items like that,” she said, in a purr that I would normally have associated with Tananda. “If someone stole it from your treasury, then we can’t just march in and demand it back. It just doesn’t work that way. The thieves would protect it with their lives, wouldn’t they? If it vanished of its own accord, then we have to follow the trail. Why do you think it’s here?”
“Because my oth—I mean, I traced it here!”
Bunny shook her head, making the lush tresses sway from side to side, and clicked her tongue.
“Tsk tsk! You have another agent seeking it? Have you terminated that contract?”
Looie’s face turned purple.
“I don’t have to tell you who else I have on its trail!”
That didn’t sound to me or my partners as though there were only one other concern out there.
“How many agents do you have working for you?” I asked.
“It’s none of your business if I have other agents!” Looie hissed.
“Sure it is our business,” Markie said. She took a large green lollipop from her child-sized handbag and licked it, looking more like a Klahdish child than ever. “If we’re competing for the same prize, you’re paying multiple specialists for the same mission.”
“I never said that,” Looie said, with a vicious smile. “I only pay the one who brings the Loving Cup to me.”
We all turned to Aahz.
“That ain’t what you told me, bud,” Aahz said, in a low, dangerous voice. The ochre veins in his yellow eyes began to throb. Looie pursed his lips in a smug smirk.
“Didn’t I? Maybe if you had listened to my conditions more carefully, you wouldn’t be spending so freely. A private suite!”
“Is there any other kind in Winslow?” Tananda said.
“Of course there is! They have staff dormitories, and tents, and cabins, and birdhouses, and . . .”
“I ain’t plannin’ to pop out of a birdhouse like a Cuckoo every morning just because you want to save a couple of bucks, pal,” Aahz said. “And sleeping bags are for the infantry.”
Looie folded his arms. “Then come and go from your own dimension. Great magicians like you purport to be can do that with a wave of your hand! I . . . I mean, other visitors have often come here on day trips.”
I put on my most austere expression. “And miss the whispers that the night breezes bring to us?” I intoned. “You wish us to locate this object for you? Do you not consider that to be a day-in and day-out task?”
He was no more impressed with my logic than JR Grimble would have been while discussing my expense report in Possiltum.3
“Yo
u refuse to be reasonable?” Looie asked, his eyebrows high on his balding forehead. “Then I withdraw my commission. Go back to Deva. I’ll use other means to locate the Loving Cup. I don’t need you! Give me back my deposit!”
“Sorry,” Aahz said, leaning back into the corner. “We’ll need it to cover our expenses to date.”
“Not a chance! No cup, no coin! I’ll call the authorities! Winslow has very strict laws. You’ll be thrown in jail for years! All of you!” He glared at us but regarded Bunny with longing tinged with regret.
“Now, Duke Looie,” Bunny purred, leaning close to him. “Let’s be reasonable. If there was a misunderstanding, it sounds as if it was on both sides of the agreement. I employ Aahz because of his deep perception and shrewdness. If he thought you promised expenses for the search, then that was the deliberate impression you gave him. We took the job on good faith.”
Looie shook his head. “Your Pervert didn’t understand my terms. I said nothing about expenses being separate from the reward!”
“That’s Per-VECT!”
Bunny took a deep breath. It made her chest heave. Looie couldn’t resist following every movement of her body. She reached over and tilted his chin up with a cocked finger.
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea to renegotiate the whole deal?” Bunny asked. Looie gazed into her eyes, almost panting.
“Eh, maybe. Perhaps we can go somewhere more . . . private and discuss the terms?”
“Perhaps we can,” Bunny said.
Looie grabbed her wrist and hopped off his stool. “Let’s go!”
I swooped in and loomed over him. Bunny and I had decided that we were better off friends than potential mates, but I felt a swell of anger at this male’s casual possessiveness.
“Unhand the lady Bunny,” I boomed, reasserting my Skeeve the Magnificent disguise.
Looie looked at me with undisguised scorn.
“Madam, would you have your minion withdraw?” he asked, sounding pained. “It seems he doesn’t know his place.”
Bunny turned to me and flicked her free hand in my direction. “You may go, Skeeve,” she said. She tucked her arm through Looie’s. “Where to, big spender?”
“Bunny!” I exclaimed. She deliberately turned her head to avoid my gaze.
Looie almost bounced as he led her toward the door.
“This way, dear lady. This way!”
CHAPTER FIVE
“One must be relentless in pursuit of one’s goals.”
—INSP. JAVERT
I watched them go with my heart in my shoes. Tananda came up and curled herself around me. Her teeth nibbled on my earlobe.
“She can take care of herself, Skeeve,” she assured me. “Remember that she used to be a moll in her uncle’s Mob. She isn’t helpless.”
But I felt helpless. “How could she even think of throwing herself at that worm? He’s not worth it!”
“It’s just for show,” Markie said. But even she looked uncertain. “Looie is clearly a guy who likes to think he’s important. She’s letting him think so. As soon as we hand over the item, she’ll drop him like a hunk of rotten meat.”
“But what about . . . ?” I stopped. I guessed that what she did with Looie was none of my business, but when she came to work with us full-time, part of the deal was that she didn’t have to, well, give it all for the job. Her mind was her best tool. The fact that she was beautiful was a bonus, but it also caused a lot of males’ minds to stop short with her appearance instead of seeing through to the intelligent woman inside. Normally she played on that weakness. This time she had thrown herself into the perception. I worried about her state of mind.
“Don’t make assumptions,” Tananda warned me. “There’s a thousand ways to make a man feel like a king that have nothing to do with that. Even if she does, though, you don’t have to worry about it. It’s her choice.”
“It’s too much, though,” I said, very worried now. “He’s just one client. We just don’t need this mission that badly.”
“Maybe she thinks we do,” Aahz said, with a thoughtful look on his face. “And I’m going to find out why.”
“All right,” I said, slamming my fist into my palm. “I guess we start looking.”
The man behind the bar signaled to me with a raised eyebrow. I sidled over casually, resuming my normal appearance—no one in the bar seemed to notice me changing back and forth—and leaned over as if to get a refill of my drink.
“Fancy magikal items are all over this dimension,” he said. “Tough call. There’s thousands, you know that?”
“I can guess,” I said. “So, how do I find out if this Loving Cup is one of them?”
He shrugged. “I’ll put the word in to the Central Help Desk that you’re looking for it, sir.” I reached for my belt pouch. “Oh, no, sir. Everything is included. Your previous gratuity was much appreciated.”
I couldn’t miss the emphasis on the last two words. “There will be more if you help me find it. How long will it take?”
“Couldn’t tell you, sir,” he said, picking up an already spotless glass to polish. “It could take months.”
“Months!” I squawked. A few of the patrons turned to look at me. “We don’t have months.”
He looked apologetic. “I am really sorry, sir. This isn’t something I normally do. Couldn’t I just tell you tales of guts and glory? Listen to your troubles? Fix you up with a pretty girl? There’s a couple been giving you the eye since you came in. They like magicians.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively and nodded toward the side of the room, the one away from the ongoing brawl. Two girls, one with long blond hair and the other with midnight-black tresses, waggled their fingers at me and giggled.
“No, thanks,” I said. I turned away with a sigh.
“’Scuse me,” said a voice at about my knee level. I looked down. A big black-and-tan creature on four legs looked up at me from bloodshot brown eyes. “Couldn’t help but overhear—with ears like mine it’s an occupational hazard, you might say—heard you mention that you were lookin’ for something. Wonder if I can help? Name’s Haroon. From Canida. Haroon.” He stretched out the second syllable of his name until it overwhelmed the sound of breaking glass. I winced. I extended a hand, and he offered his right front paw.
“Nice to meet you, Haroon,” I said. I didn’t try to emulate his pronunciation. “I’m Skeeve.”
“Heard that, too,” he said. “And your friends. Aahz. Gleep. Tananda. Chumley. Markie.”
“Nosy, aren’t ya?” Aahz asked, glaring at him. Haroon touched his large black nose with his paw.
“Yep, goes with the territory. But I keep everything under my hat. Confidential investigator, that’s me. You ask for references, I can’t give ’em to you. My client list is private.”
“Then how do we decide if you can do what we need you to do?” I asked.
“Give you a free sample,” Haroon said. He stood up on his hind legs and sniffed me all over. “You’re stayin’ in the Round Castle,” he said. Another thoughtful sniff. “Room 208. Pinky gave you your gift basket.”
“You could have found that out from Fedda,” Markie said.
He dropped down from my shoulders and sniffed Markie all over. She stood still but wore an expression of undisguised annoyance. Haroon licked his jowls with a long pink tongue.
“Y’all are in 215, but you went into that fellah’s room, there, afterward.” He aimed his nose at me. “You got its scent on your shoes.”
“You know all the rooms here?” I asked in amazement. Haroon glanced modestly to one side.
“I know every square inch of this place. Come here on all my vacations. Love the smells, and I like the people. I help ’em out with a little problem or two once in a while. Don’t need to do it too often, but the management knows it can count on me. M’fees are reasonable. Love to sniff out the truth.�
�
“Party tricks,” snarled Aahz. “You’re good at reading people, that’s all.”
“Just with my nose, friend,” Haroon drawled. “Happy to help you.”
Tananda reached over to fondle the Canidian’s floppy jowls. “Well, I think he’s cute. We ought to give him a chance.”
Haroon wagged his tail. I had never met a male of any species who could resist Tanda’s charms.
“Much obliged, ma’am. It’d be my pleasure.”
“What can you do?” I said. “We’ve never seen the Loving Cup. It could be anywhere in this dimension, if it’s still here.”
“Wal, you might not have seen it yourself,” Haroon said, “but your cranky li’l friend did. He’s been where it was, likely held it a mite himself. So, I’ll just mosey up and take a good sniff of his scent.” The Canidian levered himself up and ran his large black nose around the wooden top of the bar stool. He took a further deep sniff at the beer glass that Looie had briefly held.
“Got lots of magik back where he hails from,” Haroon said. “Luckily he don’t wash his hands any too often.” I grimaced at the thought. Haroon tipped me a wise look. “Poor hygiene helps my kind a lot. Can’t say I like a bath myself, but we Canidians keep clean so we don’t get confused with other people’s scents.”
Aahz looked bored.
“So, now you’re going to pretend to follow his trail? Then you’ll conveniently say you lost it, but we still owe you a fee?”
Haroon looked up at him with open contempt.
“Lissen, Pervert, I been working trails for longer than you been around, and I can smell how old you are to within about a day. Why not give the old guy a chance? That’s what your Klahd friend here would say.”
“That’s Per-VECT!” Aahz bellowed. The chandelier danced on its ceiling chain.
Haroon squinted up at him.
“What’s that? Mite hard of hearing, you might say. Ne’mind. I just calls ’em like I smells ’em.” Haroon investigated my partner. “Hm. Well, I take that back a little. Call you what you like, then.”
Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits Page 4