Lawrie wears his shit-eating grin like he does his excess of perfume — you just can't imagine the man without either.
"No new burns, Alnam?" He claps Alnam on the shoulder.
"What's up, Lawrie?"
The bar is shady. Lawrie doesn't look one bit out of place here.
"One word: Fu-Bar. Or should we count it as two, hyphen and all?"
"I'd like to know how you know I'm on it."
"I'm with the R motherfucking I, Alnam. I stands for intelligence."
"I went to a Joint Commission meeting the day before yesterday. No offense, but intelligence doesn't seem like the RI's strong suit."
"You're looking at the last man on Coruscant to debate that."
"But, of course, it's not the case with you, huh?"
Alnam knows he's going too far — but he needs to rile himself up before tasting this beer. "Anyway. How's your embassy case?"
"Like you don't know. They took me off it — soon as you got attacked. A non-Republic planet," Lawrie says in a mockingly high-pitched voice, "and the observer from another agency gets shot at — we cannot afford risking any complications! Well. I can see the point, if we assume it's necessary in the first place to send observers just because the planet is a non-Republic one."
"But it's still your case, isn't it?"
"Told you it's not. Not anymore."
"Come on, Lawrie. I won't believe you're not keeping tabs on it whatever the honchos say."
"But you believe I'd tell you something like that? Let's make a deal: you won't question this — and I won't question whom you were arresting and how it ended with half the fucking building being fucked."
Alnam throws his hands up: a deal it is.
He looks at his beer. Time doesn't make it look or smell better.
"So what was it about you and Fu-Bar?" he asks eyeing the rim of his glass. No avoiding it: time to take a gulp. Make it a good big old one, so there's less left for the future gulps.
"You thought I was a weirdo," Lawrie says. "Back on Telos."
Alnam turns his head to the left and to the right — but not fast enough to take it for a gesture of disagreement. "Good intel, Lawrie. Color me impressed."
"Yeah, yeah. I know how I sounded. It's just, uh... all these Human supremacists are a big deal for me. I mean, they should be for everyone, okay? In today's crazy climate... Anyway. That's not the point. I'm working another case. Have been for more than a year. You heard of the Refugee Relief Movement?"
"Sure." Alnam suppresses a belch.
"It's a good idea, right? A noble idea. Helping the people the government deports from Coruscant because their homeworlds have sided with the CIS. Very noble. It's just that you can't resettle all of them somewhere nice. Like you can't really deport all of them to somewhere not so nice. It's not feasible regardless of how you go about it. So in the end, the large majority of the Gossam and Neimoidians and the rest of those co-called untrustworthy species remains here. But just because they weren't deported doesn't mean they are treated well. Doesn't mean they don't need help. You listening?"
Alnam rubs his nasal bridge. "I'm trying to figure out how it's related to Fu-Bar."
"Doesn't mean they don't need help. Maybe they need it more than those who are deported. So the Relief Movement had this subsidiary, the Center for Helping the Targeted."
"On Coruscant?"
"Yes. For providing help to those who had to stay. You noticed how I said 'had the subsidiary?' They don't anymore. Things got ugly between the leadership. But the Center kept working as its own thing." Lawrie sends his glass gliding across the table: from his right hand to the left one, then back. "I was assigned to check its activities. Can't say it was something I wanted."
"A refugee help center doesn't strike me as something the military intelligence should be checking."
"It's not refugee, it's the targeted... whatever. The higher-ups think as soon as you stop treating any person from a CIS-allied world as utter garbage, you become a vulnerability in the defense of our Republic. Take your father: he didn't even express his sympathies. Just his political beliefs."
Alnam takes another gulp. This one doesn't taste so bad.
"And everybody, everybody started shitting on him," Lawrie says. "They were scared the Center could receive funding from the CIS. That would be a military thing — far as they're concerned."
"Do they? Receive money from Raxus, I mean?"
Lawrie makes a big sip. "That's an ongoing investigation."
So they do.
"That's beside the point whether they do or they don't," Lawrie says — likely in response to reading Alnam's understanding. "What I can tell you is that the Center is a fucking shade of what it was intended to be. A front for money laundering — that's the best case. The worst would be financing terrorists."
Lawrie sighs. "It's hard seeing it like this. At first, when I just took this case, the Center astonished me. Inspired me. They really were helping people. But now... Anyway. I didn't call you here to lecture you on refugee help organizations. So. A bunch of people run their dirty money through the CHT, and poof — their money becomes clean; fucking pristine, really. You won't believe how few questions the government asks about charity money."
"I will. I also will believe how little taxes non-profits pay: none. Better tell me how they take their money back out of the Center," Alnam asks.
"That's an excellent question. Exactly the one I'm after."
"Fu-Bar," Alnam reminds him.
"I'm getting to it. You yourself said it: the non-profit NGOs pay zero taxes. Worse, they have zero accountability. You know how they do it? I'm telling you, you won't guess it."
Alnam gestures his lack of guesswork.
"I first heard about it with the Center," Lawrie continues. "So they are a non-profit, right? This means no taxes. But — the government isn't stupid, as it wants us to believe. Of course there are mechanisms for ensuring non-profits behave. That they don't spend all the charity money on stuff like private spaceships. So there are audits for the non-commercial organizations. You can have as many as you want — and the best thing, you can do it without a prior notice. You just show up at their doors with the documents — and you audit the shit out of them. But — and the only 'but' more important to me than this one is my wife's — the CHT doesn't stay non-commercial all the time. Would be boring, you know? So when it comes to an audit, they just say, 'Oh, sorry, but we are a business. Here are our papers, here's everything, here's this and here's that. We're providing legal consulting services to the targeted individuals. We're making money — so you can't check us.' And since it's a business, you can only audit it once a year — and only after you notify them three months in advance."
"How's it possible?"
"That it's both a particle and a wave? Nothing is impossible when you grease the right palm."
It's all very interesting. Not interesting enough to spend a Benduday in a shitty pub with Lawrie, though.
"And Fu-Bar is the key to putting a stop to it," Alnam muses. "Forgive me if I don't see the connection."
"Not putting a stop to it what interests me. Not my job. I need to know if the CHT gives money to any pro-Separatist groups, and if so, I need to know if any of those groups are dangerous."
"Are you implying there are pro-Separatist groups that aren't?"
Alnam can believe there are. It's Lawrie's insistence that most of them aren't that drives him up the wall.
"Let's not get into it," Lawrie says. "There's a difference between someone protesting mistreatment of sentients and someone putting a bomb under a subway bench."
"Doesn't mean the same people can't do both."
"Whatever. Never said it did. That's not important. I want to know if the Center is financing any real or potential terrorist cells."
"Let me guess, Lawrie. You want to make sure nothing threatens the cause. A splinter group funding terrorists would cast a bad light on the Refuge Relief Movement, wouldn't it?"
"And you don't think that helping the deported is a good thing?"
"I'm trying to figure out what your course of action will be if you find out they indeed give money to bombers. Because, you see, covering it all up won't sit right with me. So if you're planning on something like that, you'd better find another partner."
Lawrie stops playing with his glass. "I'm not interested in covering up for terrorists. You can fuck right off with your assumptions."
"So what if condemning them would reflect badly on the RRM? Will you do it?"
"I told you: fuck off."
"Gladly." Alnam finishes his beer before getting off his chair.
He hopes — half-assedly — Lawrie isn't bluffing.
Lawrie catches him at the door. Literally — grabs him by the lapels — literally. "How dare you even say that? Huh? Call me a terrorist sympathizer? Are you one of those COMPOR fucktards who think if you don't want the Sep-worlders down under your boot, you must be for exterminating us Humans? Huh?"
"Cool the fuck down," Alnam says in Lawrie's red face, "or I'll break your fucking nose."
"Oh yeah? Like I'm—"
He can't finish: Alnam punches him in the gut. Lawrie jackknifes.
"Are we gonna start a scene," Alnam says through his teeth, "or are you gonna let me walk out?"
Lawrie still stands in his way.
"You hit like a girl," he says. "How about that: we're gonna go have another beer."
"Drink this piss yourself."
"Fine. I'll have two, then. While I tell you about Fu-Bar."
Alnam stands, surprised by how disappointed he is Lawrie didn't hit him back.
You really need to do something about your head, buddy. You're growing a little kooky!
"Alright," he says. What else can you say to a man still willing to talk to you after you sucker-punched him?
They go back to their table. Lawrie adjusts his jacket.
"Creator of space," he says, "never thought you were so unhinged, Alnam. What's fucking wrong with you?"
Would Vygo Alnam apologize in this situation?
Answer: like hell he would.
"Alright," Lawrie says. "Fu-Bar. Fu-Bar is one of the many establishments that donate to the CHT. You can't imagine how much work went into finding the fuckers. Still not sure we got all of them. Had to manually go through their tax files to see what charities they donate to. We checked what must've been a couple dozen thousand businesses."
"Get to the point."
Shit: sounds brooding. Sounds weak.
"What am I doing, you think? I can't check how the CHT spends its money — or rather, its depositors' money. How it gives it back to them. So I'm working the establishments who give money to the CHT."
"So you're trying to reverse-engineer it?"
"More like trying to catch someone red-handed. Just need a bigger sample of people to watch." Lawrie takes a gulp of his beer. "When I heard you were working on Fu-Bar, I knew it was a sign."
"Believe in signs?"
"They work for me."
Alnam thinks about it. Then he says, "You're in luck. I know just the man you need to speak to."
.
.
.
Next day, Fu-Bar stops being a priority. The reports on Gizmo and the Commission take way more time than Alnam expected. Just as he's finishing up on the Taungsday evening, there's an emergency. All available agents are thrown onto it.
A group of Unbridgers took over an abandoned hospital building in the lower levels. That's news to Alnam: he never believed the Unbridgers were anything more than an urban legend.
The operation turns into a mess real quick. Not in the least part thanks to the RDS and RI involvement — Alnam feels sorry for the CorSec underworld unit that has to coordinate all of it. An RI team tries to go in through the front door, but their tortoise formation is rocketed at. Two men dead. CSF Captain Holme calls in a tank, but the fucking thing can't fit through the interlevel portal. Captain Holme calls in city maintenance droids to expand the hole. Before they arrive, the Unbridgers blow themselves up. Captain Holme cancels his last request and calls in minesweeper droids. Nobody is dismissed: Captain Holme suspects there are more fanatics in the hospital underground. Ten minutes after the start of demining, another explosion hits the building. Captain Holme jubilates and recalls the tank and the maintenance crew — but soon it becomes apparent it was just a careless minesweeper droid.
Alnam sees Lawrie on the RI side. Lawrie doesn't notice him. Alnam is fine with it.
.
.
.
Fu-Bar got a nice spot if you're into industrial brutalism: it sits halfway to the top of the Pyochayarit canyon wall, overlooking the monorails on their spindly supports and the underlevels hundreds of meters below. The canyon looks almost natural and the buildings that comprise its wall almost a product of erosion.
"A beautiful place," Lawrie says.
"Winds are insane here." Mtoro tries to make herself smaller — the RI task car isn't made with Ithorians in mind.
"No building above the underlevels in a hundred square kilometers," Lawrie says. "Of course there are winds. Still beautiful."
Skyscrapers make an L in the west and northwest. Another L complements it, a mirror image, going as deep as they go high.
The RI droid parks their speeder twenty levels above the Fu-Bar. They wait as the evening grows redder.
"I didn't know," Mtoro says, "Dedzenner had friends in the RI."
Lawrie throws his head back. "And I didn't know he had such a loose tongue."
"You mean that his tongue was loose both ways?"
Lawrie chuckles. "I guess you're right, Agent Apani."
"Relax, then. He didn't tell me. He just was the only one in the DS I told about Fu-Bar."
"And Alnam?"
"And my tongue isn't loose unlike everybody else's," Alnam says.
Lawrie and Mtoro laugh.
"A good team you got," Lawrie says. "A brilliant detective and a strong, silent type. Right, Alnam?"
Alnam doesn't like his tone. It makes it harder to act like Vygo Alnam would.
"Can't argue with that," he replies. "It was Mtoro's idea to check the concert dates against the donation ones."
She was the one to express it, that's true. An obvious suggestion. Alnam thought of it as soon as he heard about Fu-Bar's donations — as did Mtoro.
But right now, he doesn't want to talk about himself.
They go in at 7:30, when enough hoverlimos have come to the nightclub's entrance. A long narrow hallway leads into Fu-Bar proper. Check the walls: all sprayed up. What's not sprayed up is covered by speeder plates. Heavy music throbs in the end of the hallway.
Alnam walks last. Lawrie's presence makes him break step. What the fuck was he thinking bringing him along? What the fuck was he thinking punching him? This is shaping up to be a worse mess than the hospital fiasco.
He forbids himself to think about it. The music helps.
The hallway finally gives birth to the main room. Check the dance floor. Check the speakers. Check the crowd: already drunk. Most still can stand. That's good: less chance Tillisy will make a scene of her arrest. Gotta think about her club's reputation.
"The head lady at her place?" Lawrie asks a bouncer.
"The head lady? That depends on who's asking."
"It doesn't, really. She's either there or she's not. It's that simple."
Alnam and Mtoro present their IDs. The bouncer's eyes follow them behind the black glasses.
"Second floor," he says.
The stairs aren't easy to find: not everybody has a reason to go to the second floor.
"Maybe you should stand guard, Alnam," Lawrie says in front of the door with the word Management on it. "You know, in case she tries to run."
"Only if you watch the window."
Lawrie grins and rings. The door slides open. At once: the bouncer must have called up.
The office is nothing like Alni's: no stuff lying around. No musical instruments on the walls. Instead: diplomas and other official-looking documents. No windows for Lawrie to watch.
Tillisy Matli examines each of their IDs. She is a dry, overly fit woman in her early thirties — Alnam congratulates himself in passing for using the right word this time. She calls the headquarters to inquire if they are really with the RDS. Then she calls the RI headquarters.
"Would you like to invite your lawyer, ma'am?" Lawrie asks her.
"No."
"Do you know why we're here?" Mtoro says.
Matli allows herself a quick glance somewhere to an upper corner of her office.
"I'd rather you state the purpose of your coming."
Lawrie starts talking, but Alnam cuts him — completely inadvertently, but Lawrie offers him to continue with a mocking bow.
"We are looking for Giburin Fozatta," Alnam says.
"He's not here."
"We expected as much."
"We'd like to know where he is," Mtoro says.
"How do you think I should know that?"
"Well," Alnam says, leaning on her desk in a Venesque motion, "your ex reckons you should."
"Which one?"
"Orfid Alni."
Matli closes her eyes for a second. "I introduced them to each other, but I don't see Giburin that often nowadays. Neither do I see Orfid much."
"But you do see them, don't you?" Alnam rises up.
"You a mediator for them," says Mtoro. "You didn't really give Orfid a loan for Gizmo, is that right?"
"Fozatta did," says Alnam.
"That's not what the documents say."
Matli sounds calm — but Alnam sees what she's up to.
What she's up to is feeling out how much she can get away with.
Mtoro taps her datapad. "Unfortunately, that's what Orfid Alni says. 'On paper, I took a loan from Tillisy for the club. When I quote-unquote sold my share at Fu-Bar. But that's on paper only. I just transfer money through her.'"
"It's my word against his," Matli says.
"Doesn't have to stay this way," says Alnam.
"It can be your word and Alni's word against Fozatta's," Mtoro says, putting the datapad away. "This is a top-priority case."
Alnam invites himself to the desk again. "Very serious business. This Skados VI thing Fozatta had going on — and his managers from that branch have been making confession after confession for the past three months—"
"You know Giles, don't you?"
"Right, Giles — so it's on the Chancellor's personal watch list."
"Senator Dibasi's, too. Ktii as well — though she may be a lost cause."
"I don't know," Alnam says, watching Matli's reactions, "she's been consolidating her power. But anyway, she doesn't matter in the end. But Dibasi? Yes, sure. Maybe they're all overreacting, okay? Maybe they are. But the thing is, they are really cautious about this case. Sep propaganda in the Mid Rim..."
"So it can be your word against Alni's," Mtoro says, "but it won't be just words. There's going to be a lot of hard proof."
"Why do you think there are two agencies in your office now?"
"And who told you Fozatta won't blab as soon as we catch him? We'll get him sooner or later. Giles is talking non-stop. So far, admittedly, Fozatta has been smart enough to avoid the places we know of. But his accounts are frozen. He can only hide for so long without access to his money."
"Except, of course, the money you send him," says Lawrie. "The CHT — rings a bell? We know that. What we want to know is how he cashes that shit out."
Alnam keeps watching Matli. Her eyebrows come together — as if she's preparing to cry.
She doesn't cry, though. Maybe she would have — had only Alnam and Lawrie been here.
"How bad is it going to be to be a witness in this case?" she asks.
Lawrie chuckles. Alnam makes himself not to.
"Fozatta has powerful friends," Mtoro says patiently, "but it won't matter. As my partner already said, the Chancellor himself was angered by Fozatta's work for the CIS."
"How angered would he be at a witness?"
Now Alnam has to smile. "Less so than he would be grateful to her."
"You must understand we cannot do much about the financial regulation agencies," Mtoro goes on. "All the money you had to pay taxes for but didn't — I'm not saying that's something that happened, but if it did — you will have to explain it on your own."
"I meant more in the vein of being complicit in Giburin's business. I mean," Matli takes a cigarette out of a pack, "the money schemes. Not his dealings with the Separatists."
"We can do something about that."
"I need more than just a promise."
Mtoro produces an agreement and shows it to Matli.
"I'm not sure if it's legally binding," Matli says.
"It is a regular form. It's usually reserved for people who cooperate willingly — you know, who come to us on their own to testify. But sometimes, we offer it to people like you."
"In extraordinary circumstances," Alnam adds.
"Whatever you confess regarding the case, we can't charge you for. But only regarding the case — and only now."
Matli signs the agreement with an expression on her face like she's removing a splinter out of her flesh.
She lights up a cigarette.
"Should I start from what, when I met him?" she asks. Her voice is nervous — more nervous now than before.
She continues, responding to Alnam's nod. "I interned at Fozatta Records. That's when I met Giburin."
"What year was that?" Mtoro asks.
Matli pauses for a second. "5. Yes, 5. It was my last year."
"Does Fozatta meet all his interns personally?" Alnam says.
"There aren't many interns to begin with. You don't get into Fozatta if you aren't the best. I'm not boasting, I—"
"Best at doing what, Ms. Matli?"
"I view this question as inappropriate."
"Please answer it."
A quick drag — like kissing an unloved husband. "Best at doing my job. Running errands for the company. Managing performers — I was tasked with it by the end of the internship and offered a full-time job upon graduation."
"I'm going to ask you straight," Alnam says, "did you have sexual relations with Mr. Fozatta?"
She takes a quicker, angrier drag. "At one point."
"We have to ask—"
"I was not... It wasn't a quid pro quo. It happened when I've been working for Fozatta for three years."
"What was your position at the time?" Mtoro asks.
"The head of public relations. Here on Coruscant."
"And you opened Fu-Bar in..?"
"About a year later. Using my money — I took none from Giburin save for my wages."
"You founded it on your own or..?"
"On my own. Orfid later bought a share. I thought it was cute at the time. That we had our own family enterprise."
"Please tell us when Mr. Alni sold or, uh, exchanged his share with Mr. Fozatta."
"Two years ago, or two and a half. Something like that."
"That was when you first introduced them, or..?"
"No, maybe a year after that. We were falling apart. With Orfid. Mr. Alni. The family enterprise didn't work out. Orfid wanted a way out, he wanted to make his own thing, and Giburin helped him with that. He bought up the place — a juicy location, in the Cones. I think he got it cheap — it was in need of some serious repairs after that Holokiss show. Then he sold a share in it to Orfid, and Orfid sold him his share of Fu-Bar. I don't mean it like 'sold'-sold. They made an exchange. We reflected it for the Taxation Office as though I bought Orfid's share and borrowed him more money for his club. In reality, Orfid doesn't own anything. All the people in Gizmo are Giburin's creatures. Not just the shareholders — even the staff. Trelim, first and foremost. The Twi'lek guy."
"Why did Mr. Fozatta want a share of your establishment, Ms. Matli?" Mtoro asks.
"Why indeed? The Attendee only chose it the best nightclub for three consecutive years."
"The best on Coruscant?"
"In the Galaxy."
Matli smokes. Matli repeats the scheme they have heard from Alni already: Fozatta forces his pet artists into singing at Gizmo for the fraction of what they should be making. Alni transfers the margin to Matli.
Then the things get interesting. Lawrie nearly breaks his ears listening.
"I donate the money to the Center for Helping the Targeted."
"What's your cut?" Alnam asks. His back burns from the intensity of Lawrie's stare.
"Five percent. I don't get it immediately. Only after Giburin gets it back from the Center."
Lawrie steals initiative. "And how does he do that?"
"He creates these little shell companies. He used to do it within the Trade Federation space before the war, I think, but now it's the Corporate Sector. They do the same thing. The CHT. Only they make them in the Core. And then the Center companies buy Giburin's companies with the money I've donated."
"Would be hard to create a firm anonymously here," Lawrie says.
"These companies aren't anonymous. The CHT has an unlimited number of potential founders."
Lawrie swears.
"They register bogus firms in the name of the targeted people they're supposed to help?" Mtoro says.
Lawrie walks up to the desk. "Does it really surprise you? There's money to be made. What's a life or two when you can dodge taxes?"
"Sorry, but you're overdramatizing it, Agent," says Matli from behind another drag. "Do they take advantage of the disadvantaged? They do."
"You mean you do."
"We do," Matli agrees, "although I never had any dealings with the Center — apart from giving them money. But they don't abandon those people. The dummy businesses are liquidated as soon as they have done their job."
Alnam gets up. He doesn't like being so close to Lawrie — and with his back to him. "I find it hard to believe that such a mass liquidation goes unnoticed."
"There are bribes paid along the way, I assume. But I can't share anything concrete about it because I never took part in it," Matli adds quickly.
"Where would I find the constitutive documents of those companies?" Lawrie asks.
"I don't know. At Giburin's office, maybe? Or in the CHT."
"We didn't find any anywhere at Fozatta Records," Mtoro says.
"There's nothing I can do about it. I just know how Giburin does it, not where he keeps the documents — if he keeps them at all."
Alnam keeps Lawrie in his peripheral vision, but still can see the disappointment on the RI operative's face. Maybe it's more "feel" than "see". You form this sort of a bond with people you beat up.
"Where is Mr. Fozatta now?" he asks, minding Lawrie.
"I do not know. Not precisely, I mean. But he is on Coruscant."
"How do you know that?"
"I should clarify: I think he is on Coruscant. He was here less than a month ago."
"You met him in person?" Lawrie asks.
"No, we spoke over a holotransmission. But he was at the CHT. That was where the call was coming from."
Alnam crosses his arms. "Are you sure?"
"I was called by Bnagen. She is a vice something at the Center."
"Tuu Bnagen?" Lawrie asks. "The deputy director?"
"Right. The deputy director. It was on the week following the Fete Week. Taungsday, I think. She called me from her Center terminal. We talked for a minute or two, but then Giburin literally pushed her away from the cam and started giving me orders."
"What did he want you to do?"
"He wanted me to make an urgent donation to the Center. He said he couldn't leave the planet because the law wanted him."
"Did you?" Alnam steps back to the desk. "Make the donation?"
"No. I told him I owed him nothing."
"Did he have a specific sum in mind?"
"I don't think he told me at first, but then he was saying 'a million'. That was like he was making me a favor by cutting the one he initially had in mind down. I mean, he didn't say it, but that was the impression I got."
"A million credits?"
"Yeah. I told him I didn't owe him a million. I don't know how he planned to take that money out of the Center if I transferred it. I don't think he has access to the Corporate Sector now. But I don't know. Maybe he does."
"Did you know about the CIS propaganda Mr. Fozatta organized on Skados VI?" Mtoro says.
"No. He never told me anything. I was just moving money for him."
"Did you ever move any funds to Skados VI?"
"Not that I can remember. Not after I left Fozatta Records, at any rate. Definitely not after that."
"Do you know Isk Povo Rapol?"
"I mean, I met him on occasion. Once at the Fozatta Gala on Skados early last year. And... I don't really remember when else, but it was prior to the gala."
"So how well do you know him? Did it go beyond, you know, just meeting him at an event?" Alnam asks her.
"No, not really. I didn't... I don't really know him."
Mtoro: "Have you ever talked to Fozatta about him?"
"A couple of times. Just business-related."
"Mr. Alni told us about a particularity of your business relations with Fozatta. He said you would introduce him — Fozatta — to young girls, young talents you discovered."
"Oh yes? Did he tell you he did the same thing?"
"We know that he did," Alnam says. "But now we're questioning you, aren't we? So you did run a matchmaking racket for him?"
"It was a natural... I mean... That's what... I would introduce Giburin to young singers. He's a producer — you know that, right? If a fling came out of it, what could I do?"
"Have you heard the sexual abuse accusations?" Mtoro says.
"I have. So what? They were all adults. Even if the accusations are true, what was I supposed to do? They didn't start surfacing until Giburin went into hiding."
Alnam remembers what his mother told him. "I've heard a different tale. I've heard, you know, nobody in the high society ever invites Fozatta to their private gatherings. It's not a new thing."
"Well, you've heard it, but I haven't. If I caused anybody any distress, I'm sorry. I'm ready to make a statement that I am, if necessary."
"I'm sure that'll help them," Alnam says.
.
.
.
He seizes an opportunity at the exit: Mtoro goes first and gets out onto the parking platform before Lawrie and him.
"Hey, Lawrie," he says. Lawrie stops right on that spot and looks in Alnam's eyes. Alnam half-wins: he doesn't avert his gaze. He half-loses, too: he blinks.
"Look," he says, "I wanted to say I'm sorry about... you know. That time at the bar."
Lawrie smiles. Lawrie slaps Alnam on shoulder. Lawrie says: "Water under the bridge, Alnam."