CHAPTER II

PRONTERA MERCANTILE LANE, fifty-seven minutes later. As usual, the whole avenue was swarming with people. I labeled everybody in there with a swift glance: Albertan merchants with their---wily, sorry---charming smiles, Geffenian nobles with swishing robes and jingling zennies, Pronteran ladies with stiff necks and social pretensions, and of course---Morrocan thieves. The latter do not belong to the class of humans. They're more like a pack of vermin, the scourge of humanity, so to speak.

I elbowed my way to Holgrehen's Pub. It was further up the Lane, near the big fountain. The pub was crowded. There were a dozen locals, including this whore of about thirty-six sitting stylishly on a barstool and showing her shapely thighs to the assembled multitude. We had been, er, friends once---twice, to be honest. I gave her a wink, to which she returned a cold smoke-laden stare. Oh, boy. Back to level one, BlackMoney.

Three merchants were also there: Roofie, stout, balding, and Morrocan weaponry; Julia, thirtyish, shapely---would have been desirable if she hadn't been a merchant dealer---blond, slim potions and boss monster items; and finally, Milkshake, sex unknown, elegant, pricey, and mainly ladies wear and headgears. There were four strangers, Izludean by their smell, and a barker or two chatting them up and trying to interest them in genuine gem stones which, in reality, are mere round pebbles coated with morrocan dyes. Pathetic.

Knuckles was in the far corner by the fireplace with this middle-aged chap. I forged my way over.

"Oh," Knuckles said, acting like a ninth-rate soap opera actor he is. "Oh. And here's my friend BlackMoney I was telling you about."

"Evening, Knuckles" I nodded at the stranger and we shook hands.

He seemed fairly ordinary, round glasses, neat, nothing new about his clothes but not shabby. He could have saved up ten thousand zen all right. But one million...? Oh, boy.

"Mr. Hyrcanus, meet BlackMoney." Knuckles was really overdoing it, almost wagging like a dog. "Mr. Hyrcanus is a professor of arcane philosophy at the Juno Institute of Divine Magic." The stranger nodded. We said how do and sat.

"My turn, Knuckles, from last time," I said, giving him a 1k bill to shut him up. He was off to the bar like an arrow.

"Mr. Knuckles said you are a specialist merchant, Mr. BlackMoney." Hyrcanus' accent was Geffenian, southern if I'm not mistaken.

"Yes," I admitted.

"Very specialized, I believe?"

"Yes. But of course," I dodged as casually as I could manage, "from the way the trade has progressed in the past few years, I maintain a pretty active interest in several aspects."

"Naturally," he said, all serious.

"But I expect Knuckles has told you where my principal interest lies."

"Yes."

My mind took an immediate assessment of the guy, much like a Noghaltz scanner analyzing a physical data. This prof was no collector. In fact, if he knew a double-barrel repeating rifle from a walking stick it was lucky guesswork.

Barkers like Knuckles are creatures of form. They have to be, if you think about it. They find possible buyers who are interested, say, in picking up a genuine Hugel-made kinjal. Now, a barker's job is to get clients: buyers or sellers, but preferably the former. He has no right to go saying, Oh, sorry, sir, but my master-merchant's only interested in buying or selling hunter gears and equips. If a barker did that he'd get the push, force retirement, so to speak. So whatever the buyer wants, a barker will swear on his mother's tits that his master-merchant's got it, and not only that, but he will swear blind that his master-merchant's certainly the world's most expert expert on Hugel-made kinjals or whatever, and throw in a few choice remarks about how crooked other merchants are, just for good measure.

"Mr. Knuckles has a very high opinion of your qualities," Hyrcanus informed me. See?

"That's very kind." If Hyrcanus got the irony it didn't show. Professors are the most difficult people to draw out.

"You made a collection for the King Tristam III Memorial Museum, I understand, Mr. BlackMoney."

"Oh, well." I winced inwardly, trying to seem all modest. I determined to strangle Knuckles. Even innocent customers know how to check that sort of tale.

"Wasn't it last year?"

"You must understand," I said hesitantly, putting on as much embarrassment as I dared.

"Understand?"

"I'm not saying I have, and I'm not saying I haven't," I went on. "It's a client's business, not mine. Even if Lord Fondlemay did ask me to build up his collection of exotic headgears, it's not for Knuckles or myself to disclose their interests." May I be forgiven.

"Ah. Confidentiality." His brow cleared.

"It's a matter of proper business etiquette, Mr. Hyrcanus," I said with innocent seriousness.

"I do see," he said earnestly, lapping it up. "A most responsible attitude."

"There are standards we merchants follow." I shrugged to show I was positively weighed down with conscience. Maybe I was overdoing it, because he went all broody. He was coming to the main decision when Knuckles came back with a rum for me and a pale ale for Hyrcanus.

I gave Knuckles a sharp stare and he instantly excused himself.

"So it is possible," he mused.

"What is, Mr. Hyrcanus?"

"You can have a confidential agreement with a merchant dealer."

"Certainly." I should have told him that zenny can buy silence nearly as effectively as it can buy talk. Note the "nearly," please.

He nodded and drew breath. Here it comes, I thought. And it did.

"I'm interested in a certain collector's item," he said, as if he'd saved the words for a rainy day. "I'm starting a collection."

"Hmmm." The BlackMoney gambit.

"I want to know if you can help."

He sipped and waited. And I sipped and waited. Like a couple of drinking pecopecos, we sipped in silence.

"Er, can you?" he asked.

"If I can," I countered cagily. For a first-time collector he wasn't doing too badly, and I was becoming distinctly edgy.

"Do you mean Mr. Knuckles didn't explain?"

"He explained you were interested in purchasing guns," I said.

"Nothing else?"

"And that you had, er, sufficient funds."

"But not what it is I'm seeking?"

"No." I put down my cup because my hands were quivering slightly. If it turned flop I'd wring Knuckles neck." "Perhaps you'd better tell me."

"Dueling pistols."

"I guessed that." Eversince dueling was banned by the late King Gustav I, dueling pistols became a primary collector's item. An absolute zenny maker.

"A very special pair."

I cleared my throat, "Which pair, Mr. Hyrcanus?"

He stared at me across the darkened room. "I want the Judas Twins," he said.

My heart sank. With luck, I could catch Knuckles before Holgrehen closes the pub, and annihilate him on the spot for sending me a dummy. A dead deal. No wonder he'd been evasive when I asked him on the phone.

I gazed back at the poor misguided customer. "Did you say the Judas Twins?" I said, hoping I'd misheard.

"The Judas Twins," he affirmed.

Oh, boy.