The address brought Jali to an upmarket residential area of Coruscant. The buildings were pleasant-looking and were painted with pleasing colours. He continued past on his speeder bike the entrance to Nami Kotour's building until he found what he was looking for—a flower stall.
The blue-haired woman tending the stall looked at him. "You after something?"
Jali shrugged. "Think so," he said.
She crossed her arms and stared at him. "How guilty are you feeling?"
Jali considered. "Fairly," he said finally. "When I left her she was pretty upset."
"Forgot the anniversary, hey?" she teased.
"Something like that," Jali said.
"Here." She proffered a large bouquet of violet roses imported from Naboo. "This oughta do for you, what say?"
Jali handed over the money and took the flowers. Grinning to himself, he went in to the apartment building and inquired at the desk.
"Got a delivery for a Nami Kotour," he said to one of the clerks. "What apartment? They didn't tell me." He kept the flowers firmly over his face.
The clerk checked the system without asking any questions. "Eleventh floor, room thirty-eight," he told Jali.
"Thanks." Jali took the turbolift up.
---------------------------------
The apartment wasn't that hard to find, and he kept his face well-hidden by the flowers and said "delivery" into the intercom when a silvery voice inquired who was at the door.
"Flowers, for me?" asked Nami as she opened the door. "Oooh!" she squealed, opening her arms to receive them. "They're lovely!" she trilled.
With a grin Jali handed them over. "Do you mind if I come in?" he asked. "There's something else I have for you that I don't want to hand over in the doorway."
The mauve Twi'lek examined Jali closely, considering for a moment. Jali could clearly see her dilated pupils. There was also a distinctive smell about her clothes, skimpy as they were. Ryll, Jali automatically thought. He had seen it destroy more lives than he would care to admit.
"Okay," she chirped, cradling the flowers in her arms. "But not for long, okay?"
Jali nodded and Nami opened the door wider to admit him.
While Nami left to find a vase, Jali took a look around the apartment. The whole place screamed 'love nest'. The red velvet walls, the crimson deep-piled carpet, the mirrors on the bedroom ceiling, the underwear, bottles, glasses and drug paraphernalia left everywhere.
"Very, very, very nice," Nami tittered, putting an expensive caged glass vase on the low table with the flowers inside. Jali tried not to look at her as she bent over the table. "Now, what else was it that you said?"
Jali looked at her carefully. She clearly did not remember, another symptom of excessive ryll use.
"It's just something I wanted to ask you," he said. "I know who you are, and I think you can help me."
The Twi'lek's eyes widened and she slank away from him like a cornered animal. "What do you want?" she demanded, her voice almost a shriek. "What do you want? Just take it and leave!"
She slumped against the wall, her legs splayed out at odd angles. Jali started towards her, was she all right? All he needed was to be the witness of an overdose.
Nami opened her eyes. "Well? Why are you waiting? Go ahead!" She started to remove her clothing, it tore away easily. "Here, that helps." She arched her shoulders back, tilting her head up.
Jali stared at her for a long moment, then shook himself and looked away. The last thing I want to do tonight is look at a naked Twi'lek woman, he thought. "Put your clothes back on, sit down and be a good girl." He sat down on the couch and tried not to look at her.
"Yes sir," she said, putting her clothes on obediently and sitting on the couch opposite him.
Carefully, Jali looked up, but it was impossible. "This will never do," he said, removing his coat and then draping it over her shoulders, making sure her chest was covered. "Now, tell me about the people who come here."
"Mmmmm." She sucked a finger. "There's Aldie, he comes a few times a week and we go in there!" She pointed to the bedroom, causing the coat to open. Jali made a gesture, she giggled and closed it.
"Aldie?" Jali asked.
"He's a senator," Nami told him, grinning.
"Does he have a last name?" Jali probed.
"Stoll," Nami said.
So it was Senator Stoll, the same one that Tira worked for.
"He bought me this place and lots and lots of nice things," Nami trilled, giggling hysterically.
Jali sighed, this was going to take a while. "Who else comes to see you?"
"Well, there's you," Nami said, laughing wildly.
Jali made an impatient gesture. "Forget about me," he told her. "Who else comes? Who gets you the ryll?"
"Nuada," Nami said. "Well, I think that's his name. He's a little funny, he can see what I think."
She giggled again.
That wouldn't be hard, Jali thought bitterly. He was beginning to see just what Guren had meant when he said it would be hard to extract information from Nami.
"Does he have another name?" Jali asked.
Nami shrugged and said she didn't know.
"Why is Nuada funny?" Jali asked her.
"He has no eyes," Nami told him, her own eyes with their enlarged pupils widening at this. "He looks like you, but has no eyes."
He's a Miralukan then, Jali surmised. Could this Nuada be the next link? Guren had told him that Nami was just a stop from one source of information to another. But he needed more information.
"Do you know where I could find this Nuada?" Jali asked her as she dissolved into yet another fit of giggles.
"He comes and sees me," Nami said, "maybe you can meet him! That would be fun!"
"I don't think so," Jali murmured, but Nami heard him.
"Why not?" The Twi'lek cocked her head to one side; the coat hung suggestively open.
"Just a feeling," Jali said.
Nami giggled again. "Nuada just has feelings like you," she said. "He took me out once."
Jali grabbed onto this detail. "Where?"
Nami shrugged. "Little place, high stools, little girl in the kitchen, this short guy who talked a lot."
"Where was it?" Jali asked.
"It was round and square," Nami said, shrugging. "Lots of little towers around it, up a little high."
Round and square…towers…little girl…short guy. It had to be Didi's Café. Jali could have kissed her. He may only have the first name of who he was looking for, but it was something. It wasn't the first time he did not have much to go on in order to find someone.
He left as soon as he could, and headed to where he had parked his speeder bike. Someone followed him out of the building and got into a red and black airspeeder parked a safe distance from Jali's bike. When Jali had headed off, the speeder followed.
---------------------------------
Jali kept his bike at an almost leisurely pace, turning over the facts in his mind. To him at least, it was an obvious conclusion that whoever wanted the facts about his arrest had also killed Tollan. Yet despite of the number of people who might have a grudge against a Security Officer, Jali could not connect them to Tollan's murder.
In his time as a Security Officer, Jali had known several officers who had fallen in the line of duty. Yet those killings had all been clearly done as examples, a reminder to the Security Force of what they were up against. Whoever had killed Tollan had meant it to look like an accident and had taken appropriate measures to make it so.
So the question remained, who would want Tollan silenced? Jali smiled bitterly. The right question to ask was: who wanted about everything else to make Tollan's death look like an accident?
The answer was obvious. But that answer posed yet another question, why would—
Jali's train of thought ground to a halt as the red and black speeder he had been unconsciously watching in his rear sensors followed him as he turned. With a racing heartbeat, Jali increased his speed. Was he being followed? He made several seemingly random turns, but the speeder kept on his tail, always following him at a certain distance behind so he couldn't get more than a glimpse of it.
"Okay, flyboy," Jali muttered to the image in the sensor, "let's see how you go now."
He did a drop shift, his bike almost free-falling through the air into the lane below and causing loud protests from those already there. Jali ignored them, putting his bike through a series of turns that weaved through the glassy buildings. After a while Jali ventured another look, the speeder was still behind him.
"What the frag?" Jali shouted, almost turning around to give his pursuer a visual insult.
Jali gunned his bike, passing the Executive Building and coming up to the Senate. The large dome-shaped building gave him an idea. He steered downwards to where the politicians left their personal starships then headed right towards a large, bumpy Mon Calamarian craft, ducking in front of the nose just before it passed him.
He wended his way through the large spaceport, using the ships as cover and causing some annoyance with the pilots. Jali was just congratulating himself on his ingenuity when he could hear the faint thunder of engines behind him.
"Fragging hells," he swore, "does this guy ever quit?"
It suddenly became less of a game and more of an annoyance. What will it take to lose this guy? Jali wondered And just who is he? Suddenly, the second question became far more important.
For a moment he considered just how he would find out, then increased his speed and forced his bike into a dive. This time he made only nominal effort to lose his pursuer. He guessed that whoever was behind him was slowly gaining confidence, as the distance between him and the speeder was lessening. Jali also deliberately steered to the left, ever so subtly so the speeder was not directly behind him. Then, just as he turned to pass over several low-roofed buildings, Jali acted.
He quickly reversed the throttle of his bike and he zipped backwards, the speeder going right past him but Jali was ready. He quickly changed gears and followed the speeder, getting out his blaster pistol with one hand and blasting a few shots at the departing vehicle. The fourth shot hit something critical and the speeder went down, smoke pouring from the back.
Jali went down after it, watching the vehicle slide over the low roof of a small building with ear-wrenching shrieks. Jali landed his bike as someone got out of the speeder. It was Kian.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you that it's dangerous to follow people late at night?" Jali asked, setting his blaster to "stun" and training it on the Security Officer. "Let me guess, Vantel set you up on this, didn't he?"
"I don't have to tell you anything," Kian replied, glowering at the barrel of the pistol that was aimed at him.
"Vantel likes to get little boys like you to do his dirty work for him, doesn't he?" Jali taunted.
Kian narrowed his eyes. "That's low, even for the likes of you, Dawler."
"I know," Jali shrugged, "but it's true, innit?"
Kian evidently decided to ignore both Jali's taunts and the blaster aimed at him. "I'm here to deliver another warning, Dawler," he said.
"Oh, another one." Jali smiled tightly. "When did I get my first, then?"
Kian ignored this as well. "This is an official message from Captain Vantel: the investigation is closed, stop looking for things that aren't there."
"So you're his messenger boy now, are you?" Jali asked. "Well, tell this to him from me: I'm not quitting until I know for sure who killed Tollan and he should know better to try and stop me."
Kian sighed. "Dawler, I understand you and Antilles were friends…"
"No," Jali interrupted, "that's just where you're wrong, you don't understand. If you did you would not be right here, right now delivering such a pointless warning that I'm sure as space is cold that I'm not going to follow."
"The second part of the message is," said Kian in a dry, emotionless voice, "is that if you do not desist your current activities certain measures will be taken to make sure you do." For the first time, Kian smiled, and the effect it caused on his face wasn't pretty. "You wouldn't want to do inside again, Dawler, so soon? With your record you could get more time, perhaps ten years?"
"That's just what Vantel did to me last time," Jali told him. "Shut me up so no one would listen to me."
Kian shrugged. "Whatever," he said. "Well, I delivered the message, I have no responsibility to making sure you follow it." He turned to examine his damaged speeder.
When he turned around Jali had gone.