“So you mean to offer them the opportunity to put a noose around your neck,” said Beeker. “Sir, you cannot expect me to stand aside and allow you to do this.”
“No, of course not,” said Phule. “I was planning on taking you along when I go to meet them. You and the chaplain, I think.”
“What?” Beeker’s eyes went wide. “What good can the chaplain possibly do?”
Phule spread his hands. “Why, he’s a man of peace-what better symbol of my peaceful intentions? And you’re obviously a noncombatant-no kind of threat. Unless everything we know about them is wrong, neither of you will be in the least danger. And you’ll serve as insurance for me-even if they have a grudge against me, I don’t think they’ll act too hastily if there are innocent witnesses.”
“Very well, sir. You have obviously made up your mind,” said Beeker, rising from his chair. “I suppose I had best prepare for the journey. When do you intend to leave? And will you at least inform your officers of your intentions? Perhaps they can offer some competent military advice.”
Phule shook his head. “Their advice would be to take along a squad of armed legionnaires, and that would be exactly the wrong thing to do. This needs to be a secret mission. I’ve found a young civilian who’s got a cousin in the rebel camp, and he claims to know the way. And unless we want to lose valuable time, we should leave as quickly as possible.”
“As you wish, sir,” said Beeker. “I only hope you have some idea what you are doing.”
“Of course I do,” said Phule brightly. “I’m going to save the entire planet. Isn’t that what we’re here for?”
Journal #406
Our departure from Lorelei had left behind an unstable situation, and potentially a very dangerous one. My employer’s confidence in the android double he had programmed to impersonate himself seemed to me excessive. Eventually, the local gangsters were bound to see through the deception. What would happen then was anyone’s guess.
Maxine Pruett glared at the holoscreen. “That conniving son of a bitch!” she shouted. The scene had only been in view for a moment, but she knew that face almost as well as the picture on a dollar bill. In all the years she’d been running the Syndicate on Lorelei, he was the one person who’d thwarted her. Captain Jester, AKA Willard Phule, the munitions heir.
There he was on some planet a quarter of the way across the galaxy. She hadn’t caught exactly what it was he was doing. In fact, she’d only had the news on out of a sense of guilt. Laverna had been her eyes and ears on the outside world, the one who kept her apprised of things that might affect her while she paid attention to running the business and enjoying the fruits of her hard-won (albeit ill-gotten) gains. Now Laverna had run away from her, and she had nobody to monitor outside events for her. Phule was responsible for that, too.
What she couldn’t figure out was how he’d managed to get off-station without her knowing it. Her snoops had reported seeing him in the Fat Chance nearly every day, and there were plenty of uniformed legionnaires on guard-so what did it mean that he and his company were on Landoro, or whatever that place was in the news story? The answer must be that one of the Phules was a double. It made sense-there’d been times she’d had the “same” act booked in two or three of her casinos at once, with the star making token appearances in each show, and using doubles to make it appear he was onstage more than he really was. Phule must be running a hustle like that…
So how was she going to take advantage of her discovery? There was no question that she was going to take advantage of it-you get an edge, you take it. That was how the game was played. It would be sweet revenge to finally take the Fat Chance away from him after all he’d done to balk her.
A lot depended on which “Phule” was the impostor, of course. She wasn’t about to make an overt move against him if he was actually here to counter it. She’d already had a lesson in the Legion’s brand of hardball, and didn’t want to repeat it. But if the fellow over in the Fat Chance was the double…well, that might be a very different story.
It shouldn’t be hard to figure it out. Phule could afford to hire somebody good enough to pass a fairly close inquisition. Still, there’d be things Phule hadn’t briefed the double on, questions he wouldn’t be able to answer if somebody caught him off his guard. She wouldn’t even have to confront him in person. A phone call could tell her who she was dealing with, if she knew the right card to play. But she had to have the right card before she called.
“Holo off,” snapped Maxine. The picture abruptly winked out of existence, and the room fell silent. The holo hadn’t used to interfere with Maxine’s thinking, but that had been when she’d had Laverna to do a lot of that thinking for her. Now she realized that she’d been an idiot to buy Phule’s line about his butler eloping with her assistant. Most likely he’d taken them both with him. Well, that wouldn’t be hard to find out, either. And when she’d found them, there were favors she could call in. That was one of the advantages of running the Syndicate’s favorite resort. She’d been generous with free rooms, free meals, special seats at shows for visitors from other Syndicate families-paying forward in anticipation of future need. Now it was payback time, in more ways than one.
She tried to remember who she knew on that planet-what was its name again? She must not have been paying close enough attention. Well, if she turned the holo back on and watched another twenty minutes the news story would cycle back again. No-she hired people to do that. She’d order somebody to turn on the news and take notes while she figured out what to do about Phule. She picked up the comm handset and pressed a button.
Unexpectedly, it didn’t ring. Instead, after a few moments, a synthesized voice came on. “There is no answer at the extension you are calling. If you wish to leave a message, please wait until…” She broke the connection, cursing. She wasn’t used to getting recorded messages, or waiting. What the hell was she paying these clowns for, if they weren’t there when she needed them? That had never happened with Laverna.
She thought a moment about trying another extension, then slammed the handset down. She felt like shaking things up, and she was going to start by finding the lazy goon who’d been supposed to answer that call and reminding him who was boss here. It had been a while since she’d had to do that, but she hadn’t forgotten how. The guy on the other end wasn’t likely to forget it, either, once she’d finished with him. She stepped toward the door, a grim smile on her lips.
The door opened before she reached it.
She stopped, astounded. Nobody else was supposed to be able to open that door. She was reaching for her weapon when a man stepped forward and said, “I wouldn’t do that, Mrs. Pruett. We have the place surrounded, and the penalties for attacking a Federation agent are very severe.”
“Federation agent?” she gasped. She recovered her aplomb almost immediately. “What the hell are you doing in my private quarters? You’re out of your jurisdiction. Lorelei law says I’m justified in blowing you away for breaking and entering. Get out before I do just that.”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken-this is my jurisdiction,” said the man, and he flipped open a wallet to show a holo-ID. Below the letters IRS it read, Roger Peele, Special Agent. “The Federation allows localities a good bit of autonomy in criminal and civil law,” said Peele solemnly. “But the tax code applies everywhere.”
“Tax code? You can’t bust me for taxes,” said Maxine. “I’m the one who called and tipped you off about the Fat Chance. It’s those damned Legion crooks you should be after, not me.”
“We make our own decisions about whom to go after,” said Agent Peele. “We are looking into the situation at the Fat Chance, and we will deal with it in our own time. Meanwhile, we have good reason to believe that you are systematically underreporting your income. I will ask you to come with me, Mrs. Pruett-we have quite a few questions to ask you.”
“I’m not answering any questions till I see my lawyer!” shouted Maxine. “Now get out of here before I call Security.”
“We have your lawyer and your security people already in custody,” said the agent. “You can talk to them down at headquarters.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Now, I suggest you surrender your weapon before you find yourself in even more serious trouble.”