Every alarm in my system went off.
“Um . . . Aahz?”
“Shut up, k . . . I mean, be patient. Master Skeeve. This matter should be settled in a moment.”
I couldn’t watch.
Instead, I went to the window and stared out. Listening over my shoulder, I heard Aahz name an astronomical figure, and realized there might be a way out of this yet. If Aahz was greedy enough, and the Deveels stingy enough…
“Done!” said the spokesman.
“. . . Of course, that’s only an advance,” Aahz pressed. “A full rendering will have to wait until the job is completed.”
“Done,” came the reply.
“… And that is the fee only. Expenses will be reimbursed separately.”
“Done! The advance will be awaiting your arrival. Anything else?”
In tribute to the Deveel’s generosity, Aahz was unable to think of any other considerations to gouge out of them.
There was another BAMPH, and the delegation was gone.
“How about that!” Aahz crowed. “I finally put one over on the Deveels!”
“What’s that thing you always say about anyone who thinks they’ve gotten a good deal from a Deveel, Aahz?” Tananda asked sweetly.
“Later,” my mentor ordered. “Right now we’ve got to get our things together and pop over to the Bazaar to scout the opposition.”
“We already know what the opposition is.”
“How’s that, kid?”
I turned to face him.
“The opposition is the Mob. You remember, the organized crime group that was sponsoring Big Julie’s army?”
A frown crossed Aahz’s face as he regarded me closely,
“And how did you come by that little tidbit of information, if I may ask?”
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133