Even his dark glasses had violet lenses.
“You know, this is quite a place you got here. Never been here before, but I heard a lot about it in the yearly report. It doesn’t look this big from the outside.”
“We like to keep a low profile,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. It’s like I keep tellin’ ‘em back at Mob Central, you run a class operation. I like that. Makes us all look good.”
I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. The last thing I wanted to discuss with Don Bruce was our current operation.
“Like some wine?” Aahz chimed in, coming to my rescue.
“It’s a little early, but why not? So! What is it you wanted to see me about?”
“It’s about Bunny.”
“Bunny? Oh yeah. How’s she workin’ out?”
Even if I hadn’t already been suspicious, Don Bruce’s response would have seemed overly casual. Aahz caught it too, raising his eyebrow again as he poured the wine.
“I thought we should have a little chat about why you sent her here.”
“What’s to chat about? You needed a moll, and I figured. . .”
“I mean the real reason.”
Our guest paused, glanced back and forth between Aahz and me a couple of times, then shrugged his shoulders. “She told you, huh? Funny, I would have thought that was one secret she would have kept.”
“Actually, I figured it out all by myself. In fact, when the subject came up, she denied it.”
“Always said you were smart, Skeeve. Now I see you’re smart enough to get me to admit to what you couldn’t trick out of Bunny. Pretty good.”
I shot a triumphant glance at Aahz, who was suddenly very busy with the wine. Despite my feeling of victory over having puzzled out the identity of the Ax, I was still more than a little annoyed.