“On my way,” the Deveel waved. “Gee. I can’t get over …”
“Now, you realize, of course, we don’t have that kind of cash on hand. We’ll have to give a down payment and arrange some kind of payment schedule.”
“Fine. Fine. As long we get a contract guaranteeing my profit.”
Then he was gone, leavin’ us ta stare at each other in silence. Finally, Skeeve gathered us up with his eyes.
“The placed is booked solid?” he said, confirmin’ what we had told him in our debriefing.
“… For three weeks, with a waiting list for cancellations,” Vic confirmed. “We’re taking reservations for as much as a year and a half in advance.”
“… And Hysterium doesn’t know?”
“He never asked, and we never got the chance to tell him,” I shrugged. “You saw how he was.”
Skeeve nodded thoughtfully.
“That means, if my calculations are correct, we’ll be able to pay him off in full in less than three months . . . not including the take from the casino and the shops.”
He rose and stretched, then gave us a wink.
“C’mon, you two,” he said. “I think I’ll invest an arm and a leg and buy you both a drink!”
Chapter Four:
“If you’re too busy to help your friends, you’re too busy!”
-L. IACOCCA
ACTUALLY, I WASN’T all that wild over The Fun House. I mean, it was making us money hand over fist, but I somehow never figured on owning a hotel/casino. In particular, I didn’t think it was a good idea to set the precedent of buying out dissatisfied customers, no matter how profitable the deal turned out to be. As it was, Hysterium’s relatives (on his wife’s side) were trying to get the deal invalidated on the basis that he must have been out of his mind, or at least not in his right mind, to sell such a lucrative business at the price he did. I wasn’t particularly worried, as this was still the Bazaar at Deva, and if everyone who signed off on a bad deal here was declared insane, the economy would collapse.
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