Now I knew I wanted to meet friend Vic. If I was lucky, I’d meet him before Aahz did.
“Well, I do appreciate you filling me in on the problem. Now, if you’ll just come back to Blut with us and explain things to the authorities, my gratitude will be complete.”
Luanna started as if I had stuck her with a pin.
“Hold on a minute! Who said anything about going to the authorities? I can’t do that! That would be double crossing my partners. I don’t want to see you or your friends get hurt, but I can’t sacrifice my own to save them.”
An honest crook is both incongruous and infuriating. Aahz had often pointed this out to me when some point in my ethic kept me from going along with one of his schemes, and now I was starting to understand what he was talking about.
“But then why are you here?”
“I wanted to warn you. Vic has been thinking that you might come into Limbo after your partner, and he’s setting up some kind of trap if you did. If he was right, I thought you should know that you’re walking into trouble. I figured that if you came, you’d look up the Dispatcher, so I waited there and followed you when you showed up. I just wanted to warn you is all. That and . . .”
She dropped her eyes again and lowered her voice until I could hardly hear her.
“… I wanted to see you again. I know it’s silly, but….”
As flattering as it was, this time I was unimpressed.
“Yeah, sure.” I interrupted. “You’re so interested in me you’re willing to let my partner sit on a murder rap just so you can watch me go through my paces.”