The ring fit loosely on my right thumb. Any larger, and I would have had to wear it like a bracelet. Staring at it, a 9 sudden suspicion flitted through my mind. “What else does it do?”
“Beg pardon?” Massha replied with such innocence I knew I was right.
“You heard me, apprentice. What does it do besides provide a beacon?”
“Wellll . . . it does monitor your heartbeat and alert me if there’s a sudden change in your physical condition, like say if you were injured. If that happens, I might just drop in a little early to see what’s wrong.” I wasn’t sure I liked that.
“But what if my heartbeat changed for normal reasons . . . like because I met a beautiful girl close up?” That earned me a bawdy wink.
“In that case, High Roller, I’d want to be here to meet her. Can’t have you running around with just anybody, can we?”
Before I could think of a suitable reply, she swept me into a bone-crushing hug.
“Take care of yourself, Skeeve,” she whispered with sudden ferocity. “Things wouldn’t be the same without you.”
There was a soft pop in the air, and she was gone. I was alone in Perv, the nastiest of the known dimensions.
Chapter Two:
“They don’t make ‘em like they used to!”
—H. FORD
ACTUALLY, I WASN’T as worried as you might think I’d be from the situation. Like I’d told Massha, I had an ace up my sleeve . . . and it was a beaut!
A while back, I was part . . . heck, I was the instigator of a plan to force the Mob out of the Bazaar at Deva. I felt it was only fair, since I was the one who had given them access to the Bazaar in the first place, and besides, the Devan Merchants’ Association had paid me well to get the Mob off their backs. Of course that was before the Mob hired me to run their interests at the Bazaar, and the Bazaar agreed to give me a house and pay me a percentage of the profits to keep the Mob at bay. Sound confusing? It was . . . a little. Fortunately, Aahz had shown me how the two assignments weren’t mutually exclusive and that it was ethically possible to collect money from both sides . . . well, possible, anyway. Is it any wonder that I prize his counsel so highly? However, I digress.
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