“A proposal?” I said, deliberately stalling to organize my thoughts.
“That’s right. I figure that you’ve probably got a bit of discretionary funds available now that you’re on the kingdom payroll, and the kind of scams I run have a good return on investment, so I was hoping that I could get a little start-up money from you and …”
“Whoa! Stop the music!”
It had taken a few beats for what she was saying to sink in, obsessed as I was with my own expectations of the conversation. Even now, with my pretty dream-bubble exploding around me, I was having trouble changing gears mentally to focus on what she was actually getting at.
“Could you back up and take it from the top? You’re here to ask for money?”
“Well . . . Yes. Not much really . . . maybe fifty or seventy-five in gold should do.” she clarified hastily. “The nice thing with scams is they don’t really need much up-front capital.”
“You mean you want to borrow money from me so you can run a swindle? Here, in Possiltum?”
The look she leveled on me was, to say the least, cold and appraising. Not at all the coy, shy, averted gaze I was used to from her.
“Of course. That’s what I do,” she said levelly. “I thought you knew that when you offered me a job. Or are you just miffed because I prefer to operate independently? I suppose this is pretty small potatoes to you, but it’s the best I can do.”
As she spoke, my mind was racing back over the previous times I had seen or spoken with her. While I was aware then that she was always involved in or running from the results of some swindle or other, I had always assumed that she was a sweet kid who was going along with her partner, Matt. I realized now that I had no basis on which to make that assumption, other than her innocent looks. In fact, beyond her looks, I really didn’t know her at all.