“That is correct,” Greg said.
I looked R.C. in the eyes. “You need to stay here and cover the business. The gym’s been busy enough that you’ll have plenty to do.” Our gym had over two thousand square feet of workout space, another three thousand square feet of living space, all the latest fitness equipment, thousands of pounds of free weights, and more than twenty-five hundred members on its books. It also sat nearly empty almost all of the time, a convenient cash business. All but a few of its members were just names we bought from friends at local hotels, out-of-state travelers who had passed through Raleigh at one time or another. R.C. and I were the only people with permanent access cards, though from time to time we would give temporary cards to others working on jobs with us. R.C. would be covering something, but it would be my back, not the business.
He nodded, grabbed the bag of diamonds, and left through the door opposite the one we had entered. I knew he’d monitor the room until I left, and that from then on he’d be there if I needed him—but I also knew I’d never see him, and neither would Greg.
“Tell me about what Jim was doing for you guys,” I said, “and about how he escaped and when.”
“I cannot discuss that,” Greg replied.
I pulled over a chair and sat down in front of him. I motioned to another chair, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he folded his legs and sank slowly to the floor.
“If you don’t,” I said, “finding him will take a lot more time. Your leader said you wanted to get both him and some materials back. The most logical assumption is that those materials are related to what he was doing. Right?”
“That is correct.”
“If he took them, it was almost certainly either to sell them or to continue the work you were doing that involved them and then sell the result of that work. Otherwise, he’d have no reason to take them. If I don’t know what he was doing for you guys, I can’t know whether he’s likely to be looking to sell something or to hole up for a while, and so I can’t know how to track him. Understand?”
“Yes.” Greg paused long enough that I wondered if I’d have to push him again to get him to talk. Finally, though, he resumed. “Our race belongs to a trade guild that includes many other races. The guild’s rules are quite strict and very expensive to disobey. They limit the technologies guild members can use and the products they can offer when they operate on nonguild planets, such as yours. The overt mission of our visit to this planet is in accordance with those rules; we and others have guild permission to begin preliminary trade talks. The project for which we took James Peterson is not, however, in accordance with those rules. Thus our increased need for discretion and my unwillingness to answer your questions.”
“So you were smuggling?”
“If I understand the term correctly, the answer is, somewhat. It is not that simple.”
“Then cheer up, Greg, because I don’t care about smuggling.” I pulled my chair a bit closer. “What I do care about is earning those diamonds, which means I have to find Jim, which means I need to know what he was doing. So, one more time: What was he doing?”
“We chose you for this job because he mentioned you.”
I had assumed they knew about me from Jim’s police records, but I should have known better than to make assumptions. “What did he say?”
“That he was looking forward to seeing you again. He laughed when he said it. Were you friends? Did he laugh from happiness?”
“Yes, we were friends once. Not any more.” The anger I felt rising inside me, the anger I always felt when I thought of Jim, was not going to help me now, so I pushed it back. “No, I doubt he was laughing from happiness.” I still needed to know what Jim had been doing, and I didn’t want to keep dancing with Greg. “How you found me doesn’t matter now. What matters now is what Jim was doing for you and when and how he escaped.”