Wagers of Sin: Time Scout II (24 page)

Goldie Morran found Chuck Farley seated at a table in Wild Bill's, a saloon-style bar in Frontier Town. He was reading the latest copy of the Shangri-La Gazette with apparent interest.

"Mind if a lady joins you?" she purred.

He glanced up, blinked, then set the paper aside. "Suit yourself"

The measuring look he gave her and the coolness of his greeting didn't bode well, but he did signal for a waitress. The rinky-tink jingle of the upright piano at the back of the room, its player costumed with gartered shirtsleeves and a battered beaver hat, rose above the sound of laughter, conversation, and the clink of glasses. The waitress, a saucy downtimer who, if rumor were correct-had earned more gold flirting with miners than the miners themselves had earned over an average year's digging, winked at Goldie, one hustler to another, friendly-like. Goldie smiled.

"What'll it be?" She rested hands on well-curved hips, while her breasts all but spilled out of her tight-laced costume. If Chuck Farley were affected by the sight, it didn't show in anyway Goldie could see. Maybe he preferred men? Goldie didn't care who he slept with, or why, so long as she obtained possession of his money.

"A drink for the lady. I presume," he added sardonically, "that she's buying, since I didn't invite her."

Goldie managed to keep smiling, although she'd vastly have preferred slapping him. "Whiskey Rebecca. Thank you. And yes," she added smoothly, "I am buying. I did not come here to steal a drink or two off an unwary tourist."

Some hint of mirth stirred far back in his eyes. "Very well, what did you come here for?"

As Rebecca threaded her way back through the crowded bar to fill Goldie's order, Goldie leaned back in her chair. "I am given to understand you're looking for something besides the usual tours."

Farley's smile was thin. "News certainly moves around fast in this place."

Goldie laughed. "That is too true. Which is why I wanted to talk to you before someone disreputable tried to swindle you." She handed over her card. "I have a shop on the Commons. Money-changing, rare coinage, gems, that sort of thing. My expertise is considerable."

Farley's thin smile came again, although it didn't touch his dark, watchful eyes. "I've heard of you, yes. Your reputation precedes you."

How he meant that, Goldie wasn't quite sure. Nor was she at all sure she liked the way he continued to watch her, like a waiting lizard.

"Not knowing what you had in mind, of course," she said, accepting the whiskey glass Rebecca brought and pointedly dropping money onto the table to pay for it, "I thought we might chat for a few minutes. Since you didn't seem interested in any specific tours, I thought perhaps you'd come to Shangri-La with something else in mind."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "Such as?"

"Oh, there are all sorts of reasons people come here," Goldie laughed. "Some people come just to eat at the Epicurean Delight. Then there's that Greek prophetess all those wacky uptime bimbos follow around like she was Christ on Earth." She smiled at the memory of Ianira's hordes. Goldie had made more than a little profit from them.

"But I didn't come here to talk about oracles and the fools who believe them. Occasionally we're visited by the shrewd individual or two who understands the investment potentials a place like Shangri-La has to offer."

The corners of Farley's lips twitched. "Really? What sort of investments?"

Goldie sipped her whiskey. Farley was cool, all right. Too cool by half. "Well, there are any number of lucrative ventures a man with wit and capital could turn to his advantage. There are, for instance, the shops that supply the tourists, restaurants-even the small ones turn a fabulous profit. Captive audience, you know." She laughed lightly. Chuck Farley allowed a small smile to touch his lips. "When there are businesses like mine. Capital invested in rare coins obtained by downtime agents could increase nine, ten times the initial investment."

Again, that small, sardonic smile. "I thought the first law of time travel was, `There will be no profiteering from time.' The ATF has copies of it posted everywhere, you know."

Somehow, Goldie received the impression from the mirth far back in those dark eyes that Chuck Farley didn't give a damn about the first law of time travel.

"True," she smiled. "But money exchanged from downtime purchases which is then invested right here in Shangri-La isn't covered by that law. You're only in violation if you try to take your profit uptime,

"So, the possibilities for shrewd investment are limitless for a man with capital and imagination." She sipped at her whiskey again, still watching him over the rim of the glass. "Best of all, the money you invest in, say, a business here on Shangri-La is taxed only at the rate it would be uptime. Frankly, you can make a killing without ever breaking a single law."

She smiled politely while he leaned back in his chair and studied her face. The corners of his lips moved slightly. "You interest me, Goldie Morran. I like your style. Gutsy, polished, sincere. I'll be in touch later, perhaps."

He tossed some coins onto the table to pay for his own drink, gathered up his copy of the Gazette, and left her sitting there, seething. She knocked back the remaining whiskey and followed him out, but he'd vanished into the mob milling around the Commons.

People gawking at the stores, the ramps, the chronometers, the gates, the waiting areas, the prehistoric beasts picked up from that absurd, unstable gate into the age of the dinosaurs-that was all she could see every direction she turned. She compressed her lips, furious that he'd turned her down and then simply vanished.

Just what the devil was Farley after, anyway?

Disgruntled in the extreme, Goldie set out for her shop. She'd gone only a few strides when she noticed Skeeter Jackson deep in conversation with a tourist. Drat the man! She was seriously of a mind to march over and tell that luckless tourist what a cheating fake he was, to spoil whatever profit he expected to pick up. Why she had ever agreed to this idiotic bet-

Goldie blinked. Someone was stalking Skeeter. A reddish-haired man in Western-style clothing that somehow didn't match the way he moved... Her eyes widened as recognition hit home: the downtimer who'd chased Skeeter before. Then she noticed the truly wicked blade he was silently drawing from beneath a set of leather chaps. Goldie drew in her breath sharply.

For an instant, spite and malice held her silent. Spite, malice, and greed. If Skeeter were dead, all bets were off and she could stay in La-La land with no one to fault her. The man crept closer. Goldie's stomach churned at the look of hatred in the stranger's eyes, etched into his attentive, absorbed face. Skeeter was Goldie's rival and a scoundrel and probably deserved what he was about to get more than anyone she knew. But in that instant, she realized she didn't want to watch him die.

Not particularly because she cared what happened to Skeeter, but murder was messy. And bad-very bad-for business. And for a fleeting instant, she also realized victory by default over a dead man would be about as sweet as vinegar on her tongue. So she found herself moving across the Commons faster than she'd moved in years.

Skeeter and his target were deeply engrossed in conversation near the waiting area for the Wild West Gate. The man creeping up on him sidestepped around an ornamental horse trough filled with colorful fish and tensed, ready for the final lunge. Goldie glanced around, wondering if she could find a weapon, or someone from Security, even something to use as a diversion.

Overhead, ten leathery, crow-sized pterodactyls perched in the girders, eyeing the fish in the horse trough. Skeeter talked on, oblivious to the closeness of impending death. Ah-ha! Goldie darted over to a vending cart which sold hats, T-shirts, and other trinkets, and said, "Sorry, gotta borrow this," to the startled cart owner.

She snatched up a toy bow and arrow set and nocked the arrow, pulled back expertly, then let fly. The arrow whizzed true to its mark: the rubber tip smacked right into the flock of startled pterodactyls. The whole lot of them took wing with ear-bending screeches and dove straight down. Goldie ducked under the cart. Skeeter jerked his gaze up and around, and saw the man with the long knife. His eyes widened.

Then he took off faster than Goldie had ever seen him run.

The man with the knife swore in what had to be Latin and bolted after him. Angry pterodactyls swarmed in his way, screaming like maddened crows mobbing a jaybird. Leathery wings buffeted the man's face. Claws raked his hair. He yelled something furious and tried to cut at them with his long knife. Skeeter's tourist, a pretty redhead, screamed and took refuge behind the horse trough. Other tourists scattered while those at a safer distance started to point.

Someone shouted for Security. Someone else yelled for Pest Control. The man fighting off the pterodactyls abruptly realized he was attracting attention to himself. He swore again and took off in the opposite direction Skeeter had taken-none too soon, as Security arrived hard on his heels.

"What's going on?"

The shaken tourist Skeeter had been trying to swindle crawled out from behind the trough. "A man with a huge knife! He tried to attack the guy I was talking to-then those things-"she pointed at the pterodactyls still flitting angrily above their heads "-started diving everywhere and-and I don't know where he went. I just hid behind this."

Security officers took the man's description from the shaken tourist while Goldie slipped quietly away in the confusion. The vendor she'd borrowed the bow and arrow from just gaped after her. Goldie returned cautiously to her shop, making sure no one from Security had followed, then locked the door and sat down to do some very serious thinking. Skeeter Jackson had picked up a lethal enemy somewhere. Or somewhen. He had changed an enormous sum of money after that last trip of his through the Porta Romae. Goldie would've bet the very gold in her teeth that Skeeter's attacker had been swindled downtime and had somehow come through the gate looking for revenge.

She shivered slightly behind her glass cases filled with coins, gems, and other precious items brought uptime by various gullible tourists. Wager or not, she was glad she'd acted. But there was one thing she intended to find out, or her name was not Goldie Morran, and that was the identity of the man who'd come so close to killing Skeeter.

Yes, finding out who he was and why he was after that wretched little con artist might just come in very handy. She might not want to see Skeeter murdered, but she had no qualms at all about seeing him arrested. Tapping her fingers thoughtfully against the cool glass countertop, Goldie wondered who to contact about the mystery man's identity. She had all sorts of agents spotted about the station, willing to do a little spying for her as well as the odd downtime courier job. Goldie sniffed autocratically and picked up the phone.

Time was running, but she would find out.

There were, after all, only so many places in La-La Land a man could hide. Someone would know. And once she knew, the man chasing him would know. And when he knew, Skeeter Jackson's days on Shangri-La would be over for good. She started calling her paid agents all over the station.

Marcus made his way home and entered the cramped apartment. It was echoingly empty. Ianira had packed in haste, leaving most of her own things in favor of taking the children's necessities. He touched one of her Greek gowns, breathing in its scent, almost smiled at the sight of prosaic jeans hung neatly on hangers in her half of their closet. He crushed the heavy fabric beneath his hands.

Marcus had known this day would eventually come.

He just hadn't known it would tear his vitals so mercilessly.

Marcus swore savagely in a language no other man, woman, or child on TT-86 ever used-with the rare exception of his beloved Ianira, to whom he had taught a little of it-then found the aspirin in the medicine cabinet. He downed five tablets to relieve the fierce throbbing in his head and wished bitterly he could afford strong alcoholic beverages like Kit's special bourbon, brought to TT-86 from some secret, downtime escapade. But he didn't have the money for such luxuries.

He didn't have money for anything.

Marcus swore again, hating himself for the tremors he couldn't quite suppress. He'd come to believe in himself as a free man. But the man who had purchased and brought him here would-sooner or later demand an accounting. Marcus brought out the notes he had laboriously compiled over years of bartending and listening to the talk of men and women far gone in their boasting. He brought out the money he had so carefully stockpiled from the little metal box at the top of the bedroom closet. He changed out of his working clothes into a clean pair of blue jeans and a respectable shirt, one Ianira had surprised him with from a shop in Frontier Town on his last birthday. He smoothed down the fringe with unsteady fingers and swallowed down a throat gone dry. His face in the mirror was ashen despite the stubble of beard along his chin.

If he tried shaving now, he'd cut himself to ribbons.

Able to think of nothing else to do to prepare himself, he sank into a chair facing the door to wait. When the telephone shrilled, Marcus actually knocked the chair over. He disentangled himself, and made it to the phone before the answering machine switched on.

"Hello?"

"Marcus," that familiar voice said-notably in English, not Latin. "We have business to discuss. Come to the Neo Edo, Room 3027. Bring your records."

The line clicked in his ear.

Marcus swallowed once in the silence. He still didn't even know the man's name. He swallowed again, against unreasoning fear. Nothing could really happen to him. And it was Kit's hotel he'd be going to, not some out-of-the-way corner of the terminal. Kit Carson was a friend. A powerful friend. Marcus clung to that thought.

Then he gathered up moneybox, records, and his courage and headed resolutely toward Kit Carson's world-famous hotel.

Getting into the Neo Edo was simple.

There were lots of ways into the luxury hotel besides the main lobby. Probably more, in fact, than Kit Carson knew existed, unless the previous owner, the legendary Homako Tani, had left blueprints behind when he'd deeded the enormous hotel to his long-ago time scouting partner. The Neo Edo's architect, working under Tani's direct supervision, had put in more melodramatic secret passageways, hidden entrances, and blind rooms built into the rocky foundations of the Himalayas themselves than even the gods of the mountaintops knew.

Skeeter had tried to pick locks on those doors more than once, slipping in through one of at least fifteen secret entrances he'd discovered thus far (and he hadn't even attempted the top three floors of the five-storey hotel yet, for fear of opening a hinged panel and emerging straight into Kit Carson's palatial office on the fifth floor. A gilt-and-wood dragon-shaped balcony, whose "scales" were Imperial Chrysanthemums, snaked completely around the open, atrium-style upper floor, which boasted bedrooms larger than his biological parents' entire home floorplan.

Rumor had it (and Skeeter's sources were pretty reliable) that Kit had discovered he owned the Neo Edo when a bunch of lawyers he didn't know had been allowed into La-La Land just long enough to hand-deliver a copy of Homako Tani's will, a brief letter, and the deed to the hotel.

Lawyers, however, were barred from conducting any official legal business (never mind set up a law firm!) in La-La Land by edict of none other than Bull Morgan. The squat, fire-plug of a station manager, who chewed cigars the way eight-year-olds chewed bubble gum, had put into place iron-clad rules he bent only when the "official lawyering" dealt with wills and inheritances.

In its way, so long as you obeyed the rules (or didn't get caught breaking them), La-La Land was a sanctuary beyond compare. He grinned. No one-probably not even Kit knew whether or not the Neo Edo's builder was really dead. Rumor (and here, even Skeeter's sources were of wildly mixed opinions) ran the gamut from Homako Taw dying at the hand of Japan's greatest warrior-artist-poet-swordsmith ever to live, Miyamoto Musashi, to walking up into the ceiling of the world and ending his last years as Dalai Lama in Tibet (not so far, actually, from the geographical, if not temporal, site of TT-86).

The world-famous temple at the roof of the world had finally been refurbished after tidal waves, earthquakes, famine, disease, and war with their hated northern neighbors had caused the great, sprawling bastion of communist socialism to crumble and finally leave Tibet to its prayer wheels, its solitary temples, its bamboo-munching pandas, and its mountains, where new snow falling on the great Himalayan peaks blew harshly.

Whatever the true story, Skeeter simply strolled into the lobby in his disguise, passed the huge mural of Sunrise over Edo Castle, which was supposed to be a copy of one that the same Musashi (who might have killed Homako Tani, for any possible reason, given Musashi"s temper) had painted. Skeeter reached the elevator and pinged the little lighted circle.

Moments later, he was on the third floor, stealing toward Charles Farley's expensive room on a carpet thick and fine as any the kings of Persia might have ordered woven for their winter pavilions. The subtle pattern of black and white reminded him of snow leopards, or those elusive creatures of the Mongolian steppes, the silent white tiger glimpsed through blasts of snow and wind. Skeeter shivered, recalling his terror when ordered by Yesukai to join a winter hunt in the sacred mountains of the Yakka clan's homeland. He still didn't know whether it had been skill or luck that his arrow had brought down the snow leopard before the huge cat could claw him to death, but he would take to his grave the scream of his pony, knocked from under him and mortally wounded before he knew anything was near.

Skeeter shook off those memories with some irritation and concentrated on the matter at hand: breaking into Room 3027. First, he listened, ear bent to the door with a stethoscope to hear what might be taking place beyond the closed door. He caught the sound of the shower and a man's voice singing Gilbert and Sullivan off key. Skeeter smiled, carefully slipped the lock while disabling the alarm with a little tool he'd invented all on his own, and entered the darkened hotel room.

Farley sang on, as Skeeter began a methodical hunt of the well-appointed bedroom. He rifled through the discarded clothing on the bed, searched every drawer, under the mattresses, in the closet, under every piece of furniture, even managed to open the room safe, only to find it empty.

Where? Skeeter fumed.

He eased the bathroom door open and risked a peek inside.

Steam hit his face, along with an unpleasant bellow about mausers and javelins, but there was no sign of a moneybelt draped over the toilet, sink, or towel rack. Had he worn the damned thing into the shower?

The song-and the spray of water-came to an abrupt end. Farley's shower was over. Skeeter cursed under his breath and ran for the hall. He slipped outside, locked Farley's hotel room door behind him, and leaned against it, breathing heavily as his heart raced.

"What are you doing here?" a familiar voice demanded.

Skeeter yelped an came at least three inches clear of the floor. Belatedly he recognized Marcus. "Oh, it's only you," he gasped, sagging again into the door for support. "For a second, I thought Goldie'd set Security on me again."

Marcus was frowning intensely. "You were attempting to steal from the room."

Skeeter planted hands on hips and studied his friend. "I do have a wager to win," he said quietly, "or had you forgotten that? If I lose, I get tossed off station."

"Yes, you and your stupid bet! Why must you cheat and steal from everyone, Skeeter Jackson?"

Marcus' anger surprised him. "I don't. I never steal from 'eighty-sixers. They're family. And I never steal from family."

Marcus' cheeks had flushed in the soft lighting of the hall. His breathing went fast and shallow. "Family! When will you learn, Skeeter? You are not a Mongol! You are an uptimer American, not some unwashed, stinking hordesman!"

Shock detonated through him. How had Marcus known about that?

"`A Mongol doesn't steal from his own kind,' " Marcus ranted on, evidently quoting some conversation Skeeter didn't remember at all. "Pretty morals for a pretty thief, yes? That is all you are. A thief. I am sick of hearing how the tourists deserve it. They aren't your enemies! They are only people trying to enjoy life, then you come and smash it up by thieving and lying and-" His eyes suddenly widened, then went savagely narrow. ""The money you gave to me. The bet you made in Rome. You did not win it honestly."

Skeeter wet his lips, trying to get in a word edgewise.

"He came to me for help, damn you, because you'd stolen the money for his new life! Curse you to your Mongolian hell, Skeeter Jackson!"

Without another word, Marcus turned and strode toward the distant elevators, passing them and opting for the staircase, instead. The door banged against the wall in an excess of rage. Skeeter stood rooted to the snowy carpet, swallowing. Why did he feel like bursting into tears for the first time since his eighth birthday? Marcus was only a downtimer, after all.

Yeah, a voice inside him whispered. A downtimer you called friend and were drunk-or stupid-enough to confide the truth to. Skeeter could lie to any number of tourists, but he couldn't lie to that voice. He had just watched his only real friendship shatter and die.

When the door to Room 3027 opened and Farley stuck his head into the corridor, Skeeter barely noticed.

"Hey, you. Have you seen a guy named Marcus, about your size, brown hair?"

Skeeter stared Farley in the eyes and snarled out yet another lie. "No. Never heard of him."

Then he headed for the elevators and the nearest joint that served alcohol. He wanted to feel numb. And he didn't care how much money it took. He closed his eyes as the elevator whirred silently toward the Neo Edo's lobby.

How he was going to regain the friendship he'd managed to shatter into pieces, Skeeter Jackson had no idea. But he had to try. What was the point of staying on at TT-86, if he couldn't enjoy himself? And with the memory of Marcus' cold, angry eyes and that wintery voice sinking into his bones, he knew he would never enjoy another moment in La-La Land unless he could somehow restore good faith with Marcus.

He stumbled out of the elevator, completely alone in a lobby crowded with tourists, and realized that Marcus' anger was infinitely worse than all those long-ago baseball games where he'd played his heart out, alone, while a father too busy to bother stayed home and stole money from customers who didn't need the expensive junk he sold to any sucker he could pin down longer than five seconds.

The comparison hurt.

Skeeter found that nearest bar, ignoring tattooed Yakuza and wide-eyed japanese businessmen, and got roaring, nastily drunk. Had his luck gone sour? Was all this a punishment for screwing over-and thus guaranteeing the loss of-his only friend? He sat there amongst the curious japanese businessmen and thugs who stared at the gaijin in "their" bar, and wondered bitterly who he hated worse: His father? Marcus, for pointing out how much Skeeter had turned out like him? Or himself, for everything he'd done to end up just like the man he'd grown up despising?

He found no answers in the japanese whiskey or the steaming hot sake, which he consumed in such enormous amounts even the japanese businessmen were impressed, eventually crowding around to compliment and encourage him. A girl dressed as a geisha-hell, she might have been one, since time terminals could afford to pay the outrageous salaries their careers demanded-refilled his cup again and again, attempted vainly to flirt and draw him out with conversation and silly games the others played with enthusiasm. Skeeter ignored all of it, utterly. All he wanted was the numbing effect of the booze.

So he let them talk, the words washing over him like the cutting winds of the wide, empty Gobi. There might not be any answers in the whiskey, but alcohol made the emptiness a little easier to bear.

Three sheets to the wind (a sailing term, Skeeter had discovered years earlier when his father had taken them on a short cruise so everyone of any importance would see his new sloop), Skeeter was just about to give into to drunken stupor when the phone rang. He snagged the receiver, tripping and knocking over a chair on the way. "Yeah?"

"Mr. Jackson? Chuck Farley, here."

Surprise rooted him to the carpet. "Yes?" he asked cautiously.

"I've been thinking about your offer the other day. About time guiding. You had a good point. If you're not engaged, I'd like to hire you."

Skeeter recovered from his surprise gracefully "Of course. What gate did you have in mind?"

"Denver."

"Denver. Hmm..." He pretended to consult a nonexistent guiding calendar while pulling himself together. "The best time for Denver's just a tad over two weeks from now, after the Porta Romae makes a complete tour cycle. Yes, I'm free for that Denver trip."

"Wonderful! Meet me in half an hour in Frontier Town. We'll discuss details. There's a little bar called Happy Jack's ..."

"Yes, I know it. Half an hour? No problem. I'll be there."

"Good."

The line clicked dead. Happy Jack's was a wild place, where anything could happen. Especially to one particular fat money-belt. Skeeter grinned as he emerged from his apartment.