Bossk glared straight into the beggar's eyes. "I'd like to keep it that way."
"I'm sure you would, pal. So that's why I was think-ing, soon as I recognized you, when you came off that transport. Thinking about some way you and I could do business, like. You've had partners before—shoot, bounty hunters are always hooking up with each other. Guess that's so you can watch each other's back, huh?" The beg-gar showed some more of the gaps in his smile. "Well, maybe you and me can be partners."
"You must be joking." Bossk sneered at the beggar.
"What use would I have for a partner like you? My line of work is bounty hunting, not begging."
"Like I said before, pal, this ain't all I do. There's lots of other things I'm good at. One you might find really valuable. And that's keeping my mouth shut. I'm an ace at that—for the right price, of course."
"I bet you are." Bossk gave a slow nod, then lowered the beggar to the black-streaked surface of the space-port's landing area. "But what about all the others? The ones in your little network of informants that you heard about me from?"
"No problem; they can be taken care of." The beggar brushed off the front of his rags to little visible effect. "I've handed 'em a line before. All they knew was that you were heading this way, here to Tatooine. They don't need to know whether you stopped here, or for how long. I can tell 'em that you were just passing through, on your way to some other hole in the borderland regions. Communications are so bad out in these territories, they'll figure it just stands to reason if nobody reports spotting you for a while."
"I see." Bossk looked down at the beggar. "And just what is the price for this ... service of yours?"
"Very reasonable. Even in what appears to be your rather, um, reduced state financially, I'm sure you'll be able to afford it."
Bossk mulled it over for a few moments. "All right," he said at last. "You're right about one thing. We're both men of business." He didn't want to attract any more attention to himself, out here in the public zone of the landing field. "Why don't we go on into town?" Bossk nodded toward Mos Eisley itself. "So we can talk over the details of our little partnership. Like businessmen."
"Sounds good to me." The beggar started walking, in his hobbled, awkward manner, toward the distant build-ings. He glanced over his shoulder. "I'm a little thirsty, if you know what I mean."
"Everybody's thirsty on this planet." With an easy stride, Bossk followed after the beggar. He already knew just what business arrangements he was going to make.
When he was done making them, in one of the first back alleys that they came to inside Mos Eisley, Bossk wiped from his clawed hands the dirt that had stained the beggar's neck so greasily black. It didn't take long to do so; hardly more than the few seconds that had been required to snap the scrawny bones in the first place. Killing someone, Bossk had found over the years, was al-ways the best way to ensure their silence.
With a couple of kicks, he pushed what now looked like no more than a bundle of rags over against the wall of the alley. Bossk glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no routine security patrol had spotted what had gone down. He had come here to Tatooine, and specifi-cally to Mos Eisley, for the purpose of lying low and making his plans without anyone being too curious about his identity—the beggar had been right about that much. About how to conduct business with a Trando-shan , the beggar had been a little off the mark. Too bad for him, thought Bossk as he headed for the bright-lit mouth of the alley.
As for the suddenly deceased beggar's network of con-tacts off-planet—Bossk had already decided not to worry about them. He was probably lying to me, anyway. The beggar could have recognized Bossk and then made up that story about informants strung through the system, all keeping an eye on bounty hunters and other suspi-cious creatures, just to jack up the price he had been ask-ing for his continued silence.
Which hadn't even been all that high; Bossk knew he could have easily afforded it, without dipping too far into his stash of credits. Things are cheaper on Tatooine, thought Bossk. They deserve to be. The shade of a pair of tethered dewback mounts fell across him as he made his way across Mos Eisley's central plaza and toward the cantina. Deciding to eliminate the beggar rather than pay the shakedown had been more a matter of general principles rather than economics. If a bounty hunter let himself begin paying to keep his affairs private, he'd eventually wind up paying off everybody. With that kind of overhead, Bossk knew, it'd be hard to turn a profit.
He descended the rough-hewn stone steps into the cantina's familiar confines. In a hole like this, he wouldn't have to worry about anyone sticking a proboscis into his affairs. They'd know what the consequences would be. Plus, most of them had their own secrets—some of which Bossk knew a little about—so silence was a mutually desired commodity.
A few glances were turned his way, but the faces re-mained carefully composed, devoid of even the slight-est sign of curiosity. The cantina's regulars, the various lowlifes and scheming creatures with whom he'd had innumerable business dealings, here and elsewhere in the galaxy, all responded as if they had never seen him before.
That was the way he liked it.
Even the bartender said nothing, though he remem-bered Bossk's usual order; he poured it from a chiseled stone flagon kept beneath the bar and set it down in front of the Trandoshan. Bossk didn't need to tell him to put it on his tab.
"I'm looking for a place to stay." With his massive, scaled shoulders hunching over the drink, Bossk leaned closer to the bartender. "Someplace quiet."
"So?" The scowl on the bartender's lumpish face didn't diminish; he continued wiping out an empty glass with a grease-mottled towel. "We ain't running a hotel here, you know."
This time, Bossk slid a coin across the bar. "Some-place private."
The bartender laid the towel down for a moment; when he picked it up again, the coin had vanished. "I'll ask around."
"Appreciate it." Bossk knew that those words meant the negotiations were concluded, and successfully. The Mos Eisley cantina actually did have some chambers for rent—dark, airless holes, down beneath the cellars and subcellars where the barrels of cheap booze were stored— but only a few creatures, even among the establishment's regular habitues, knew about them. The cantina's man-agement preferred keeping them little known, and empty more often than not; it cut down on the amount of raids and general hassles from the Empire's security forces. "I'll check with you later."
"Don't bother." The bartender slapped something down. "Here's your change."
Bossk didn't even bother to look. He palmed the small object, feeling the outline of a primitive all-metal key, and slipped it into one of the pouches on his belt. He al-ready knew the way to the chambers beneath the can-tina, down one of the narrow stairs tucked behind a crumbling stone wall.
Carrying the drink with him, he slipped into one of the booths along the far wall. It wasn't too long before somebody joined him.
"Long time, Bossk." A rodent-faced Mhingxin sat himself down on the other side of the booth's table. Eob-bim Figh's long-fingered hands, like collections of bones and coarse, spiky hairs, set out a multicompartmented box with an assortment of stim-enhanced snuff powders. "Good to see you." Figh's sharp-pointed nails dipped into the various powders, one after another, then to the elongated nostrils on the underside of his wetly shining snout. "Heard you were dead. Or something."
"It would take a lot to kill me, Figh." Bossk sipped at the drink. "You know that."
"Boba Fett is a lot. Lot of trouble." The Mhingxin shook his tapered head. "Shouldn't take him on. Not if you're smart."
"I'm plenty smart enough for Fett," said Bossk sourly. "I just haven't been lucky."