With an eye on the obnoxious squirt in the corner I nonchalantly flipped my chair upright and sat down in it again. Massha kept her hand on the glowing jewels on her jangly belt.
"Then what the hell do you want?" I demanded.
"Well," Moa suggested apologetically, "we've just finished telling you that we've been unable to break up this ring of thieves. Maybe our approach is wrong."
"Duh," Chumley chided him, in his Big Crunch voice. "Not catch."
"Exactly," Moa remarked, with, an emphatic upward swing of his forefinger. "Look, gentleman and madame, I'm a businessman. I'm not a detective. I sell goods. I don't solve mysteries." A thin eyebrow climbed up his shiny bald dome. "But you do." I'd known the conversation would take this turning the moment Moa asked us back to his office.
"Sorry," I snapped. "Not interested."
Moa looked surprised. I knew he'd do that, too. "What?"
"You're about to ask us to investigate the thieves here in The Mall. Right?"
"Of course, right. We do want to hire you. You want the same thing we do. The sky's the limit on fees. Why not?"
I held up a hand and ticked off the fingers. "Several reasons. One: we don't want exactly the same things. I'm here to figure out who's impersonating my friend. Nothing else. Two: I don't like to get tied up in local issues in which I have no stake. Three:"—and here I fixed the squirt next to Moa with a full-throttle glare—"I might have considered differently, but your partner here decided to try and burn my office down."
Moa gave a chiding look at the peaky-faced Flibberite, " then turned large and sorrowful eyes toward me.
"Please, Mr. Aahz, my associate here was doing his job. Won't you reconsider? We'll offer you ... ten thousand gold pieces."
Now came the hard part: a cash offer. I'd already anticipated that, too. In my day I've been on both sides of this kind of negotiation. I thought about it, hard, but loyalty won out over greed. I folded my arms.
"No."
"Each."
My palms itched, but I held firm. "No."
Now Massha and Chumley looked surprised, too.
"Twenty," the Flibberite offered, growing panic in his eyes.
"Mr. Moa!" the financial squirt protested.
"Enough, already, Woofle," Moa replied, not taking his eyes off mine. "Thirty."
"No!" I roared. The picture of bags of shiny coins fluttering away on gossamer wings was almost too much for me to take, but I hung on. My efforts weren't lost on my associates.
"Aahz," Massha asked gently. "Are you feeling all right?"
"I'm fine," I snarled. "It's the principle. I want to get to the bottom of Skeeve's shoplifting double. I want to tear his head off and spit down his neck, then I am going back to Deva to finish the book I was reading when this whole mess started. If it didn't burn to ashes," I added, with a glare at Woofle.
He quailed. That was good. I felt like scaring hell out of someone.
"Maybe," Chumley grunted at Moa in his Big Crunch voice, "you nice, we help if possible." He turned his big, moon-shaped eyes at me. "Re-con-sid. Later."
Moa glanced at the Troll, as though surprised that he could actually talk. Trolls often hired out as muscle in other dimensions. Rarely did their employers get to know them as we did, which led to the widespread misconception that they had about five brain cells each. In reality, Chumley had about five college degrees. After me he was probably the smartest guy in M.Y.T.H., Inc. He certainly had the Flibberites' attention.
"Yes, Mr. Troll," Moa asserted eagerly, leaning forward with his hands outstretched. "How nice do I have to be?"
Chumley pursed his big lips as if trying to make words was difficult. "Place sleep. Food. Guard help. Yeah?"
"Yes," I picked up on my associate's suggestions, wondering what was wrong with me that I hadn't thought of that myself. "If you put us up, give us a... reasonable per diem for meals and drinks and so on, and give us an in with the local security, if, and it's a big if, we come across something during our personal investigation that helps you out, we might shoot it your way."
"You're free to reward us afterward if you want to," Massha interjected hastily.
"We'll be happy to," Moa promised, his enthusiasm returned. "We'll deputize you. You'll be free to come and go wherever you want. Parvattani!"
"Yessir!" The captain of the guard snapped to attention.
"These three fine people need to operate as secret guards here in The Mall."
"Yessir!" Parvattani responded, with a salute that nearly knocked him unconscious. "Bisimo! Secret guard insignia for three!"
The guard nearest the door flung it open and tore out into the hallway.
In a very short time he was back with three more guards, each carrying a bundle of cloth.
"You're a little heftier than the average Flibberite," Bisimo offered apologetically.
He shook out the first bundle and held it up to my chest. It was a tunic. At least, if there'd been a volume control on the incredibly loud fabric so I could dial it down to dark blue serge from wild blackberry-and-orange-dyed spotted herringbone tweed, I might have identified it as a tunic. It was so tasteless even an Imp wouldn't have worn it. Huge epaulets in metallic aqua adorned each shoulder, and frogs in the same shade marched down the front, framing huge shiny brass buttons. The color scheme actually hurt my eyes.
"What's this?" I demanded, blinking.
"All our undercover agents wear these," Moa said, surprised. "It's meant to blend in with the local scenery."
"All of it at once?" I said, shaking my head. "No wonder you've had no luck sneaking up on your frauds! Any thief with half an eyeball could see these coming four dimensions away!" I shoved the cloth back at Bisimo. "No thanks, pal. I prefer my own style. Maybe, just maybe if I have time when we finish with what we came here to do, I'll help you set up a real undercover corps. And maybe," I added, trying not to look at the psychedelic ball of cloth in Bisimo's arms, "we can have a talk about camouflage. In the meantime, just stay out of our way. We'll try to keep it subtle. We don't want to tip off the perpetrators. We want their butts as much as you do."
"Well, you can't walk around without a guide," Moa countered. "One of the guards can accompany you."
"No," I retorted at once.
"It's a good idea," Moa offered persuasively. "He'll make sure you have no trouble with the locals, get you into secured areas, and all that. You did say you've never been here before. You should take one with you to show you the course."
I considered it for about one second.
"All right," I agreed.
I pointed at Captain Parvattani.
"We'll take him. That'll be Par for the course." I guffawed at my own joke and waited for applause, but in vain. Everyone looked at me blankly.
"But he's the captain of the guard," Moa protested.
"I know. That means he'll be brighter than the others, I hope," I said. "If he's at the head of your squad, it means he's the best you've got. Right? If he's worth what you're paying him, he'll have the whole layout of The Mall in his head, including the parts that aren't on the map."
Parvattani straightened his spine and tried to live up to the hype I was giving him. I always find it makes people give their all if you set an ideal for them to live up to. Still, Moa looked doubtful.
"Besides, he might learn something, hanging out with us," I added.
That was enough to convince Moa. That suited me. We wouldn't have to learn the terrain, and Par wouldn't try to take control of the situation.
"But you're not wearing that thing," I instructed the elated guard. "You stick out like a clown nose at a cotillion."