"So observant they think they are," Rattila murmured smugly. "They don't notice the humble floor cleaner is hovering several inches above the floor."
"Now can we go back?" Strewth whined. Rattila kicked him.
"When we finish the floor." He smiled. "I am enjoying myself."
NINETEEN
"I suppose we could have lost the scent at some other point, what?" Chumley suggested wearily, as we sat slumped against the entrance to Massha's Secret.
Massha had dropped off long ago, snoring in musical tones. Eskina had been game as they come, rechecking all the points we had gone over, in case Rattila had doubled back at any point and disappeared into a wall or something. She had nodded off, too, curled up against Massha's side. Cire lay on his back, out to the wide, domed belly upward, his flipperlike hands flat out at his sides. Par had had to go back to the barracks to check over the graveyard shift and maybe get a few winks. I couldn't get comfortable on the shiny floor, but my pride wouldn't let me give up and go back to the hotel.
"We missed something," I acknowledged, going through the memory of the night before. "Where? What?"
"I say, don't berate yourself, Aahz," Chumley offered sympathetically. "If Rattila is so emboldened as to venture out, into our very environs, it means that he thinks he is becoming stronger, or that we are vulnerable." My keen ears picked up the rustle of footsteps. I looked around. They seemed to be coming from everywhere. They became louder, multiplied. I sprang to my feet and braced myself.
Suddenly, the owners of the feet hove into view: the shopkeepers and clerks returning to The Mall.
"Good morning, Aahz!" The Faery owner of Adorable Tchotchkes threw a smile our way as she waved a wand and disenchanted the night lock.
The big pink-and-blue doors flew wide, and tinkly music poured out of the store. Others called out greetings to us as they opened for the day.
"False alarm," I grunted, sitting down again.
"Aren't you opening up today?" asked Pitta, the Impish owner of Pitta's Petite Pitas, the food shop two down from ours.
"Huh?"
Pitta blushed pinkly. "I want to get a garter to surprise my boyfriend."
"Oh," I replied, feeling a little stupid. I had been concentrating so hard on how we failed to track Rattila that it slipped my mind that we had a perfectly good trap already armed and set. "Yeah. Of course, we're opening up."
I nudged everyone awake.
"Mine!"
"Mine!"
"Get your claws off it! It's mine!"
A three-way brawl in the middle of the shop between two Deveels and a Dragonet didn't faze the shoppers bumping one another to get to the wall displays. In The Mall it was just business as usual. I kept a close eye on Cire to make sure he didn't let any more "false positives" go by.
"They all look nice," Eskina insisted impatiently to an Imper female who stood in front of a mirror unable to make up her mind among half a dozen garters she was modeling on each leg. "It doesn't matter which one you choose."
"Well, I don't know ..." the Imp dithered.
Eskina reached out and pulled out a loop of black lace and yellow ribbon roses, and let it snap back against the Imp's pink thigh. "Take that one. Don't argue."
I sighed. It wasn't worth it, trying to turn a lifetime, hardbitten investigator into a tactful and patient salesperson.
To my surprise, the Imp beamed with gratitude. "Oh, thank you! Yes, that's the one I like best!" She peeled off the others and put them back.
Eskina turned away with a smirk.
Marco Djinnelli floated in. "Everything looks so wonderful!" he exclaimed, gesturing at the decorations. "All of the little touches ... you have good taste, Aahz."
"Not just me," I grunted, though I was pleased. "My team likes to get down to those little details."
The Djinn beamed effusively. "And you have made them. Er—as we agreed, half my payment today, please?"
"No problem," I assured him, leading him to the counter. We had counted out his share into a small bag that I left in a box with the remaining security bees. They hummed fiercely at me as I retrieved the bag, but we had had words earlier, and they didn't even come close to stinging. "As we agreed."
"Thank you, my friend, thank you!" Marco declared, winding the bag into the sash that went around his ample middle. "I will be back in a few days, also as we agreed. I wish you a profitable day, eh?"
"Thanks, pal," I grunted.
Marco floated off, and I locked up the box. That was out of the way. Now to earn the other half of his fee and clean up a little profit for ourselves.
"Now, when you fasten the buckle it turns on the alarm on the grouch bag, honey," Massha informed an eager purchaser as she folded a zebra-striped leg bangle into a box. "If you forget to disarm it before you take it off, it's going to howl bloody murder and deafen everybody for three blocks around. Let me get the bee off there. Enjoy it." She tucked the money into a bag.
A Deveel woman stepped up with a stack of frou-frou items and the light of battle in her eye.
"How much?" she asked.
Massha tucked the bag of coins into her generous cleavage and started out from behind the counter.
"Hey!" the Deveel protested.
"What?" Massha asked, startled. Probably a little dazed from lack of sleep. I sidled in beside her.
The customer pursed her lips. "You're not going to tell me the prices are fixed here. Not when they're so high!"
Massha seemed to snap out of it and smiled sweetly at the Deveel.
"They're fair. I defy you to find lower prices for this quality anywhere else in The Mall."
"You know perfectly well no one else in The Mall is selling garters!"
The smile became tooth-achingly sweet. Massha was fine now.
"Of course I do, honey. Now, do you want them gift-wrapped?"
The Deveel wouldn't have been a Deveel if she hadn't tried one more time for a bargain. She gave a friendly, woman-to-woman grin.
"Discount for volume?"
I showed all my teeth. "Priced as marked. If you don't want them, the broads behind you will grab them the second you put them down."
The Deveel gave me a look of disgust and clapped the items into Massha's hand. "All right! Perverts."
"Pervect," I corrected her, but I didn't really care.
She was counting out coins, resentfully but accurately. More sales in spite of the jacked-up prices meant we were really making a splash. In a little while I was going to have to head back to Deva to pick up another shipment.
A flipperlike limb emerged from the gap in the purple curtains at the rear of the store and signaled frantically. I glanced at Massha. "I'm fine, Big Shot," she assured me, elbowing me in the ribs. "I just took a little standing nap. I'm going to sleep well tonight. Better see what he wants. Don't worry about old Massha."
"If you're certain ..." I began, leaving her an out if she wanted one.
"Yes! I'm just not as young as I used to be. Hustle. Cire's getting a little wild there."
She was right. The hand waved more energetically. I signed to Chumley, who moved up a little to support Massha, and headed toward the back room. As casually as I could, I slid behind the curtain into the recessed niche. There wasn't much room beside the excited Walroid, and he nearly whacked me with his flipper.
"What's up?" I asked.
His broad face came up from the magikal black-rimmed lens, a commercial spyglass that we used to monitor the goings-on in the dressing room.
"I've got two," Cire whispered. "The alarm spell went off, very strongly. I wasn't going to let you down again, Aahz. This time I'm sure. I got accurate facial overlays from the globes that the Djinni merchants are using. These two are the goods!"