'The hell I will," I snarled, shaking their hands off me. The two had nearly made it to the door. "Massha! Cire!" Cire flung himself out of the alcove and leveled his hands at the two females, who doubled around a display. The rest of the customers still in the store started screaming. Cire let fly. The thieves doubled around a rack near the doof. The orange ball of flame hit the rack head-on. It blew up, sending garters flying everywhere. The thieves found themselves pressed against the backs of frantic shoppers, all trying to get out of the store at the same time. Massha took to the air, her hands fumbling for a necklace pendant.
The shark tried to wiggle her way into the crowd. Now was not the time for niceties. With a flattened hand I chopped upward at the wrist of one of Dota's goons. The crossbow went flying. I seized it out of midair and leveled it at the shark's tail. She saw me and went low. I took a bead on the two-headed broad. She shoved hard into the crowd.
BZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZZ!
The alarm around the door went off. All the customers jammed there started screaming and slapping at themselves as the theft-control bees installed on the unsold garters realized they were being stolen and went into action. The frauds couldn't escape now. Grinning fiercely, I dropped the crossbow and dove after them.
And hit the ground sprawling with a ton of weight on my back. I wrenched my head around. One of the goons was sitting on me. Dota came around to loom over me.
Chumley saved the day. In two quick strides he reached the doorway and grabbed each of our subjects by the nape of the neck.
"Let 'em go," Inspector Dota ordered.
Chumley turned his moonlike eyes disbelievingly toward the tax man. "Huh?"
Dota nodded to his goons, who leveled their crossbows on him.
"Let 'em go now," he repeated, in a voice of quiet menace.
At that range the quarrels could not miss, and whatever the glowing arrowheads meant, it couldn't be good. Very reluctantly, Chumley released our prisoners.
Dota turned to point at Massha and Cire. "The rest of you employees, freeze!"
"But they're ripping us off!" I protested from the ground. "I, er, want them to come back and pay for those items."
Dota was unmoved. "It would be an illegal transaction. You can't be selling this merchandise anyhow until you have an identification certificate."
I gave in and flopped on the purple carpet. "How long's processing time?"
"Three to four weeks."
'Three or four what?" I bellowed.
The jam at the door cleared. The shoppers fled, most of them dabbing at stings. The shark and the two-headed broad paused just long enough to wave sweetly at me before disappearing into the usual thick crowd wandering The Mall's corridors.
Dota's goon got off of my back. I didn't bother pursuing the two impostors. We'd lost that round. I turned to the inspector.
"Look, we're investigators trying to clear up a ring of thieves in this Mall. We've got the cooperation of the administrators and half the shopkeepers here. This is our best shot at capturing the criminals!"
"You'll have to find some other way to do it," Dota insisted. He glanced at his enforcers. "We're done here. Have a nice day."
Massha settled down next to me.
"It's not your fault, Hot Shot. Moa must have forgotten to mention the tax forms. He's not the finance guy."
I felt steam shoot out of my ears. "But Woofle is. I bet he deliberately kept the facts back. I'm going to have a word with him."
Chumley patted me on the back. "Forget about it, Aahz. You can't prove it. Really, it's my fault, what? I could have read through all of those documents in full detail, but truthfully I would still be there now if I had tried. I thought I had noticed all of the important provisions."
"We will find another way to catch them," Eskina assured me.
I looked around at the shop. Most of the displays had been torn down by the hysterical crowd. The dressing room had been destroyed. What was left of the merchandise was scattered across the floor. Acrid smoke rose from the burning rack near the door. The place was ruined.
"What the hell else could go wrong?" I asked.
"Hello?"
Marco Djinnelli floated through the buzzing doorway.
"What happened here?" he asked, sympathetically.
"A riot," I replied, shortly. "It's gonna be a while until we can give you the second half of your money."
"Understandable, understandable," Marco agreed, soothingly. "We are friends. But the first half, as we agreed? I have come for that."
"What?" I demanded. "We paid you."
"No, of course not," Marco demurred politely. "All on credit, I ordered all these items for you. So beautiful they were." He kissed his fingertips. "Alas for such destruction!"
"No," I corrected him. "I mean, we paid you the first half of what we owe you about an hour ago."
"No, no! An hour ago I was enjoying a cappuccino with my cousin Rimbaldi at the Coffee House. The divine Sibone sends her best to her beloved Aahz." Marco narrowed his eyes at us as we all stared at him. "You are telling the truth, aren't you?"
"Marco," I began slowly, "what kind of credit account do you use?"
"Gnomish Bank of Zoorik," Marco replied. Light dawned on him as he studied our faces. "No. No, it is not true."
"I think it must be," Chumley rejoined. "How closely do you scrutinize your statements, Marco?"
Marco waved a hand. "Oh, you know, debits and credits come and go—but you are saying that I am being stolen from, in my very own account! I must go and look. What a terrible thing!"
The Djinn flew off, muttering to himself.
"What do you think, Green Genius?" Massha asked.
I frowned. "I think that the rat we captured wasn't carrying cards for all the bodies they can change into. They probably have hundreds each, maybe more." I crunched across the debris on the floor. "Let's lock this place up. We need to question the rat and find out where the rest of them are, and how many different identities are circulating."
TWENTY
We couldn't get near the Will Call office. Yellow tape stretched across the corridor, and the guards bustling back and forth behind it refused to let us through. I showed the Flibberite sentries the IDs that Moa had issued us.
"Look, we've been deputized by Captain Parvattani," I argued. "We have to talk to his prisoner."
"We haven't got a prisoner, sir," the guard replied stoutly.
"Fine," I grumbled. "Have it your way. Use whatever politically correct term you want. Detainee, intern, person helping you with your inquiries."
"I mean, sir," the guard corrected me, his eyes forward but his cheeks glowing blue like a cheap television screen, "that the person you seek is no longer in our keeping."
"The hell he's not! Where's Parvattani?" I pushed past the guard station. Chumley, Massha, and Cire followed in my wake, plowing forward like "his" and "hers" and "his" humvees.
"Please, sir, sir, madame, stay behind the line!" the guards squawked. They didn't have a chance. "I'm busy!" I bellowed back.
"I'm with them," Eskina stated perkily, trotting along behind us.
Parvattani greeted us, rings under his eyes as deep as the ours from a sleepless night.
"I should have-a sent word," he apologized, showing me the empty cubicle where the mall-rat had been sequestered.
It was furnished like a studio apartment, with a convertible sofa bed, a bookshelf and a reading light, probably used most of the time by hamsters waiting to be picked up.
"But it has taken all my attention."
"No problem," I assured him. "We've been having the day from hell ourselves. Any signs of forced entry?"