In the close confines of the tent I succeeded only in knocking him over. Guido grabbed his arm and heaved him up to a standing position.
“Why's he talking like a book?” Vineezer asked, eying me uneasily.
“Eloquence curse,” Tananda said, leaning against the center tent pole with her arms crossed. “Plays merry hell with his strength. But that will be back soon. Maybe very soon, if I can't persuade you to tell me what I want to hear.”
“I… I can't,” Vineezer said, retreating from the fierce look in her eye. His normal red complexion paled to an almost Imp-pink. “They'll put their mark on this place — they did it once already.”
The three of us looked around.
“I don't see no mark,” Guido growled, his hand moving toward the inner pocket where I know he stowed his miniature crossbow.
“They did!” Vineezer protested desperately. “Look at this place! Look at that!”
We all did. “Place okay,” I said, remembering to use my Big Crunch voice. “Place clean.”
“That's just part of it,” the merchant wailed. “A herbalist's shop isn't supposed to be clean. The dust floating in the air is full of magik. I use it to tweak potions too delicate for enhancement spells. A millionth part of dragon scale — I can't afford a balance sensitive enough to weigh that out. When this place is properly dusty I can snatch a fragment out of the air. I haven't made a decent scrying potion in a week!”
“They cleaned out your shop?” Tananda mused.
“Yes, and that's not all they'd do… if I talked. So, please go away. I can't tell you any more.”
Guido muscled up to the trembling Deveel. “You don't really want me to go back to Don Bruce and tell him you was unwillin to fulfill the part of the bargain that he was so obligin' to make with you, do you? He might have to ask me to interfere wit' you personally.”
Vineezer's face flushed burgundy red, and he shoved us back toward the tent flap and out into the street.
“It's better than being alphabetized” he hissed. The tent flap swished down between us and clicked locked with an audible snap. I set my shoulder, prepared to charge back inside so Tananda could ask him again, but she laid a hand on my arm.
“Never mind. Big Brother,” she said. “Maybe some of the others will be more communicative.”
Her assumption proved to be incorrect. If anything, our further researches were less fruitful than our first attempt. Yet we did not return to the tent empty-handed. We gleaned certain points concerning our unknown quarry.
“They're very neat,” Tananda said, glancing around at our tent and appearing to compare our housekeeping unfavorably to that of our foes'.
“They are more cautious in the way they phrase their verbal contracts,” Guido said, sitting down and putting his fedora on his knee. “Not one word concerning their appearance can be gleaned from our converse with our clients. It appears to be a condition of the protection racket — I mean, arrangement.”
“And they aren't very greedy,” I added. “With no disrespect to Don Bruce, their demands are relatively modest.”
“But they go by a flat fee,” Guido protested. “Don Bruce prefers a percentage. When times is good, he prospers alongside his clients. When times is hard, well, they all get a break. This way. they all give the same even if business is bad. And you saw how scared the clients were not to miss a payment”
“It strikes me that this means they're not in this for the long haul,” Tananda concluded. “If they did they would take market fluctuation into account the way the Mob does.”
“But who knows how long this short haul will run?” Guido asked. “Don Bruce ain't gonna wait for them to get out. He wants 'em gone now.”
“Right,” I said. “That will take decisive action on our part. We need to catch them in the act of collection and dissuade them from doing any further business in the Bazaar.”
“Right!” Guido agreed, smacking one big fist into the other palm. “Well teach 'em they just can't march in an' take over somebody else's territory.”
The easiest place to observe was Bochro's Toy Shop. His tent stood next to Melicronda's wine shop, nearly opposite the M.Y.T.H. Inc's establishment on the same thoroughfare. Since none of our associates were presently in residence, we three took the vigil in turns.
Naturally it was our business to know something of the comings and goings throughout the Bazaar, but I had never before made a close study of the traffic that came and went over the course of a day. The streets were as empty as they ever were: the perfect time for someone to pass unnoticed. I peered through the gathering gloom. It was no use looking for strangers. The nature of the Bazaar as a nexus in between so many dimensions meant that only one in twenty passersby was familiar, and only one in two hundred was a friend. I knew that there was little that could not be had for a bargain, but even I was not prepared to see some of the goings-on. It was just after twilight, when most of the merchants had folded up their tents for the day, but before the night life of the Bazaar really got under way.
Directly in front of our tent two tough babies, clad in black leather diapers, toddled up and kicked the legs out from underneath a plump, insectoid shopper, and stole its bags. Since officially we were not supposed to be at home, I had to restrain myself from leaping out there to assist. In any case my help was not needed. The insectoid extended its carapace to reveal a long, sinuous body and a dozen more legs. The babies hadn't made it past three store fronts before their victim stretched overhead, retrieved its possessions, and delivered a sound spanking to each one of them. They sat down on the ground to cry until another likely victim came their way.
As night fell, the character of the transactions became more personal. Beings of the evening made offers to passersby for various services of the usual and unusual kind. A token or two would change hands, and a pair or trio or group would wander off to a handy tent.
Almost all the traffic was outbound from the merchants' establishments. The rare ingress was what I was interested in. If Guido was correct, this was the day on which payments were normally due to the Don. Though they were now diverted to person or persons unknown, they were being picked up on the same schedule.
I saw someone I knew weaving in and out of the crowd of tourists looking for a likely (and safe) place to have dinner a fellow Troll named Percy — his real name. His nom de guerre, as mine was Big Crunch, was Mangier.
His was not a casual visit to our street. His movements were as furtive as a Troll's could be, attempting not to step on the party of Imps who had stopped to look over a street map in the middle of the thoroughfare, as he “not-looked” at the tents opposite our own. When he was nearly in front of our doorway, he quickly looked both ways, then pushed into Bochro's.
Quietly I tiptoed into Tananda's room and whispered from the doorway, “We have a bite.”
Before I'd quite finished the sentence she'd sprung off her bed and bounded to my side.
“I'll get Guido,” she said. “Can you handle him alone?”
“I think so,” I said, albeit a trifle uncertainly. Mangier was a good foot wider than I was. I'd known him in school, where he was all-varsity wrestling champion our final year, though in hand-to-hand martial arts I held higher ranking.
Hoping he had not come and gone while my back was turned, I left our tent and turned into the flow of traffic. At the end of the row, still keeping an occasional eye on my destination, I pretended to have forgotten something, clapped a hand to my head, and plowed deliberately into a group of Deveel merchants holding a quick negotiation in the open area of the intersection.