He put a foot into my belly and flipped me over him. I landed on a party of Imps coming in the door. I scrambled to my feet, hoisted them up and dusted them off. With a final look of seeming disgust toward Percy, I uttered a loud “Huh!” and stumbled out into the street.
Tananda and Guido fell into step alongside me as I left the tavern. “Even I saw his reaction,” she said. “Relief, more than anything. None of these is our pigeon.”
“Well, he certainly ain't no pigeon himself,” Guido admitted. “Back to the hairspray, huh?”
“Every day until we get it right,” Tananda said. “Cheer up! Maybe you'll start to like it”
“I was hired by Don Bruce to rub out trouble,” the enforcer said grimly. “Not massage it”
After four days more of primping, polishing, and grooming I was beginning to get the hang of the higher beauty culture. As far as I could see it was as easy as Tananda had said: all one had to do was look confident and improvise, and the customers would be pleased. Ladies who had always retreated to the other side of the thorough-fare when I stomped toward them in the Bazaar were stopping me to coo and offer praise.
“I'll never go back to Mr. Fernando after you!” one Deveel maiden said, clinging to my arm, her face still a symphony of fluorescent colors from Guido's brush. “I told him, ‘you give a good scalp rub, but nothing as wonderful as I get at A Tough, A Troll and A Trollop!’ And your Mr. Guido's sense with cosmetics! Inspired! I feel so beautiful when I leave.”
I grunted some sort of acknowledgment as I stumped toward the beauty shop. Mr. Fernando was probably not best pleased to have his clientele deserting him.
“We had better solve this problem soon,” I told my two partners, as I reached our rented tent, “or every other personal care specialist is going to be out for our blood.”
Guido reached into his coat and patted the miniature crossbow that I knew reposed there. “That kinda fight I'd welcome,” he said. “Not this fancy-dancy stuff with a dozen perfumes and green drapes.”
“And who cuts your hair?” Tananda asked, teasingly.
“Mr. Chapparal.” Guido said, with an indignant look. “He's a cousin of Don Bruce. Does a real good job. His shop's all violet with stained-glass mirrors.”
“I understand the problem we're creating,” Tananda said with a sigh. “But we can't force our quarry out of the woodwork. They have to emerge by themselves.”
“I wish they'd hurry,” I admitted. “Percy grows more nervous with every nighttime encounter we have. He may flee the next one.”
We had not much longer to wait. As I assisted one ravished Gnome lady from a chair late one afternoon, I became aware that two figures were standing in the doorway. The two Pervect women, one an elderly female in a flowered frock and straw hat leaning on a cane, the other much younger and more fashionable in a split, knee-length leather skirt and a very tight bustier, looked as though they might be potential customers, but their all-over mien did not speak of devotees in search of a superior pedicure.
The Pervects' aspect also attracted the attention of the other customers in the tent. One by one they found excuses to slip out of the door or melt unobtrusively through gaps between the canvas panels of the walls. Before too long we three were alone with the Pervects and one hapless Imp matron who lay in a chair with her feet up, unable to leave because she was being ministered to with a foot massage by Guido. As soon as the chair tilted down, she sprang from it, pressed a large silver coin on Guido, and waddled hastily out of the tent.
“You've forgotten your hat,” Tananda shouted after her, waving a straw round-crowned chapeau pierced twice in the crown to allow the Imp's horns to protrude through. The Imp did not turn back, but undulated faster up the way, becoming lost in the crowd. Tananda, annoyed, spun and bent an annoyed eye upon the two remaining visitors. “Thanks. You've just lost us our profit for the afternoon. A few days like this and you'll put us out of business.”
“Oh, we would never do a thing like that on purpose,” the elderly Pervect said, grinning so that her yellow teeth looked like a chestful of knives. “They must all have misunderstood. We want you to stay in business. Don't we, Charilor?”
The other Pervect, shorter and stockier, resembling a female Aahz, smiled, her own dentition gleaming like sheet lightning. “But of course, Vergetta. That way everyone makes a profit.”
“That's what I like to hear,” Tananda said.
“Including us,” Vergetta added, with emphasis.
“I beg your pardon?” my little sister asked, putting steel into her voice.
“Not at all, darling,” the elder Pervect said, taking her hand in a grip that caused Tananda to wince. I moved forward, but the shorter Charilor moved in between me and them. “You're setting out on a difficult enterprise, you little dears, and that involves risks. Now, you may not be aware of how many risks, but an old lady like me, I've seen a lot in my life. I want you to stop worrying about outside pressures and succeed. To do that, you have to minimize disruptions.”
“Like this visit of yours,” Tananda said, pointedly.
“Exactly. Now,” said Vergetta as she settled heavily into one of our chairs and put her feet up on the foot rest, “you wouldn't believe how far I've walked today, darlings. Would you have a glass of tea somewhere? No? You will next time.”
“What makes you think there's gonna be a next time?” Guido asked. He didn't pat his breast pocket for emphasis; one only did that to underline a threat, and we were meant to look harmless. Besides, to indicate to a stronger enemy such as Charilor where his weapon was located was only to provide an extra one for her.
“Oh, of course there's going to be a next time, you muzhik. Here's the proposition.” Vergetta slapped her scaly knees. “We keep disruptions out of your way. You do business. You're grateful, so you give us a present…”
“Like … a cut of our profits?” Tananda finished. “No way, grandma. We just barely made enough in the last few days to pay rent on our equipment.”
“This trash? You may also need our friends in the moving … I mean, furniture trade. Not a cut of the profits; a flat fee is what we have in mind. A fixed expense, like rent. Five gold coins. So you always know how much you have to clear every week, because that's when we'll be back.”
“Week? Five coins a lot! Bad week, no money,” I interposed. “What if no money?”
“What if you have a bad week?” Vergetta asked, looking up at me. “Oh, my darling, you don't want to find out what happens.”
“We're only getting started,” Tananda said, looking alarmed. “If you take our profits this week, there won't be a next week.”
“All right,” Vergetta said, getting to her feet. She patted Tananda's cheek. “So maybe we give you a freebie this time. But we will be back. We are watching you.”
“And don't get cute,” Charilor grunted. “The Bazaar is big, but if you fold up tent here and start up somewhere else, we will find you.”
“They are new in town,” Tananda said, once we'd sealed the tent and put a spy-eye on it to make sure no one was listening in magickally. “Birkli!”
“Ye-es!” The Shutterbug flitted down from his concealed perch. “Scary green ladies! But I managed to get all the others before they ran away. I'm good! I'm the best!” He landed on Tananda's shoulder and handed her a coil of underwing cells.
“Of course you are,” Tananda said indulgently as she unreeled the Shutterbug's images and held them up to the magik lantern. “Subtlety is dead, gentlemen. I thought we'd have to uncover their identities from a crowd of subjects, but they just marched in here and made their proposition on the first visit”
“Dat means,” Guido said, raising his eyebrows, “dat dey're in a hurry.”