Phule made a face and shook his head ruefully. "It's a long story, Colonel."
Battleax waved for a waiter and signaled for another bottle of wine.
"I've got time," she said, settling into her chair.
Again, I am handicapped in my account by a lack of specific knowledge of the details surrounding an event or conversation which took place in my absence.
I do, however, feel I can state with some certainty that some form of the following exchange took place roughly in the time frame I am recording it here. I base this conclusion on the simple fact that Maxine Pruet is said to be a decisive leader, and it is doubtful she would leave delayed long before implementing a decision once it had been made.
"Shit!" Laverna declared, tossing down her pencil onto the nest of work sheets and notes in front of her. Like many of her profession, she preferred the old, manual form of doodling and numeric experimentation when trying to work out a problem.
"I know you don't want to hear this, Max, but my best recommendation is to throw in the towel and eat our losses on this one."
"How so?" her employer prompted from the sofa.
Laverna tapped the table repeatedly with her finger, organizing her thoughts for several moments before she spoke.
"The time factor is the killer," she said at last. "We might be able to put together something that would hurt Rafael financially, but not in time to keep him from paying off the note to you."
"Nothing at all?"
"Well, we could try to burn the place down to keep him from turning a profit at the tables, but then you'd have to rebuild from scratch once you took over ... and figure out how to offset the bad publicity from the fire. Besides, he's probably got insurance for `interruption of business,' so even that might not stop him."
"In any case, I don't think we want to go that far," Maxine said with a faint smile. "No, I tend to agree with you, Laverna. In fact, I arrived at much the same conclusion yesterday."
"You did?" Her advisor made no effort to hide the surprise in her voice. "Then how come you've been having me-"
"There might have been an option I overlooked," Max said. "That, and I guess I've been stalling having to say it out loud. This isn't the first time I've been outmaneuvered, but it doesn't make me any happier about running up the white flag." She rose and wandered over to the window. "I think what irritates me the most," she said, looking down at the inevitable stream of passing tourists, "is that I can't figure out just how he managed to do it."
"That's simple enough," Laverna said as she gathered up her work sheets. "The man used his money better than you used yours."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's clear that he's been spreading bribe money around the staff pretty good-or, at least, better than we have. There's no way he could have pulled this off without a lot of inside information."
"You think so? That's interesting. I assumed that Huey Martin provided him with all the information he needed."
"Uh-uh. He got more information somewhere than what Huey had to sell. There have got to be other folks in this complex serving as his eyes and ears-and I don't mean the security guards."
"Speaking of that," Maxine said, "has there been any word as to the whereabouts of that bartender? The one who so effectively removed Mr. Stilman from the picture?"
"Not yet," Laverna said. "I'll tell you, it's like the man vanished into thin air. He hasn't left Lorelei on any ship either as passenger or as a crew member. We got that much from the watchers at the spaceport. The thing is, though, he hasn't shown up at any hotel on or off the Strip, either."
"That's strange," Maxine said thoughtfully. "If nothing else, it should be hard to hide that hover cycle of his."
"You'd think so," her aide said. "The only thing I can figure is that he's holed up with someone-someone who's better at hiding things than we are at finding them."
"Like young Mr. Phule, for example?"
Laverna eyed her employer for a moment.
"Excuse my asking, Max, but is he going to take the blame for everything that goes wrong for us from now on?"
"I'm not getting paranoid or obsessive-not yet, anyway." Maxine smiled. "Think about it for a moment, Laverna. It makes sense. We have a network of spotters all through this space station. We should be able to locate anyone in a relatively short time, yet this one gentleman who is rather memorable in appearance eludes our efforts. Now, where is our current blind spot-or, at least, where is our web the thinnest?"
"Right here at the Fat Chance," Laverna admitted.
"Correct," Max said. "Now, add to that our suspicions that the attack on Mr. Stilman was not entirely coincidental-that there is some link between our fugitive and the forces under Mr. Phule's command."
"I thought he told you that he didn't have anything to do with it."
"He may have lied," Max said, "though I somehow doubt it. What he specifically said, though, was that he didn't know anything about it. It's my guess that one of has subordinates indulged in a little independent action, just as Mr. Stilman arranged the attack on his own. Anyway, with those two pieces-our lack of information on the internal workings of the Fat Chance and the possible connection between our missing bartender and someone in the security force-I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that he might be hiding right here, in this complex."
Laverna thought about it.
"It's possible," she said. "It still bothers me, though, that they used free-lance help instead of going after Stilman themselves. That doesn't make sense."
"It may have been to keep their own hands clean if anything went wrong," Max said. "Besides, young Mr. Phule hasn't been averse to hiring outside specialists before. Look at the computer auditors he sneaked in on us."
"That's true," her aide said. "You know, that's something else that's been bothering me."
"What's that?"
"Well, for some things, like the computer jockeys, they've been going outside, but for the crew that was working the stage at the showroom, they used their own people. I would have thought that they'd hire some specialists for that, too." She shook her head. "Oh well, I guess it's just that he had some show business people in the Legion, but nobody who really knew computers."
"Just a moment, Laverna." Max was suddenly alert. "Say that again."
"What? You mean about there not being any computer experts in the Space Legion?"
"No, before that. You said he must have some show business people in his force."
"That's right. So?"
"So what if all the security force aren't from the Space Legion? What if some of them are actors?"
"You mean stand-ins?" Laverna frowned. "That's interesting. I guess if that were the case, I'd be wondering where the soldiers were they were replacing."
Maxine was staring into the distance. "I was just recalling something Mr. Stilman said-about how he wasn't impressed by the security force, but that the complex had the toughest staff he had ever run into. What if young Mr. Phule decided early on that uniformed guards were of limited value, and that instead he was going to put a portion of his force to work under cover, seeding them through the staff as waitresses or cooks?"
"Or bartenders!" Laverna supplied. "That would explain the guy who jumped Stilman!"
"Of course that means he hasn't restricted himself to infiltrating the staff for this complex," Maxine continued thoughtfully. "He could have people anywhere, including as guests." She snapped her fingers suddenly. "Weren't you saying a moment ago that he must have had more information about our plans than Mr. Martin could provide? Who have we shared our plans with recently? In detail."