Virgil shook his head. "You're 50,000 credits on the hoof. You don't think he's just going to let you walk just because you can't pay him the reward, do you?"
"He can't watch us forever."
"Forever ends tomorrow at noon."
"I meant that he's got to sleep sometime. We'll sneak out tonight."
"He knows that nobody comes to Tusculum without a reason. He's gone off to take a nap while you take care of whatever business brought you here. He'll be awake by dinnertime, and he'll seek out your ship and wait there until noon, just in case you're thinking of leaving."
"This is ridiculous!" said Dante. "I came here to get away from the Democracy and now they're paying bounty hunters to kill me!"
"The only difference between here and where you came from," said Virgil, "is that out here there are no voters and no journalists to restrain the Democracy's worst instincts."
"Is Wait-a-bit Bennett as good at his trade as he thinks he is?" asked Dante.
"Better," answered Virgil. "You didn't see me move when he told me to be still, did you?"
"How am I going to get 50,000 credits to buy him off by noon?"
"You've got a bigger problem than that."
"Oh?"
Virgil nodded. "Even if you get the money, you don't think he's the only bounty hunter who reads Wanted posters, do you?"
Suddenly Dante's stomach began to hurt.
6.
Wait-a-Bit Bennett, calm and cool,
Sips his drink by the swimming pool.
His prey appears, all unaware;
He'll wait a bit, and then—beware!
Virgil Soaring Hawk hit the roof when he sneaked a look at the poem. Here was this bounty hunter who had already manhandled the notorious Scarlet Infidel himself and was preparing to extort money from the poet in the morning or (more likely) kill him, and Dante was actually writing him into the poem.
Even worse, he gave three verses to Bennett—but of course, Bennett was the first man on the Frontier to threaten Dante's life, so Virgil reluctantly admitted that it made sense in a way.
Bennett had threatened a lot of lives, and had taken more than his share of them. Rumor had it that he'd been a hired killer before he started doing his killing for the Democracy. They said he'd been shot up pretty badly on Halcyon V, but he certainly didn't move like a man who was supposedly half prosthetic, and he never ducked a fight.
Somewhere along the way, he'd decided that it was easier to make money for not killing men than for killing them, and from that day forward, he always offered to let a wanted man walk free if the man paid him the reward. And he was a man of his word: more than one man paid the price, and none of them were ever bothered by Bennett again. (Well, none except Willie Harmonica, who went out and committed another murder after buying his way out of the first one. He refused to pay Bennett the reward the second time, and wound up paying with his life instead.)
And now Dante Alighieri had less than a day to raise 50,000 credits or somehow escape from one of the deadlier bounty hunters on the Inner Frontier.
"I can't spend all day working on the poem," he announced after giving Bennett his third verse. He put down his quill pen and got up from the desk in the corner of his room. "Let's go visit your friend."
"I've been ready for an hour," remarked Virgil.
"I had to write those verses," explained Dante. "Who knows if I'll be alive to write them tomorrow?"
"Son of a bitch doesn't deserve three verses!" muttered Virgil, ordering the door to dilate.
"Kill him tonight and maybe I'll give you four," said Dante, stepping through into the hallway.
"Mighty few people out here can kill him," answered Virgil. "And I'm honest enough to admit I'm not one of them."
"I saw what you did to those three guys in the bar back on New Tangier."
"Those were two miners and a gigolo. This guy is a professional killer. There's a difference."
"He didn't look that formidable."
"Fine," said Virgil. "You kill him."
"I'm no killer," replied Dante. "I'm a poet. I can out-think him, but I have a feeling that won't help much in a pitched battle."
"Look around the galaxy and you'd be hard-pressed to prove that intelligence is a survival trait," agreed Virgil.
They reached the street and walked out of the hotel, turned right, and headed to Rex's, which was the name Tyrannosaur Bailey had chosen for his establishment.
"Anything else I should know?" asked Dante as they reached the door to the casino.
"Yeah," said Virgil. "No dinosaur jokes."
"I don't know any."
"Good. You'll live longer that way."
They entered, and Dante was surprised at the level of luxury that confronted him. From outside, Rex's seemed like every other nondescript Tradertown building. Inside it was a haven of taste and money. The floors gripped his feet, then released him as he took another step, and another. The gaming tables were made of the finest alien hardwood, meticulously carved by some unknown race, while the matching chairs hovered a few inches above the floor, changing their shapes to fit each player's form—and the players were not merely men, but giant Torquals, tripodal beings from Hesporite III, Canphorites and Lodinites and a couple of races that Dante had never seen before.
Atonal but seductive alien music filtered into the casino, and nubile young men and women dressed in shimmering metallic outfits ran the tables.
Sitting alone in the farthest corner was a huge man, easily seven feet tall, muscled like an athlete. His hair was the color of desert sand, and tumbled down to his shoulders. His nose had been broken at least twice, maybe more, and looked irregular from every angle. One ear was cauliflower; the lobe of the other was stretched enough that it was able to hold an unwrapped cigar that had been placed in an exceptionally large hole there. When he smiled, he displayed a mouthful of ruby and sapphire teeth, all carefully filed to dangerous-looking points.
His shirt was loose-fitting, which added to the impression of enormous size. Dante couldn't see his legs or feet, but he managed to glimpse the tops of three or four weapons stuck in the man's belt.
The man looked up, saw Virgil, and smiled a red-and-blue smile.
"Virgil, you corpse-fucking old bastard, how the hell are you?"
"Hi, Tyrannosaur. I've got a friend who'd like to meet you."
Tyrannosaur Bailey studied Dante for a long moment. "You're the one that Wait-a-bit Bennett is after?"
"How did you know that?" asked Dante.
"This is my world," answered Bailey. "Not much goes on here that I don't know."
"Then you know who I am and why I want to see you," suggested Dante.
"I know who both of you are," laughed Bailey. "You're Danny Briggs, a thief from the Democracy, and you're Dante Alighieri, the self-proclaimed successor to Black Orpheus." He gestured to a pair of chairs. "Have a seat. You too, Virgil."
"He's the one who wants to speak with you," replied Virgil. "I could go spend a little money at your gaming tables, if you wish."