"Where are my manners?" said Dante, suddenly getting to his feet. "This is your chair."
"I'd prefer to stand."
"All right," he said. "But hear me out before you start hitting and kicking. That's not one of the things I do well—though I'm learning."
"Just what the hell is it that you want?"
"I told you—I want to talk to you."
"If you think I'm going to pay you to keep quiet about tonight, you can forget it. They can question that old man all they want, his story will never hold up."
"I don't care about him or about what you stole."
"Then what do you want to talk about?"
"Santiago."
9.
He was a cop on the make, a cop on the take,
As corrupt as a cop gets to be.
The very same men that he saved from the pen
Are now owned by Simon Legree.
His name was Simon Legree, and he'd been after Matilda for a long, long time. She was the One Who Got Away, and it was a point of honor with him that he bring her to the bar of justice—or at least threaten to do so.
For Legree had his own profitable little business, not totally dissimilar from Wait-a-bit Bennett's. It was trickier, because he didn't have the advantage of a price on his prey's head—but when it worked, it was far more lucrative.
Oh, he took bribes, and he always managed to stuff a few packets of alphanella seeds in his pocket for future resale when there was a major drug bust—but what Simon Legree lived for was to catch a criminal in the act of committing a crime. Then it was a choice between jail and turning over a third of their earnings for the rest of their lives—and Legree had enough working capital to hire agents to make sure his new partners fulfilled their obligations.
He made millions from Billy the Whip, and millions more from the New Bronte Sisters, and he had almost fifty other partners out there earning money for him—but the one he wanted the most, the one he was sure had amassed the greatest fortune, Waltzin' Matilda, had thus far eluded him. Oh, he knew where she worked and where she lived, and whenever she changed planets—which she did on an almost weekly basis—his network of informants always let him know where she came to rest. But she was so damned creative in her lawlessness that he had yet to catch her in a compromising position, and she remained his Holy Grail.
He knew she was on Prateep IV. He knew she was dancing at the Diamond Emporium. He knew that she had signed a six-day contract, and had already been there five days. He knew that this was the night she figured to strike. He knew that by morning someone would be short hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of credits, and that her alibi would be airtight.
He tried to think like her, to predict what she might do, but he had nothing to go on, no past performance, no motus operandi. The damned woman never operated in the same way twice, and trying to predict and out-think her was driving him to distraction.
He sat in the audience, aware that Dimitrios of the Three Burners was there too, and wondered if Dimitrios had come for Matilda. He had no desire to go up against Dimitrios—no one in his right mind did—but he wasn't going to give Matilda up without a fight.
So Simon Legree sat there, silent, motionless, going over endless scenarios and permutations in his mind, and wondering how long it would be before Matilda emerged from her dressing room and returned to her hotel.
But Matilda had more important things on her mind—or confronting her from a few feet away. She stared curiously at the young man who knew she had just plundered the brokerage house but wanted only to talk about Santiago.
"He's been dead for more than a century," she said at last. "What makes you think I know anything about him?"
"Tyrannosaur Bailey seems to think you know more about him than anyone else alive," answered Dante.
"Probably I do," she agreed. "So what? He's still been dead for over a century."
Dante met her stare. "All of them have been," he said.
She looked her surprise. "I thought I was the only one who knew!"
"You were, until a few weeks ago."
"What happened a few weeks ago?"
"I found Black Orpheus' manuscript."
"The whole thing?"
Dante nodded. "Including a bunch of verses no one's ever seen or heard."
"Okay, so you know there was more than one Santiago," said Matilda. "So what? That was his secret, not mine."
"Tell me about them," said Dante. "And tell me why you're the expert."
"I'm the only living descendant of Santiago."
"Which Santiago?"
"What difference does it make?"
"It would help me to believe you."
"I don't give a damn if you believe me or not."
"Look, I have no reason not to believe you, and I want very much to. It's in both of our best interests."
"Why?" she insisted. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"
"My name is Dante Alighieri. The name I plan to be remembered by is The Rhymer."
"So you're the new Black Orpheus."
"You're very quick, Miss . . . ah . . ."
"Matilda." She frowned. "Okay, you're Orpheus. That's doesn't change anything. Santiago still died more than a century ago."
Dante stared at her for a long minute. "I think it's time for him to live again," he said at last.
Her eyes widened, and a smile slowly crossed her face. "Now that's an interesting idea."
"I'm glad you think so."
"Just a minute!" she said. "I hope to hell you're not thinking of me!"
"I'm not thinking of anyone in particular," said Dante. "But if we can talk, if you have any memorabilia, anything at all, I might get a better idea of what I'm looking for. As far as I can tell, of them all only Sebastian Cain could be considered truly skilled with his weapons, so they obviously had other qualities."
"They did."
"Qualities such as you exhibited tonight."
"I told you—I'm not a candidate for the job!" she snapped. "I'd like a Santiago, if only to take some of the pressure off me and give the law and the bounty hunters an even bigger target—so why in the world would I volunteer?"
"All right," he said. "I won't bring it up again." He paused. "Do you have any records or other memorabilia—letters, holographs, anything at all?"
"My family has lived like kings for three generations on what he chose to leave us—probably about two percent of what he was worth—but whatever we started with, it was converted into cash over a century ago. I've never seen any documents or anything like that."
"Did they ever speak of him?"
"How else would I know I was his great-great-granddaughter?"
"What did they say?"
"When people were around, the usual—that he was the greatest bandit in the galaxy, that he was a terrible man, that he might not have even been a man at all."