We were scheduled for an excursion to Selene the next morning, although about half the board members said they wanted to remain in Hell; lunar scenery and a tour of the oldest human settlement on the Moon didn’t interest them as much as the attractions of the resort complex. A few of the younger men wanted to try their hands at flying like birds (and then, once their wives were gone, enjoying either virtual or actual sex). I told the CEO I wasn’t going to Selene either because I had to stay and confer with Sam. He nodded understanding and gave me a knowing wink. My wife was less sympathetic. She absolutely refused to go outside the complex’s dome without me.
“But I have business to conduct, darling,” I told her.
She arched an eyebrow at me. “At that virtual reality place, no doubt. I understand you can program sexual fantasies there.”
I was aghast that she could think that of me. “Heavens no!” I said. “I have to meet with Sam Gunn.”
“Sam Gunn? That reprehensible little brat? I’d rather you visited Hell’s Belles.”
I assured her that I was meeting with Sam, and she finally decided to believe me. “I believe I’ll take a look at the cosmetic clinics down on the lower level. They have some lovely shops down there, too,” she said.
I knew she intended to spend every credit she’d made at the slot machines the night before, and then some. Ah well, I thought. Peace at any price. Then I remembered an old bit of wisdom from Monte Carlo: money won by a gambler is merely loaned.
Sam’s private office was rather modest, compared to the ego palaces of men like my CEO. It was part of a small suite nestled into the office complex between Dante’s Inferno and The Imaginarium. His private office held a small desk and a couple of chairs, nothing more, although the walls were smart screens. When I walked in, one wall displayed a view of Mare Nubium: empty, desolate, yet strangely beautiful, especially with a nearly full Earth hanging in the black sky.
Sam was leaning back in his swivel chair and grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat. The wall behind his desk was a collage of photos of Sam with the movers and shakers of the world, as well as Sam with various scantily clad women, each one a knockout.
“So how do you like the place, Oh Silver-Haired Partner of Mine?”
I felt a frown knit my face. Sam was being altogether too familiar, just like the irreverent rogue. I said nothing as I sat in front of his desk, but my frown turned to surprise. The chair was much lower than I had expected; even in the soft lunar gravity I thumped onto its seat. Sam was actually sitting higher than I was.
“It’s a trick Josef Stalin used,” he told me before I could say a word. “Put your chair on a platform and saw the legs down on your visitors’ chairs.”
“I should have expected as much,” I growled, “from you.”
“Don’t be touchy, Silver One. Isn’t the complex terrific? Your boss seemed to have a great time. I see he brought la Marlowe with him.”
“It’s terrific all right,” I growled. “Too terrific.”
Sam’s pie plate of a face took on a look of hurt innocence. “Whaddaya mean?”
“Sam, you couldn’t possibly have built all this and staffed it so handsomely on the funding Rockledge has provided you.”
He steepled his fingers in front of his face for a moment, then nodded. “No fooling you, eh?”
“What’s going on?”
“Well, I knew the half-bill you ponied up wouldn’t cover everything I wanted to do, so I took in another partner.”
“Another partner? You can’t do that! The terms of our agreement—”
“Not really a partner, not legally,” Sam interjected, looking like a mischievous imp. “I used your funding as leverage for a loan that really paid for building the complex. And staffing it.”
“A loan? Who in his right” mind would loan you a penny, unless you held the threat of blackmail over him?”
“There are people,” Sam said slowly, “who specialize in high-risk loans.”
“People? Who?”
“They also have a lot of experience in running gambling casinos and, uh, other entertaining diversions.”
“Experience in—” Suddenly it hit me. “Oh my God! The Mafia! You’re in with the Mafia!”
Sam tut-tutted. “They haven’t called themselves that in half a century. And they’re international now, not just Sicilian: there’s Russians, Japanese, Colombians; they’ve gone global, just like all the other major industries.”
“The Mafia,” I groaned. “You’re in league with—”
“Call them the Syndicate. That’s the name they prefer.”
“They’re the bloody Mafia!” I snapped.
“Be polite to them,” Sam warned. “Call them the Syndicate when you talk to them.”
“Me? Talk to the likes of them? Never!”
Sam shook his head sadly. “Never say never, pal.” And he pointed with a stubby finger past my shoulder.
Turning, I saw a slinky, sultry, sallow-cheeked young woman with lustrous long black hair and smoldering dark almond-shaped eyes set in high cheekbones. How long she had been standing in the doorway of Sam’s office I had no way of knowing. I distinctly remembered having closed the door when I came into the office. She must have opened it without making a sound.
Sam got to his feet. “Pierre, mon confrere, may I introduce Ilyana Campanella Chang. Ilyana, Pierre D’Argent, head of space operations for—”
“For Rockledge Industries, I know,” she said in a smoky voice. Ms. Chang was wearing a skintight black dress that showed a tantalizing amount of bosom and shimmered as she walked to the chair next to mine. “Walked” is only an approximation of the way she moved. She reminded me of a jungle beast, a sleek black leopard or maybe a slithering boa constrictor. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She sat down and crossed her long, beautiful legs.
Sam was staring at her, too. He had always been partial to sultry brunettes. And bubbly blondes. And tempestuous redheads. Sam was an equal-opportunity chaser, making no discrimination against anyone female who was even mildly attractive. Ms. Chang was much more than mild. Much.
“Ilyana is the Syndicate’s local representative,” Sam said, in a voice choked with testosterone. Or perhaps it was fear.
She smiled silkily at me. “What you call the Mafia. As Sam told you, we have become a global enterprise. My own family heritage is part Russian, part Italian, and part Chinese.”
“The Ma—” I cut the word short. “I mean, the Syndicate. You?”
“Does that surprise you?” she asked.
I glanced at Sam. He was still walleyed, obviously enraptured by this vision of dangerous loveliness.
“Frankly, it does,” I replied. “I wouldn’t think that a young woman such as yourself would be involved in criminal activities.”
Her smile widened enough to show teeth. “I was born to it. I’m a Family person, on both sides of my family.”
“I’ll be damned,” I muttered.
“Well, you are in Hell,” Sam said, regaining some of his composure.
“And you will remain here,” said Ilyana, with a hint of steel in her voice, “until our business is brought to a satisfactory conclusion.”
“Our business? What business?”
“Our global operation is expanding,” said Ms. Chang. “We’re going interplanetary.”
I understood her immediately. “You want to get your hooks into this facility, here on the Moon.”
She smiled approvingly at me. “Mr. Gunn, here—our darling Sam—has borrowed a rather large sum of money from the Syndicate. It is time to repay.”
I drew myself up straighten “That’s got nothing to do with me.”