Vic threw one hand in the air. “So you don’t know about this one,” he said. “You find out about the next one. No big thing. It’s just business.”
“‘Justbusiness’?” Quark repeated, appalled at the combination of the two words. “You don’t understand. I’m not just a businessman; I’m a Ferengibusinessman. Business is my life.”
“Yeah, I know that’s what you say,” Vic offered.
“I’m not just saying it,” Quark told him. “Business ismy life.”
Vic nodded and smiled in a way that made Quark uncomfortable. “Hey, pallie, whatever you wanna believe is fine with me.”
“I don’t just believe it,” Quark maintained. “It’s true.”
“Okay, okay, who’s arguin’?” Vic scooped up the last bit of his breakfast and shoveled it into his mouth.
“You are,” Quark said.
“Look,” Vic said. He set his spoon down in his empty bowl with a clink. “You say business is your life. I just see somethin’ different, is all. Since I’ve been back in business here at the hotel, how many times have you and Julian been in here cryin’ in your beer about one dame or another? First it was Jadzia, then it was Ezri, and then the green one. I’m tellin’ you, you can’t figure the players without a scorecard. I know the doc and Ezri have a thing now, but you…you’re still in here mopin’.”
Quark shrugged and offered a sly smile. “I like females,” he said, feeling somewhat sheepish. “I can’t help that.”
“Course not,” Vic said. “I have a fondness for ’em myself. But didn’t somebody once say that dames and dough don’t mix?” Vic’s words sounded remarkably similar to the 94th Rule of Acquisition.
“All right, so I have a weakness,” Quark allowed. “That doesn’t mean business isn’t my life.”
Vic raised his glass and downed the last of his drink. “That’s right,” he said. “Except, what about this?” He put his glass down on the table, then spread his hands out, gesturing at their surroundings.
Quark looked around. “What about what?”
“I don’t wanna bite the hand that feeds me,” Vic said, “but you’re lettin’this light show run twenty-six hours a day. I know we get our fair share of traffic in here from that floatin’ bicycle wheel of yours, but not that much.”
“I like this place,” Quark said meekly, recognizing the truth of what Vic had said.
“Hey, and that’s great,” Vic told him. He picked up his empty glass and held it up, gesturing toward the bar. “Believe me, I’m happy about that. It just doesn’t make the best business sense for a guy who claims business is the most important thing in his life. Plus…” He set his glass back down.
“Plus what?” Quark asked.
“Didn’t you risk your life to rescue your mother from a bunch of bad guys who snatched her?” Vic said. “I mean, that’s great. She’s your mom and you gotta do what you gotta do. But you said business is your life, and that ain’t exactly business.”
Quark nodded, wondering exactly how Vic had learned about Ishka’s kidnapping by the Dominion. “My mother…she had the Grand Nagus’s ear—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Vic interrupted, obviously not putting much stock in Quark’s purported justification for his actions. “Didn’t you also risk your life helping the Feds take this place back from the bad guys?”
“Better customers,” Quark said at once. “The Federation and the Bajorans make better customers than the Dominion and the Cardassians.” But even Quark did not believe that excuse for what he had done.
A young woman with long red hair and a short skirt appeared at the table, carrying a tray with two bottles on it. “Here ya are, boss,” she said, setting the tray down. She poured first from the champagne bottle, and then from the clear, squarish bottle of orange liquid. Vic sipped at the drink while she loaded his empty bowl onto the tray.
“Thanks, doll,” Vic said. After she had gone, he looked back over at Quark. “What about all those stories about you runnin’ food and medicine to the Bajorans back when the bad guys ran the show?”
Quark felt an unpleasant chill buzz through the ridges along the tops of his ears. “That was at cost,” he protested, perhaps a bit too loudly. Trying to settle himself back down, he said in a quieter tone, “That was also a business decision.” He repeated his contention that Bajorans made better customers than Cardassians.
Vic seemed to consider him for a moment, and then he leaned forward across the table. In a low voice, the singer said, “I know that’s what you say, pallie, but you probably don’t realize that there are still some facts and figures from way back when rootin’ around inside these walls.”
“What?” Quark said. The idea that the station’s computer system still retained records of his Occupation-era transactions made his lobes go completely cold. “That’s all speculation,” Quark insisted, understanding that Vic knew otherwise. “I don’t want to hear that outside of this room.”
Vic raised his hands up in front of him, palms toward Quark. “Hey, nobody’ll hear it from me.”
Quark looked away, uncomfortable with where this conversation had gone, but at the same time wanting to hear the rest of what this hologram had to say. “What’s your point, anyway?” he asked.
“My point is, you’re always in here claimin’ to have this ideal of the Ferengi businessman that you wanna live up to, and yet you’re always doin’ somethin’ to mess that up.”
“Exactly,” Quark said. “So I’m an idiot.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Vic said. “Or maybe this image they gave you as a kid and that you’re always tryin’ to fulfill, maybe that’s not really what you want out of life.”
Quark reached up with both hands and rubbed at the bottoms of his lobes. His ears had gone numb. Me, not wanting to be a businessman?he thought, incredulous at the suggestion. Not wanting to be aFerengi businessman?The idea seemed preposterous on its face.
“Or maybe you just don’t know how to deal with gettin’ what you want,” Vic went on. “I knew a guy once who wanted more than anything to be a Major League baseball player.”
Baseball,Quark thought. Sisko’s game.
“This guy didn’t have all that much natural ability,” Vic continued, “but he worked his tail off to get through the farm system and make it to the bigs.” Quark had no idea what farms had to do with baseball, but then he had always been mystified by the sport. “So what does he do when he gets there? Drinks like a fish, carouses till dawn, stuff he’d never done before in his life.”
“Why?” Quark asked.
“Who knows why,” Vic said. “But he makes it to the Majors, and he’s only there for a cup of coffee before they ship him back down. Never makes it back up. So he got what he said he really wanted, and he threw it away as soon as he got it. So maybe he didn’t really want it, or maybe he didn’t know what to do with it once he did get it.”
Quark sat quietly for a moment, taking in what Vic had said. The words bothered him, and not because they were untrue. But he also did not know if he had the strength to face them. Finally, he said, “So what’s all that got to do with me?”
Vic tilted his head to the side and smiled. “Mr. Quark,” he said, “you’re not an idiot.” He paused, and then said, “You want to know what I think? I think business isn’t the only thing you’re worried about messin’ up these days.”
“What do you mean?” Quark asked, although he supposed he already knew the answer.
“What do I mean,” Vic said. “Black hair, nice figure, wrinkled nose…”
“Laren,” Quark said, his heart changing its beat at just the thought of her.
“Laren,” Vic agreed.
“I messed that up.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.” Vic grabbed his drink and drained it in one quick pull.
Quark grunted. “She probably wasn’t interested anyway.”