Myth-Taken Identity

SEVENTEEN

The razzing from the Merchants' Association over my order for fifty dozen assorted garters, a mix of magikally endowed and non, lasted just long enough for the assembled business owners to speculate on how fast they could get the same item into their shops, and how much they could undercut their neighbors.

"Of course we can help you, Aahz," Frimble, head of the Devan Marketing Association, insisted. He was a scrawny, middle-aged Deveel with a slick little black beard, which he stroked with a speculative thumb and forefinger. "Naturally there will be a surcharge for rush delivery—and set-up fees—and a percentage to ensure exclusivity for a period of say, oh, seven days—"

"Add it up," I agreed, "and cut the total by fifty percent."

Frimble screamed. "What? You'd be cutting the throats of your friends! What kind of ingrate are you? For top quality you would have to pay double!"

"I wasn't born yesterday," I argued back. "And I doubt I'll be getting top quality anyhow."

"How dare you!" yelled Ingvir, a potbellied Deveel who sold dry goods. He hoped to supply the twill ribbons and buckles, but I intended it to be on my terms, not his. "You son of a skink! I should know better than to try and do business with Perverts!"

"That's Pervect!" I roared.

"It's Pervert if you think I sell second-rate merchandise!"

"It's Pervect, and you do sell second-rate merchandise!" I exclaimed. "Maybe I should take my business elsewhere?"

"Who'd do business with you?" His voice rose in a shriek.

I started to relax. Deveel negotiation was always conducted at the top of their lungs. After several days of the genteel hum of The Mall I had started to forget how real trading was done.

"Ten percent discount," Coulbin shot at me.

He also manufactured small metal objects. The buckles he displayed were a little better looking than Ingvir's, and Ingvir knew it.

"Forty-five," I countered.

"Fifteen," Ingvir argued. "And I will cut you a deal on gold plating."

"Forty."

"Twenty," Coulbin shouted. "Gold-plating included!"

I was starting to enjoy myself, and Frimble hadn't even gotten into the fray yet. He held back, though, until the other two had made me identical offers at thirty percent off the original offer.

"Thirty," Frimble stated, "delivery included."

"You can't undercut us!" Coulbin shrieked. "You'd be buying the product from us anyhow!"

The argument started up afresh.

"Shut up!" I roared, over their voices. "Why not form a consortium?" I suggested, reasonably. "If this takes off, everybody could make a ton of money. And after a week, you can start selling them for yourselves. I won't need to have an exclusive for longer than that." The Deveels all shot one another the kind of looks that never kill when you need them to. Frimble nodded curtly.

"All right, it's a deal," he stated. "Delivery in three days."

"Fine," I assented.

Without a word of thanks or farewell they all turned their backs on me and started the argument up all over again. I wasn't offended. I had known Deveels for over a hundred years, and they were like that. Once a sale was done, you were off the radar. They were already onto the next moneymaking effort, which in this case was deciding who would get what piece of my pie. I didn't care. The goods only had to be priced so I didn't lose my shirt and pretty enough and functional enough to attract the shapechangers' attention. If the garters fell apart the day after we captured them, I didn't care.

Leaving the Deveels to their argument, I bamfed out for Flibber.

"No!" Massha yelled, hanging overhead like a huge, gaudy mobile. "Paint the walls before you put down the carpet. I thought you people did this all the time!"

The Flibberites rolling out the mauve rug rolled it back up again and returned to the buckets and brushes near the walls.

"She tell-a us to do it the other way," one of them whispered to the other.

"Yeah, but she tell-a us to do it the first way the first time!" They glanced at me over their shoulders and hastily bent to their task.

Massha noticed me and floated down to my level. "How'd it go?"

"We're all set," I assured her. "The stuff will arrive in three days. Once we get this place fixed up, all we have to do is open the door and wait."

"What kind of bags did you get?" she asked. "Bags?" I inquired blankly.

"To put sales in."

"We don't need bags!"

Massha gave me a hard look.

"All right, what about tissue paper? Tags? Gift cards? Antitheft devices? Receipts? Stationery? Business cards? And have you hired any clerks yet? I think I can train them, but it wouldn't hurt to get someone with real retail experience in here first."

"Hey!" I bellowed. "What are you trying to do here?"

Massha put her hands on her hips. "Set up a shop, sugar pie. I may never have run one, but I've been in thousands of them. Take the Bazaar. Most deals there are verbal, but even the Deveels wrap up small goods when you take them out of the store. Otherwise, how do you tell the shoppers from the shoplifters? Also, it's a courtesy for merchandise that's easily broken, soiled or"—she grinned— "a little embarrassing, like underwear. And what we're going to put on the walls falls into that category."

"I—er—I didn't think of bags," I admitted.

"Do you want me to take care of it? You'd have to take over here."

I looked around at the workers plastering, painting, and papering. The smell was already making my eyes water. "I'll do it."

I headed for the door. "And what about music?" she called behind me.

"I'm already on it!" I assured her.

"Naturally, naturally," Moa remarked, when I laid out the situation for him. "We can take care of everything for you. We do it for hundreds of the stores here. A lot of them are sole proprietors, don't have the time or expertise, or access to the right resources. I'll send a Djinn around to you at your hotel. He'll get everything you need." "Marco at your service!" exclaimed the cheerful, portly Djinn in purple robes who appeared at the door of our suite. He bowed.

"Another Djinnelli?" I asked, showing him in.

He beamed at me. "My cousin Rimbaldi said you were a sharp observer! We are so happy you decide to join our little community! Now, come, let me show you all the things we can offer."

Marco waved his hands. The room filled with huge, hardbound sample books.

"Shall we begin?" he inquired.

"The visitors are doing what?" Rattila asked.

Garn timidly extended a paint chip to his master. "They're opening a shop. This is the color. I just spent three hours painting the walls. There was nothing else to steal yet except this. They don't even have a name."

Rattila rubbed his paws together. "How fitting!" he cackled. "They are going to assist me in draining the essence of their own friends, and I can use their own merchandise to do it! What are they selling?"

Garn rubbed his nose with a paw. "I dunno."

"Then go back! I want a full report. I want to see it," Rattila added greedily, "with my own eyes."

"Boxes," I decided finally, after going through dozens of packaging options.

"Good choice, Master Aahz," Marco congratulated me. He threw a hand toward the hovering examples. "Now, flat square, cubic, flat round? You have all these choices because this handsome little item"—he flourished one of our sample garters—"would look beautiful in all of them." He kissed his fingertips. "Now, which one would you like best, if you were bringing a present to a beautiful lady?"

I have always prided myself on being able to scope out the psychology of people I was dealing with. In this case, I had to guess how people I didn't know yet would think. The factors that went into the decision were subtle. Now, subtle I could do, no problem, but I wasn't sure about generally popular.

"Flat round," I announced at last.

"Very nice!" Marco agreed, jotting a note on the notepad that followed us around the room. "Out of the ordinary. I recommend two sizes, for a single item, and for two or three."

"No," I corrected him, narrowing my eyes at the floating boxes. "Just the one size. We're trying to go for the special, one-of-a-kind look."

"Then you need ribbons, or bags to put multiple boxes in."

"Ribbons," I decided at once. "Three colors. White— no, silver boxes, three colors of purple ribbon. Pink's too namby-pamby. If we're going for solid sex appeal, then let's go for it."

"It's a pleasure to do business with such a decisive personality, Aahz!" Marco exclaimed heartily. "Except for my cousins, everybody is so timid; and then they are so unhappy with the results."

"You oughta set up shop in the Bazaar," I suggested, with a grin. "We get the screaming out of the way in advance there."

"And, now," Marco went on smoothly, "a catalog?"

"No," I stated flatly. "We're gonna change styles all the time."

Truth was, I had given the Deveels a fairly free hand, and I wasn't sure what they would come up with. Also, the less of a paper trail I could leave, the better. The last thing we needed was to have a catalog turn up ten years from now, and have someone bug us in the middle of an important operation in search of a size eight blue left-handed garter with marabou.

"Ah!" Marco exclaimed, enlightened. "You are an exclusive boutique. I understand."

"Yeah. A boutique." I was picking up all kinds of vocabulary as I went.

Marco made notes. "So you will want purple-and-silver tissue. Business cards—magikal will cost you a gold piece per hundred. Paper, a thousand per gold piece."

"Paper. Er, silver ink on deep purple card. Shiny." I began to picture it in my mind. "A little frilly ring in the upper right-hand corner. The store number in the bottom right."

"And the name?" Marco asked, pencil poised.

"Uh." He had me there. I hadn't even considered what we were going to call it. "Garterama?"

"Not a boutique name," the Djinn declared firmly.

I wasn't really the marketing specialist. "We Are Garters?" I grinned evilly as a thought struck me. "Garter Snake?"

Marco wiggled a hand. "Not really family appeal. A few species would respond to that favorably, but some won't. Cute is what you want. Perky. Make the buyers think they're in on something special."

"Not bad," I mused.

Good advice. But what could we let the punters in on? I had to admit that I was surprised that Massha had suggested garters in the first place. Not that she was body-shy; her normal attire was a modified harem-girl outfit. And she had a healthy attitude about love and marriage. She'd waited long enough for them, after all. I don't know why her idea took me off guard. I guess it had been a long time since I'd thought about the little things that made a relationship romantic. She knew them, and she was willing to share. "How about Massha's Secret?"

Marco kissed his fingertips. "The delectable lady? Perfect, perfect! Yes, that will attract the visitors, you wait and see! Shall I prepare a lovely portrait of her to hang on the wall over the counter? It can wink at each person!"

I cringed. "I don't think that's what she's got in mind. But, uh, you could put a winking eye on the receipts."

Marco waved a hand, and a nice line drawing of a long-lashed eye appeared on the notepad.

"Thicker line there, and more curve in the lashes. Yeah. Substitute that for the garter on the cards, too. And you mentioned in-Mail ads. A simple line drawing in purple on white or silver posters. No text, at least not at first. Let them wonder. Then add the store number in the second round. Then add a slogan, 'Do you know Massha's Secret?' Yeah. I like that."

"You are very subtle for a Pervect!" Marco exclaimed.

I nodded with satisfaction. "I've been around. Now, what about key chains? And maybe lapel pins? Bumper stickers?"

"T-shirts?" Marco asked, writing furiously.

"No!" I exclaimed. "I don't want to go crazy on this. I'm just trying to sell garters."

Marco and I quickly agreed on the rest of the designs, colors, and quantity of each item. I thought Massha and the others would be pleased, and the intrigue ought to bring in the punters on the run. Everyone loved a mystery. Half the fun was becoming an insider before the other people you knew.

"And to prevent theft," Marco concluded, with a flourish, "the very latest in deterrents!"

He presented me with a very small wooden box. I opened it, to behold a second lid, this one of glass. Beneath the glass was a small, very angry-looking black-and-white bee. It threw itself at the lid, trying to get out at us.

"They are very hard to kill, they cannot be bought off with honey or other sweets, and they cannot be removed without the correct spell. Anyone who carries a piece of merchandise past the alarm belt, which you will place around your door, will be stung repeatedly. The bees also have a very loud buzz, which can be heard for several feet."

"Perfect," I acknowledged, handing the box back. "We'll take a hiveful."

Marco tossed the box into the air. It vanished.

"Then we are finished. Thank you for the order. You are much easier to work with than many of your species."

'Thanks, I think," I replied sourly.

"I just wonder—" the Djinn began, with a pensive look on his broad face, "because you came here to catch a thief—my cousins and I hope that your new interest in the retail industry will not take your attention away from that ambition."

"Hell, no," I assured him. "That's still our primary focus. All this is to help out with the hunt. Keep that under your turban, though."

"Of course, of course!" Marco exclaimed, overjoyed. "Then we give you the best service, and the fastest delivery!" He kissed me on both cheeks. "I will see you, tomorrow by noon! You will be very pleased, I promise."

"You look happy," Massha declared, as I strutted back into the shop.

Chumley was hammering racks into the wall with his bare hands, aided by Eskina, who passed him nails as he asked for them. The decor was about finished. Three of the walls were mauve, and one was about the same shade as Chumley's fur. The Flibberite painters, looking pale and tired, staggered out with the buckets, ladders and drop cloths. I waited until they were out of earshot before I replied.

"Come and see what I've got," I invited them. The small back room had been divided into two spaces. One of them was the storeroom, for back stock. The other was a cozy mirrored room where customers could see how they would look in a garter without having to try it on

"It's my own spell," Cire explained smugly.

"And it has nothing to do with that hairdresser on Imper who was using the same idea more than twenty years ago, huh?"

Cire looked hurt. "Mine has a lot of new wrinkles! Really!"

"Like?"

"Like," Cire echoed, a crafty expression on his broad face, "that Imp hairdresser didn't have anything in her spell that compared the customer in her chair with the list of Rattila's victims."

"If one of the misused faces enters," Chumley added, "the door will refuse to open. The room is quite secure. I have tested it myself."

"Nice. Nice," I assured them, nonchalantly. "Now, I've been doing really important work."

I spread out the boxes, ribbons, papers, sample posters, and other items on the table in the back room.

Cire goggled. "This is important?"

"You can't just throw open the doors without the right ambience in place," I snarled. "It'd look too amateurish."

I hoped Massha wouldn't toss it back in my face that it had been her idea. But she was turning over the boxes and cards with a look of delight on her face.

"Oh, Aahz, honey," Massha cooed. "They're beautiful! 'Massha's Secret'?" She went scarlet, but she leaned over to kiss me on the cheek.

"Don't get soft," I snapped. But inwardly I was glad she liked it. "Think all of this will lure the thieves in?"

"They will not be able to resist," Chumley assured me.

Massha looked it all over again, holding up the ribbons and other little knickknacks. I felt a surge of pride. Everything was coordinated and professional-looking, and, I was sure, guaranteed to appeal to the chosen market. But an expression of faintly puzzled discomfort crossed her face.

"Aahz, honey," Massha remarked at last, holding a ribbon up next to my face. "You clash."