Myth-Taken Identity

FOUR

"Hands-a up!" a gruff voice barked. "Turn around, very slowly."

I know when I'm outnumbered. Very slowly, I turned around, with my hands up, as instructed. Chumley did the same. Hovering in midair Massha had already raised her arms over everyone's heads.

Facing us up the soiled corridor was either the chorus from Rose Marie, or a large portion of the security force of The Mall. I stopped counting at a hundred, as more and more of big, strong, blue-skinned beings in Renaissance costume pointed a nasty array of weapons in our direction. I recognized the guy with the extra set of feathers on his hat at the head of the posse as one of the officers who had arrested the pickpocket I'd soaked in the fountain.

"Hey, buddy," I called, giving him a friendly grin.

He recoiled a pace, his face sewn up in the solemn grimace of officialdom. His hands tightened on the polearm that even I, in my disenchanted condition, could tell packed some kind of nasty magikal punch. "Who is it? Who is it? Who are they?" a voice demanded.

The white hats shifted backward and forward as. someone made his way up through the crowd toward us. The last two security guards parted about a foot, and from their midst came a little bent figure, his eyes concentrating on the floor about two yards ahead of his feet. The little guy straightened up enough to look me over, then turned his gaze to Chumley, thence to Massha.

"You I remember from this morning," he smiled, nodding at her. "Nice girl, doing an old man like me a favor. So, what's all the fooferang?" He gave an impatient wave. "Down with the hands, capisce!

Keeping a wary eye on the captain of the guard, I lowered my arms.

"Look, friend," I began, in my most businesslike manner, "my friends and I are sorry to upset your routine. I know you're all busy. So are we. So if you don't mind, can we get back to our own business?"

The old man turned to the captain for an explanation. "Parvattani?"

' The guard snapped to attention, which made the feathers on his hat dance. I wouldn't have been caught dead in an outfit like that outside a Mardi Gras parade.

"We've been in-a pursuit of these three for over a mile, Mr. Moa. They've disrupted shopping for the past half hour or so. I have a sheaf-a of complaints from customers and store owners"—he snapped his fingers, and another rent-a-cop came forward with a handful of papers—"regarding breakages, disturbances of-a the peace, intimidation—"

"Come on!" the old man exclaimed, spreading out his hands to us. "You don't look like disturbers of the peace, especially this helpful lady. What's the story?"

I tried to sound just as friendly and reasonable as he did. "We were trying to catch up with an acquaintance of mine."

"And you followed him back here?" the old man asked, skeptically. "I take it your 'acquaintance' didn't want to meet up with you, did he? So, where is he?"

"He was here just a moment ago ..." Massha began.

"He owe you money?" the old guy interrupted, with a shrewd glance.

"Not exactly," I replied, peeved that he kept interrupting us.

"I recognize him, Mr. Moa," one of the other little Flibberites exclaimed, shoving forward. "This Pervert is an affiliate of the Great Skeeve!"

"That's Pervect!" I growled.

I recognized him, too. When I last saw him, immediately before I slammed a door on him, he'd thrown a bolt of lightning at me.

The little squirt ignored me. "We tried to get information from him regarding Skeeve's whereabouts, but he refused to cooperate."

He gave me a dirty look. I showed my teeth, and he backpedaled. He wasn't so tough without his two goons. I didn't see them in the crowd; they must have been off elsewhere pushing little old ladies off curbs into traffic.

"Now, hold the phone!" the third Flibberite sputtered, starting forward on bandy legs. He was built on more hearty lines than his two companions, and reminded me of an old cowhand. "You could've gotten the wrong house. It's happened before. You aren't so all-fired accurate as you think you are."

"I did not get the house wrong," the squirt groused.

The old guy raised an eyebrow at me. "You know this Great Skeeve?"

The whole of The Mall guard contingent leaned in a little closer.

"Look, is there somewhere we can talk in private?" I said, lowering my voice to a confidential level.

"My office," Moa snapped out.

I liked a guy who didn't have to think before making a decision. Since that had the added effect of causing the weapons to stop pointing toward us, I liked him even more. The little guy made a sharp gesture. The guards parted to form an aisle. Captain Parvattani stepped out as if he was passing a reviewing stand. Moa gestured to us to precede him and his companions.

"Mr. Moa—"

A small figure darted into our midst, the female in the white fur coat we'd last seen in The Volcano. Cute little face, if you liked them peaky with black, pointed noses.

"Not you again!" Parvattani groaned, rolling his eyes. He took her by the arm. "Get out of here!"

"Mr. Moa!" the female pleaded, trying to get past him to the little old executive. "Please. I've got some information for you!"

"Now, now, darling," Moa chided, patting her cheek with a paternal hand as he went by. "I'm busy. I'll listen to your fantasies some other time."

"—That's why I'm sure it's not my friend."

With one emphatically raised finger, I finished up my explanation, which had taken a long while to expound.

Moa's office was furnished the way I like to see executive suites. All the furniture, including the bookshelves behind Moa's desk and the very well stocked bar on the wall opposite the cut-glass windows, were fine-grained mahogany-colored wood. The green, leather-upholstered chairs, both behind and in front of a bronze marble desk smooth enough to ice-skate on, were deeply and very comfortably padded. Mine kept trying to engulf me whenever I sat down, so I had to perch on the end to keep from having to wiggle out of it in an undignified fashion every time I wanted to get up to make a point.

Parvattani had insisted on standing near the door at rigid attention, and now looked as if he wished he'd sat down as Mr. Moa had invited him. The Flibberite was a good listener, keeping his eyes on me the whole time and only pausing momentarily to take notes.

"Okay, that all?" he asked, as I sat down and at last gave myself up to the upholstery gods.

A pretty young thing in a modest dirndl skirt and bodice brought me a pint of whisky in a thin crystal glass. I tossed it back in one grateful gulp and set it down gently for a refill.

"Yeah, that's it."

Moa leaned toward me over his folded hands. "Mr. Aahz, I've heard everything you've got to tell me, and I wish it was a new story."

I sprang up, with some difficulty.

"It's not a story," I roared, making the crystal sing. "If you've heard one syllable through those twin peaks on either side of your head ..."

Moa's little hands patted the air. "Sit, sit." He sighed wearily. "I don't mean it's a story like a fairy tale. I wish it was. Mr. Aahz—"

"Just Aahz," I interrupted, glad to get a chance to stop him for once.

"Aahz, then. Look, I'm going to tell you something I don't want known outside of this office. I'm a cosmopolitan kind of guy. I've traveled off Flibber. I've heard of M.Y.T.H., Inc., and I know something about its reputation. Can I count on your discretion?"

I glanced from Moa to Chumley and Massha.

"Why not?" Massha said for all of us. "Just because we're not active—at present—doesn't mean we aren't the same people you've heard about."

"Good." Moa nodded, settling back in his chair with a sigh.

He picked up his cup of tea and took a healthy sip.

"Chamomint is good for the stomach. You should try it. All right, you don't want to waste time. Neither do I. Here's the scoop. We've got a ring of identity thieves operating in The Mall." I shook ray head. "Could be several groups with the same M.O. They may just overlap the same territory."

Moa's gesture of negation was emphatic.

"No, I'm pretty sure there's just one ring."

Chumley's ears perked up. "Like the—" he began, sitting forward eagerly.

'Wo, not like that," Moa retorted peevishly. "You're as bad as that, that girl out there, what's-her-name. Forget about it. We know a lot about these thieves, and I'm sure they're just one band working together. They're a pain where I sit. You said your pal has a credit card. Most of the problems we have from this particular gang comes from credit cards. Once you've got them, it's easy to use them. No more hauling around big bags of money or letters of credit from Gnomish banks. No more weighing gold dust and disputing the grams, or wondering whether the scale's crooked." He sighed. "The biggest problem is that it is easy to use them. With money, when your pocket's empty, you're done spending. When you flip out a card, it feels the same when you're ten thousand gold pieces overdrawn as it does when you've got cash in the bank. The Gnomes say it's our problem. They get their cut no matter what."

"What's the scam?" I asked, frowning.

"Easy," Moa snorted. "Like with your friend. These characters cotton on to someone. Sometimes they get ahold of the card itself, don't ask me how. Maybe they've got a spell that lets them make a copy of the card owner's face and personality, and put themselves in the way to get it instead of the rightful owner. Here's what I do know. It's easier if the victim's got a credit card—it's as if he, or she," he added, with a little nod of his head toward Massha, "has put a little self into it. It's an extension of you."

"I get it," I growled impatiently.

"Okay, then. They must have some way of utilizing that little bit, because we've had face-to-face encounters just like the one that happened today with you and your friend's double. He's one of the easy ones to copy."

I nodded. I had known that damned card was trouble the second the kid flashed it at me, but I wasn't about to air family troubles in front of strangers. Massha and Chumley exchanged knowing looks with me.

Moa continued. "But I know it's happened to plenty of people without cards. We've got regular thieves; every merchant knows some of their goods are going to walk away under their own power. You've got to accept that as a fact of life, or you should never open your doors to the public. It's not a good thing to consider, but it's reality. Am I wrong?"

"Nope," I agreed tersely.

"I'm not wrong. I know. Anyhow, we only hear about it after it starts to happen. A customer, or maybe even a stranger, starts to run up big bills, uncollectable bills. Sometimes there's a protest. If they can prove they were somewhere else when the fraud was committed, we let them off."

I narrowed an eye at the squirt in the chair against the wall.

"We have to try to recover our losses," the little Flibberite explained imperturbably.

"I'm sending you a bill for my living room," I informed him. "So what am I doing here?"

Moa spread out his hands. "I'm explaining you our problem. This ring of thieves consists of one or more magicians who can duplicate the appearance of a legitimate, innocent shopper. All I know is that we see the person come into a store, commit what amounts to daylight robbery, then disappear like a wraith." Chumley let out a wordless exclamation. Moa held up a warning finger. "Don't start again. I don't know why, but instead of hanging low and getting what they want, these thieves like to make with the flamboyant purchases, the big ones. They go away for weeks or months. Then they're back again. With the same faces. We've tried, Oximit knows, but we've never caught one of them yet. It's either a huge gang, or they have some way of maintaining several identities at once." Enlightenment shone a beacon in my eyes.

"Option B," I said, firmly. "I'm pretty sure I saw one of your thieves today, in The Volcano."

"What did he look like?"

"She," I corrected him, and described my Pervect enchantress. "But she flipped through a stack of cards and turned into a he. It looked pretty effortless. Whatever magik is involved, it's pretty sophisticated."

"Mr.—I mean, Aahz, that's incredible news!" Moa exclaimed. "We've got spies and magik eyes everywhere in this Mall, and no one has ever seen what you have just described."

"It's a hell of a way to run a railroad," Skocklin, the bandy-legged Flibberite opined. "Cards! Consarn it! It just figures! Them cards is a burr under my saddle." I had already decided he must have been born in the land of outdated phrases. "But it sure sounds like you folks have earned your reputations for observation."

"Thanks," I said.

"And yet," the peaky Flibberite began, tapping his fingertips together in a manner that seemed to pave the way for bad news, "this could all be a story, concocted to keep from paying off the debts of your friend, the Great Skeeve."

"You can take that attitude and—" I bit off my words as the guards came away from the walls with their weapons pointing at me. "Didn't I just prove to you that it couldn't be the real Skeeve out there?"

"You didn't really prove anything," the squirt announced with satisfaction on his narrow little face. "All you told us was something we have already deduced and might have found out in time. There's nothing to determine that it's actually true. It's just one of many suppositions that we're exploring."

I had hated the jerk from the moment I had seen him. Bean counters were the same all over the dimensions. I wanted to take the little creep and squeeze his head until there was only one four-pointed ear on top of his neck. I knew a bureaucrat when I heard it.

"Who the hell do you think we were chasing for an hour? The will-o'-the-wisp?"

"I have no idea," the squirt smirked, and I really wanted to commit mayhem on him at that moment. "For all we know you're in league with the thieves."

"WHAT??? That's it—it's clobbering time."

I kicked out of my chair, only to find Parvattani and his spear in my face. Chumley picked him up by his collar. Five of Parvi's guards surrounded the Troll with their magik polearms. Massha geared up with some of her jewelry. The little guy flung up his hands, one pointed at her and one at me, readying a spell. I cracked my knuckles and prepared to dive in. I could probably take half a dozen of the guards before it got complicated. It was going to be a beautiful brawl. Then The Mall manager stepped in between us.

"Enough!" Moa held up his hands. "No fighting!" Everyone sagged a little, disappointed. He shook his head wearily. "You know, and I know, that we don't think any such thing. We've heard of M. Y.T.H., Inc. We know who you are."

With an eye on the obnoxious squirt in the corner I nonchalantly flipped my chair upright and sat down in it again. Massha kept her hand on the glowing jewels on her jangly belt.

"Then what the hell do you want?" I demanded.

"Well," Moa suggested apologetically, "we've just finished telling you that we've been unable to break up this ring of thieves. Maybe our approach is wrong."

"Duh," Chumley chided him, in his Big Crunch voice. "Not catch."

"Exactly," Moa remarked, with, an emphatic upward swing of his forefinger. "Look, gentleman and madame, I'm a businessman. I'm not a detective. I sell goods. I don't solve mysteries." A thin eyebrow climbed up his shiny bald dome. "But you do." I'd known the conversation would take this turning the moment Moa asked us back to his office.

"Sorry," I snapped. "Not interested."

Moa looked surprised. I knew he'd do that, too. "What?"

"You're about to ask us to investigate the thieves here in The Mall. Right?"

"Of course, right. We do want to hire you. You want the same thing we do. The sky's the limit on fees. Why not?"

I held up a hand and ticked off the fingers. "Several reasons. One: we don't want exactly the same things. I'm here to figure out who's impersonating my friend. Nothing else. Two: I don't like to get tied up in local issues in which I have no stake. Three:"—and here I fixed the squirt next to Moa with a full-throttle glare—"I might have considered differently, but your partner here decided to try and burn my office down."

Moa gave a chiding look at the peaky-faced Flibberite, " then turned large and sorrowful eyes toward me.

"Please, Mr. Aahz, my associate here was doing his job. Won't you reconsider? We'll offer you ... ten thousand gold pieces."

Now came the hard part: a cash offer. I'd already anticipated that, too. In my day I've been on both sides of this kind of negotiation. I thought about it, hard, but loyalty won out over greed. I folded my arms.

"No."

"Each."

My palms itched, but I held firm. "No."

Now Massha and Chumley looked surprised, too.

"Twenty," the Flibberite offered, growing panic in his eyes.

"Mr. Moa!" the financial squirt protested.

"Enough, already, Woofle," Moa replied, not taking his eyes off mine. "Thirty."

"No!" I roared. The picture of bags of shiny coins fluttering away on gossamer wings was almost too much for me to take, but I hung on. My efforts weren't lost on my associates.

"Aahz," Massha asked gently. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm fine," I snarled. "It's the principle. I want to get to the bottom of Skeeve's shoplifting double. I want to tear his head off and spit down his neck, then I am going back to Deva to finish the book I was reading when this whole mess started. If it didn't burn to ashes," I added, with a glare at Woofle.

He quailed. That was good. I felt like scaring hell out of someone.

"Maybe," Chumley grunted at Moa in his Big Crunch voice, "you nice, we help if possible." He turned his big, moon-shaped eyes at me. "Re-con-sid. Later."

Moa glanced at the Troll, as though surprised that he could actually talk. Trolls often hired out as muscle in other dimensions. Rarely did their employers get to know them as we did, which led to the widespread misconception that they had about five brain cells each. In reality, Chumley had about five college degrees. After me he was probably the smartest guy in M.Y.T.H., Inc. He certainly had the Flibberites' attention.

"Yes, Mr. Troll," Moa asserted eagerly, leaning forward with his hands outstretched. "How nice do I have to be?"

Chumley pursed his big lips as if trying to make words was difficult. "Place sleep. Food. Guard help. Yeah?"

"Yes," I picked up on my associate's suggestions, wondering what was wrong with me that I hadn't thought of that myself. "If you put us up, give us a... reasonable per diem for meals and drinks and so on, and give us an in with the local security, if, and it's a big if, we come across something during our personal investigation that helps you out, we might shoot it your way."

"You're free to reward us afterward if you want to," Massha interjected hastily.

"We'll be happy to," Moa promised, his enthusiasm returned. "We'll deputize you. You'll be free to come and go wherever you want. Parvattani!"

"Yessir!" The captain of the guard snapped to attention.

"These three fine people need to operate as secret guards here in The Mall."

"Yessir!" Parvattani responded, with a salute that nearly knocked him unconscious. "Bisimo! Secret guard insignia for three!"

The guard nearest the door flung it open and tore out into the hallway.

In a very short time he was back with three more guards, each carrying a bundle of cloth.

"You're a little heftier than the average Flibberite," Bisimo offered apologetically.

He shook out the first bundle and held it up to my chest. It was a tunic. At least, if there'd been a volume control on the incredibly loud fabric so I could dial it down to dark blue serge from wild blackberry-and-orange-dyed spotted herringbone tweed, I might have identified it as a tunic. It was so tasteless even an Imp wouldn't have worn it. Huge epaulets in metallic aqua adorned each shoulder, and frogs in the same shade marched down the front, framing huge shiny brass buttons. The color scheme actually hurt my eyes.

"What's this?" I demanded, blinking.

"All our undercover agents wear these," Moa said, surprised. "It's meant to blend in with the local scenery."

"All of it at once?" I said, shaking my head. "No wonder you've had no luck sneaking up on your frauds! Any thief with half an eyeball could see these coming four dimensions away!" I shoved the cloth back at Bisimo. "No thanks, pal. I prefer my own style. Maybe, just maybe if I have time when we finish with what we came here to do, I'll help you set up a real undercover corps. And maybe," I added, trying not to look at the psychedelic ball of cloth in Bisimo's arms, "we can have a talk about camouflage. In the meantime, just stay out of our way. We'll try to keep it subtle. We don't want to tip off the perpetrators. We want their butts as much as you do."

"Well, you can't walk around without a guide," Moa countered. "One of the guards can accompany you."

"No," I retorted at once.

"It's a good idea," Moa offered persuasively. "He'll make sure you have no trouble with the locals, get you into secured areas, and all that. You did say you've never been here before. You should take one with you to show you the course."

I considered it for about one second.

"All right," I agreed.

I pointed at Captain Parvattani.

"We'll take him. That'll be Par for the course." I guffawed at my own joke and waited for applause, but in vain. Everyone looked at me blankly.

"But he's the captain of the guard," Moa protested.

"I know. That means he'll be brighter than the others, I hope," I said. "If he's at the head of your squad, it means he's the best you've got. Right? If he's worth what you're paying him, he'll have the whole layout of The Mall in his head, including the parts that aren't on the map."

Parvattani straightened his spine and tried to live up to the hype I was giving him. I always find it makes people give their all if you set an ideal for them to live up to. Still, Moa looked doubtful.

"Besides, he might learn something, hanging out with us," I added.

That was enough to convince Moa. That suited me. We wouldn't have to learn the terrain, and Par wouldn't try to take control of the situation.

"But you're not wearing that thing," I instructed the elated guard. "You stick out like a clown nose at a cotillion."

"But it's my uniform, sir!" my new guide protested.

"Don't 'sir' me." I sighed. He might stick out anyway, with that gung ho Boy Scout attitude. "I work for a living. Mufti, or we find our way around without your assistance. How are we supposed to sneak up on your problem if they can see you coming? You handle situations like apprehending pickpockets and breaking up riots just fine; we saw you. But this is detective work. We're going to observe, not be observed."

Par blinked once, but nodded. He didn't need further explanation. Good. He was trainable. By the time we left he ought to be a better security officer than he was when we came. With a look to Moa for permission, Par disappeared out the door.

"So that's all settled," Moa said, with a sigh of relief. He signed to the nearest guard, who moved toward the sideboard. "Let's drink on it."

I grinned. "That's an offer I never refuse."