Myth-Told Tales

MYTH-CALCULATIONS By Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye

I eyed Guido as he slid into the booth opposite me. We were at the very back of the inn in the Bazaar, a favorite spot of ours to relax, but also to do business. It was one of the few places where a Troll such as I fit behind the tables as readily as Deveels, Klahds, and Imps, probably a tribute to their high-fat cuisine. I signed to the innkeeper to bring us the specialty of the house.

“Three strawberry milkshakes,” I said. “Will that suit you, Tananda?” My little sister nodded, still keeping her attention on Guido. The Mob enforcer, as dapper as ever in his big-shouldered sharkskin suit, seemed uncomfortable, shifting on the slick bench. I caught the bartender just before he turned away. “Oh, and if anyone's looking for us, we're not here.”

“Whatever you say, Chumley,” the proprietor said, with a cheery wave.

“Thanks, Chumley,” Guido said, keeping his fedora in front of his face.

“Well,” I said, keeping my voice low, since Guido had asked for confidentiality. “To what do we owe this meeting? We always welcome a chance to chat with friends.”

Guido worked a finger under his collar as if to loosen it “Dis is by way of bein' business,” he admitted. “Don Bruce has gotta problem.”

Tananda's eyebrows went up, and I know mine were the mirror of hers. Though my face was masculine, enormous, and covered by fur, with tusks at the corners of my mouth, and hers was female, elfin, and beautiful, those people who knew our family could easily see the resemblance. “What kind of problem would he have that he can't handle by himself?” I asked.

“It's kind of embarrassin',” Guido said, hesitating again. “It's a financial problem. He's still flush, for now, but if word gets around he might start havin' to reach further down in his pockets, and dat he does not like to do.”

I was cognizant of that. The Don was generous to his friends and those of his relatives on whom he doted, but he disliked having to “shell out,” as he would say. “Word of what?”

“Well, it's somethin' goin' on here in the Bazaar, which is why I come to youse.” Guido shot a quick glance around to make certain we were not overheard. Several Deveel merchants had noticed the three of us for, though we were in a private booth at the rear of the establishment, my size did not lend itself to subtle concealment. When I turned toward them and bared my teeth, they quickly not-looked at something else. Guido continued.

“You know how the Don's interests stand here on Deva. He takes a … personal interest in the well-bein' of the businesspeople here. For this service he expects a small weekly kickba — I mean, honorarium. That's just for goodwill. It ain't supposed to put no one out of business, and it ain't supposed to make anyone hurt. That comes if somethin' goes wrong. In exchange, we are, like, on call in case there's trouble. No one leans on one of our clients without us comin' in and makin' 'em stop.”

“I understand all that, but where does the problem arise?”

Guido's face darkened. “There's someone else hornin' in on our deal here, you should excuse the expression. The deveel's in the details. The Don suspects dese same individuals have been runnin' small loans for the little guy. Now, you know how it's hard for anyone to operate in the Bazaar. Once in a while you need a little extra cash. Normally they go to one of the usual establishments, or they come to us. Everything's fine if you pay back on time. Anyone who tries to skip out gets leaned on. Now between the loans and the protection… I mean, insurance payments, all the action is with dis new group, and we're not gettin' our cut. The way they do it is not so different on the way youse guys were helpin' run the Don's operation, but when defaulters get the treatment from these new people, they ain't the same anymore. Geddit?”

“I believe so,” I said. “Would you mind elucidating further?”

“I don't do no elucidatin',” Guido said, “but I'll tell ya some more. This action has been cuttin' into the profits the Mob has come to expect. I've tried talkin' to 'em myself, but they're not answerin'. And they're not trottin' back into the fold, like the Don wants. He sent me here, but I'm out of my depth. I need an enforcer to bring 'em all back into line.”

“Why ask us?” I inquired. “Why not someone like Aahz?”

“Well,” Guido admitted, “he ain't felt what you would call motivated lately, since the Boss left”

“He's the logical person, being, well… formidable.”

“Yeah,” Guido said, glumly. “I got him to go and lean on one of the, uh, clients, but they was too scared to comply.”

“They wouldn't comply? With a Pervert?” Tananda asked, astonished.

“Pervect” I quelled my little sister with a look. Aahz was an old friend, and shouldn't be referred to by a derogatory title, especially one he personally eschewed. “What could possibly cause such a breakdown in authority?”

“More to the point,” Tananda asked, interrupting me, “who is it? A rival gang?”

“I dunno,” Guido said. “The, er, clients can't talk about it. We used … a lil magikal persuasion, but I gotta tell ya, the results was not what you would call pretty. A guy explodes rather than give with the information like we asked him. And I know me and Nunzio didn't use nothin' that would have caused that kind of effect. It was self-inflicted.” Guido toyed uneasily with his empty mug. “I'm askin', like, as a pal, to see if youse can't get these accounts back into the tidy line like Don Bruce prefers to see.”

Thoughtfully, I ordered another round of milkshakes. The bartender, usually a loquacious soul, delivered our beverages, then departed hastily. I am accustomed to the looks of strangers, the horrified expressions when they gaze at me, a full-grown, and, if I may say it (as it is my stock-in-trade), a ferocious-looking Troll, but this Deveel was an old acquaintance of ours. Nor did any of the males in the immediate environ deliver the generally lascivious, speculative leers I have observed when they behold my sister the Trollop.

I might add that many have made the foolish assumption that because of my size and demeanor that I am the more formidable opponent of the two. It is not the case. Tananda is the fiercer sibling. I am proud of my little sister. For anyone who believes that I am at all jealous of her prowess, I remind them of my above-mentioned characteristics and invite them to take up the matter with me, personally, some time when I feel like enjoying a spot of freelance exercise or, as our friend Aahz calls it, a free sample reminder. No one has ever asked for two.

Guido was clearly hoping it would take only a visit from one or both of us to redirect the flow of funds toward Don Bruce's coffers from whatever inappropriate stream into which it was currently running. We were willing to give it a go, for old time's sake.

“Whoever it is must be packing some serious magikal hardware,” Little Sister mused. “Guido, do you have a list of the merchants who are, uh, not complying?”

The enforcer pulled a hand-stitched leather document case from the inside breast pocket of his immaculately pressed suit. He extracted therefrom a small scroll and gave it to Tananda. She held it up to the light, frowned, then pointed a long-nailed finger at it. There was a POP! and a puff of green smoke.

“Not my color,” Tananda said, wrinkling her nose at the acrid smell. “Don Bruce isn't taking chances on anyone reading this, is he?”

“That is the middle crux of the issue,” Guido agreed.

“What was sealing the scroll?” I asked curiously. Magik is not an entirely closed book to me, but I may say that my expertise runs in the direction of physical exertion, not elder lore.

“Nasty Assassin's trick, Big Brother. You really wouldn't want to know the details. You'd call the results insalubrious or some other two-gold-piece word.”

As I said, I am proud of my little sister. To detect and disarm such a trap in two economical motions is the hall-mark of the consummate professional, sometimes defined as one that is still alive after more than one mission.

Tananda unrolled the document and spread it out. “Hmm. Cartablanca, the manuscript merchant, Vineezer the herbalist, Bochro, who deals in exotic toys — plenty of mixed technology in that shop …”

“What about Scotios?” I inquired.

Guido shook his head. “He's behavin' himself.”

There were several more names on the list Tananda and I read it several more times. She met my eyes with a puzzled glance. “What do all these people have in common?”

“I couldn't say,” I admitted. “They're all Deveels, but that is the only trait I can detect.”

“Most of 'em work alone.” Guido said. “That'd make them vulnerable to a shakedown … I mean, an insurance proposal. That is why the Don takes so much interest in protectin' them.”

“Not Melicronda,” I pointed out. The wine merchant was in a tent not far from M.Y.T.H. Inc.'s own. “She employs three of her sons full time.”

“What about the quality of their merchandise?” Tananda suggested. “All of them sell fragile or ephemeral goods.”

Guido shifted in his seat, suddenly sweeping a glance at the other patrons of the inn. Inadvertantly, all of them retreated a half-step. “So does Palaka the rug dealer, but she's not on the list And some of these are what you might call service providers. Though not the kind of service providers Don Bruce likes to keep under his protection.” “I see,” I said.

“It's no good,” Tananda said, rolling up the scroll and rebespelling it before tucking it into her cleavage. “Weil have to visit each of them and find out for ourselves.”

“No comment,” said Vineezer, edging past me with a bubbling retort in his hands. The old Deveel put it onto a stone slab and reached for a big open jar and a minute spoon. The small shop smelled very pleasant with its heady aromas of drying herbs hanging in bunches all around the ceiling. A bit too heady, I thought, as I fought to contain a titanic sneeze. “Atishoo!”

Plant matter went flying in every direction. The old Deveel was rendered momentarily green with powdered snakewort. A wreath of laurel hung drunkenly from one of his horns.

“I am so sorry,” I said, attempting to brush him off. “Quite by accident, I assure you.”

In the close confines of the tent I succeeded only in knocking him over. Guido grabbed his arm and heaved him up to a standing position.

“Why's he talking like a book?” Vineezer asked, eying me uneasily.

“Eloquence curse,” Tananda said, leaning against the center tent pole with her arms crossed. “Plays merry hell with his strength. But that will be back soon. Maybe very soon, if I can't persuade you to tell me what I want to hear.”

“I… I can't,” Vineezer said, retreating from the fierce look in her eye. His normal red complexion paled to an almost Imp-pink. “They'll put their mark on this place — they did it once already.”

The three of us looked around.

“I don't see no mark,” Guido growled, his hand moving toward the inner pocket where I know he stowed his miniature crossbow.

“They did!” Vineezer protested desperately. “Look at this place! Look at that!”

We all did. “Place okay,” I said, remembering to use my Big Crunch voice. “Place clean.”

“That's just part of it,” the merchant wailed. “A herbalist's shop isn't supposed to be clean. The dust floating in the air is full of magik. I use it to tweak potions too delicate for enhancement spells. A millionth part of dragon scale — I can't afford a balance sensitive enough to weigh that out. When this place is properly dusty I can snatch a fragment out of the air. I haven't made a decent scrying potion in a week!”

“They cleaned out your shop?” Tananda mused.

“Yes, and that's not all they'd do… if I talked. So, please go away. I can't tell you any more.”

Guido muscled up to the trembling Deveel. “You don't really want me to go back to Don Bruce and tell him you was unwillin to fulfill the part of the bargain that he was so obligin' to make with you, do you? He might have to ask me to interfere wit' you personally.”

Vineezer's face flushed burgundy red, and he shoved us back toward the tent flap and out into the street.

“It's better than being alphabetized” he hissed. The tent flap swished down between us and clicked locked with an audible snap. I set my shoulder, prepared to charge back inside so Tananda could ask him again, but she laid a hand on my arm.

“Never mind. Big Brother,” she said. “Maybe some of the others will be more communicative.”

Her assumption proved to be incorrect. If anything, our further researches were less fruitful than our first attempt. Yet we did not return to the tent empty-handed. We gleaned certain points concerning our unknown quarry.

“They're very neat,” Tananda said, glancing around at our tent and appearing to compare our housekeeping unfavorably to that of our foes'.

“They are more cautious in the way they phrase their verbal contracts,” Guido said, sitting down and putting his fedora on his knee. “Not one word concerning their appearance can be gleaned from our converse with our clients. It appears to be a condition of the protection racket — I mean, arrangement.”

“And they aren't very greedy,” I added. “With no disrespect to Don Bruce, their demands are relatively modest.”

“But they go by a flat fee,” Guido protested. “Don Bruce prefers a percentage. When times is good, he prospers alongside his clients. When times is hard, well, they all get a break. This way. they all give the same even if business is bad. And you saw how scared the clients were not to miss a payment”

“It strikes me that this means they're not in this for the long haul,” Tananda concluded. “If they did they would take market fluctuation into account the way the Mob does.”

“But who knows how long this short haul will run?” Guido asked. “Don Bruce ain't gonna wait for them to get out. He wants 'em gone now.”

“Right,” I said. “That will take decisive action on our part. We need to catch them in the act of collection and dissuade them from doing any further business in the Bazaar.”

“Right!” Guido agreed, smacking one big fist into the other palm. “Well teach 'em they just can't march in an' take over somebody else's territory.”

The easiest place to observe was Bochro's Toy Shop. His tent stood next to Melicronda's wine shop, nearly opposite the M.Y.T.H. Inc's establishment on the same thoroughfare. Since none of our associates were presently in residence, we three took the vigil in turns.

Naturally it was our business to know something of the comings and goings throughout the Bazaar, but I had never before made a close study of the traffic that came and went over the course of a day. The streets were as empty as they ever were: the perfect time for someone to pass unnoticed. I peered through the gathering gloom. It was no use looking for strangers. The nature of the Bazaar as a nexus in between so many dimensions meant that only one in twenty passersby was familiar, and only one in two hundred was a friend. I knew that there was little that could not be had for a bargain, but even I was not prepared to see some of the goings-on. It was just after twilight, when most of the merchants had folded up their tents for the day, but before the night life of the Bazaar really got under way.

Directly in front of our tent two tough babies, clad in black leather diapers, toddled up and kicked the legs out from underneath a plump, insectoid shopper, and stole its bags. Since officially we were not supposed to be at home, I had to restrain myself from leaping out there to assist. In any case my help was not needed. The insectoid extended its carapace to reveal a long, sinuous body and a dozen more legs. The babies hadn't made it past three store fronts before their victim stretched overhead, retrieved its possessions, and delivered a sound spanking to each one of them. They sat down on the ground to cry until another likely victim came their way.

As night fell, the character of the transactions became more personal. Beings of the evening made offers to passersby for various services of the usual and unusual kind. A token or two would change hands, and a pair or trio or group would wander off to a handy tent.

Almost all the traffic was outbound from the merchants' establishments. The rare ingress was what I was interested in. If Guido was correct, this was the day on which payments were normally due to the Don. Though they were now diverted to person or persons unknown, they were being picked up on the same schedule.

I saw someone I knew weaving in and out of the crowd of tourists looking for a likely (and safe) place to have dinner a fellow Troll named Percy — his real name. His nom de guerre, as mine was Big Crunch, was Mangier.

His was not a casual visit to our street. His movements were as furtive as a Troll's could be, attempting not to step on the party of Imps who had stopped to look over a street map in the middle of the thoroughfare, as he “not-looked” at the tents opposite our own. When he was nearly in front of our doorway, he quickly looked both ways, then pushed into Bochro's.

Quietly I tiptoed into Tananda's room and whispered from the doorway, “We have a bite.”

Before I'd quite finished the sentence she'd sprung off her bed and bounded to my side.

“I'll get Guido,” she said. “Can you handle him alone?”

“I think so,” I said, albeit a trifle uncertainly. Mangier was a good foot wider than I was. I'd known him in school, where he was all-varsity wrestling champion our final year, though in hand-to-hand martial arts I held higher ranking.

Hoping he had not come and gone while my back was turned, I left our tent and turned into the flow of traffic. At the end of the row, still keeping an occasional eye on my destination, I pretended to have forgotten something, clapped a hand to my head, and plowed deliberately into a group of Deveel merchants holding a quick negotiation in the open area of the intersection.

“Damned clumsy Troll,” one of them snarled.

I showed my teeth and snarled back. They blanched pink, and scattered, their deal forgotten. I turned back. Mangier was emerging from the tent, still furtive in his actions. He made for Melicronda's. I opened my stride and caught him just before he went inside.

“What ho, Percy, old thing,” I said, draping an arm across his shoulders.

“Chumley!” he said, surprised. “Me mean, Crunch! Me punch!”

“You Mangier, me strangler,” I said, raising a fist I lowered my voice. “What say we nip around the corner for a quick drink, old friend?”

“Chumley, I can't be seen talking to you, old chap,” Percy said, looking worried. “It's more than my job's worth. Or my hide.”

We'd gathered an audience by that time: Klahds, who were looking for free entertainment; Imps, who would bet on anything; and Deveels, who were willing to indulge them. Percy shook his head almost imperceptibly. I understood. I advanced on him with a roar, my arms above my head. He countered by growling back, and swiping at my chest with an open, clawed hand. Swiftly, I knocked it aside and closed with him, wrapping my arms around his body.

Any other Troll in the audience would quickly have recognized Scenario Number 15 of the Trollia Hand-book for Dealing with Other Species. In order for a pair of Trolls to have a private conversation in public, when all other means failed, this particular brawl would ensure that we had frequent close contact, while making very certain all others stayed out of the way of our wild-looking, but carefully choreographed, swings. Even a dragon would have hesitated to wander into the fray between two full-grown Trolls.

“What is it, old man? Deveels?” I asked. I twisted around, grabbed his wrist, wrenched upward, and Percy flipped into the air, landing on his back. The fall wouldn't hurt him. It didn't even knock the breath out of him. He scissored out his powerful, furry legs and caught me about the waist. I dropped back, and he sprang up and knelt on my chest, hands going for my throat. I roared aloud to cover his furtive whisper.

“No, worse!” I grabbed his throat with one hand, and he let out a loud squeak, which covered my next question.

“What could be worse than Deveels?” I asked. A further grunt covered another query as he shook his head. “Do you owe money to the Gnomes?” We rolled over and over together in the dust. An open path cleared ahead as our audience pursued behind. I bellowed.

“Worse!” Percy whispered, his face desperate. “I can't tell you! The old one will get me if I talk!”

I almost forgot to wait for his covering roar. “Who?”

“Don't ask any more, old man,” Percy said, sitting on my back as he twisted my foot around. I shouted in pain. He was so nervous he was actually hurting me. “Please. I'm asking you as an old friend. I can't say any more; we might be overheard. Hmm, this is your turf. I know M.Y.T.H. Inc. well. I'd best let you win this round.”

It was good of him to realize that. I assessed my position, face down in the dust. The only winning move I could make would render me utterly filthy, but that, as Aahz might observe, was show biz. I gathered my three free limbs underneath me, grabbed the earth and turned myself until I was aligned with my twisted limb. In doing so I mashed a great deal of the street into the front of my fur, but it was worth it for the denouement: I rose to all threes, Percy still riding my back, and, pushing myself upright on my one leg, deposited him to the ground. He fell, as though stunned. I jumped on him, grabbed him by shoulder and crotch, heaved him into the air, and threw him into the crowd.

“Thanks, old man,” he said, just before I let go. Deveels, Imps, Ssslissi, Klahds, and others went down as a full-grown Troll landed on them.

Brushing myself off, I stumped up the street. Tananda was standing in between two tents cleaning her nails with a dagger, where she had a perfect view of the whole brawl. She grinned up at me. Guido hulked in the shadows behind her.

“Messy but effective, Big Brother.” “What'd he tell you?” Guido asked. I glanced around. Night had fallen sufficiently to conceal our return to our tent. “Let's go inside.”

“The old one?” Tananda asked, sitting at our conference table after I brought them up to date on my tete-a-tete with Percy. “Old what? A dragon? What's big enough to intimidate a Troll?”

“Well, we aint' gonna get no data out of the victims, or outta their collectors.” Guido reasoned. “What's next?”

“Next,” 1 said, tenting my fingers together on the table rather like logs at the corner of a rustic cabin, “we must lure our perpetrators out of hiding.”

“How do we do that?” Guido asked, skeptically.

“They target small enterprises, do they not?” I asked. The other two nodded. “Then we establish our own.”

“And wait to be approached,” Little Sister said, approvingly. “Good idea, Big Brother. Now, all we need to do is figure out what would attract their interest.”

“Somethin' that earns a lot of money,” Guido said. “Alia the businesses have a much higher income than overhead.”

“It's too much trouble to do market research on growing trends and get in merchandise from another dimension,” Tananda said thoughtfully, “so, a service business of some kind. I think I know just what will do the job.”

I didn't like the mischievious gleam in my sister's green eyes. “What do you have in mind?”

“Hairdressers?” Guido said, disbelievingly, surveying the contents of our hastily rented tent.

“Beauticians,” Tananda corrected him, spreading out her hands in satisfaction. “It's perfect. We don't need any merchandise, apart from a few bottles of commercial tonic and cologne. And believe me, every being alive has a streak of vanity that could use a little buffing up. We will simply cater to that streak.”

“But we know nothing about beauty culture,” I protested. “We might disfigure someone, or hurt them.”

“That's the beauty of it, if you will excuse the joke,” Tananda said. “You don't have to know anything. You make it up as you go along. You can do whatever you want to the customers, and they will love it. They'll come back for more and they will bring their friends! Trust me.”

And so it proved. The very next day dawned upon the opening of A Tough, A Troll and A Trollop, Beauty Specialists. The flaps of our tent were flipped coyly open to reveal the furnishings that we had obtained overnight from a few merchants who knew us well enough to open at midnight and ask no questions as to why we suddenly required three reclining pedestal chairs, diverse mirrors, basins, curlers, irons, combs and brushes, lacquers for hair, and nail files, unguents, lotions, shampoos, dyes, and spangles. Tananda appeared trim and professional in a green smock that matched her hair. Guido and I felt awkward in identical green coats. They fit, but that was all that a charitable mind might admit.

“We look like morons,” Guido said, echoing my very thoughts.

“You look fine,” Tananda assured us. “Smile! Here comes our first customer.”

I seized the comb and scissors that I had chosen to be my tools. Guido picked a hot towel out of the salamander-powered steam box. Into the tent peered an Imp matron. We braced ourselves.

“Are you … open?” she asked.

“Yes, we are!” Tananda beamed, putting her arm about the Imp's shoulders. “Come in!” She winked at me over the pink female's horned head. “What can we do for you?”

I held the scissors in my fist like a weapon, the points just sticking out beyond the percussion edge of my palm. Was she the “old one” Percy feared? To me she appeared to be only of middle age. Her reply, delivered shyly, easily assuaged my concern.

“Well, I need … I'd like to look better.”

“You look wonderful,” Tananda assured her, maneuvering her deftly into the center chair. “All we do here is to enchance your natural beauty. Don't we, boys?”

“Yeah,” Guido said, all but throttling the towel in his hands.

“Yeh,” I grunted. As advertised, a Troll and a Tough. The Trollop already had the matter in hand.

“You see? We just want you to feel confident in your own charm.”

“Oh!” The matron pinked up, looking pleased. “Then … I'd like the works!” Tananda clapped her hands.

We did not emulate a well-oiled machine, but swing into action we did. The Imp found herself the vortex of a whirlwind of tasteful scarves and draperies that covered her dress's loud print (Imps have notoriously tacky clothes sense), leaving her head and face thrown into stark relief. For an Imp she was not unpleasant to behold once her garments ceased clashing with her cerise complexion.

“Scalp massage,” Tananda ordered. Nervously, I moved in, oiled fingertips at the ready. A Troll's fingers are strong enough to punch holes in the skulls of most of my fellow dimensional beings. I hesitated to touch her until Tananda delivered a sharp slap to my upper back. I plunged ahead, grasping the Imp's scalp between my hands, and began to rub.

“Oooh!” the Imp cried. “Oh! Aaaggh!” I halted at once, concerned that I'd hurt her. “Oooh aaah!” the Imp moaned, tilting her face to look up into my eyes. “That feels so good! Don't stop, please!”

So I didn't. I massaged away, accompanied by an aria of moans and cries of pleasure. Guido, seeming as awkward as I'd felt, applied a hot towel to her face, eliciting a shrill scream, also of pleasure. Tananda moved in and attacked the Imp's long nails with file and a pointed stick.

Guido tossed aside the towel and moved in with the box of paints. My hands were too large, and Tananda was occupied with a more delicate job, so it had fallen to Guido to become the cosmetician. He was not happy about it, but Little Sister had explained that no beauty salon was complete without a purveyor of color and texture, so he was elected by default. His first essay with a brushful of black paint was not salubrious; the Imp jerked her head back just as he applied it to her brow, causing the horizontal line to extend vertically up her forehead. Seeing that it was impossible to salvage his original design, he made the other side the same. Then, bright orange cream in hand, he daubed at one eyelid. By the time his brush arrived at her face, however, the Imp had moved again, and the dot hit her somewhere over the ear.

“Hell with it,” Guido breathed. Attacking his palette like a virtuoso attacks his instrument, Guido drew and dotted, limned and lined, until the Imp's horned head was a work of art, if one cared for the oeuvre of a modern abstractionist. At that, it was not unpleasant to behold.

The female continued to shriek and cry out, but by the time we released her from the chair and placed a hand mirror before her she was smiling broadly. We'd also attracted an audience. As the Imp opened her belt pouch and poured a handful of coins into Tananda's palm, there was a rush toward the chairs. A bevy of females, Deveel and others, got into a scratching, kicking fistfight over who would occupy the third seat. Tananda shot me a quick but meaningful look. I stomped over to the crowd, every step making the floor shake, selected one female at random, lifted her by the scruff and plumped her decisively into the disputed chair. With my brows drawn down nearly to my eyes, I aimed a look at the others that quelled their grumbling. They crowded outward against the tent's inner perimeter to watch.

The Imp staggered out, and we turned our attention to our new customers.

Many hours later, Guido folded down the tent flaps and tied them in a double knot.

“I don't want no one else comin' in here today,” he said firmly. “I am so tired I could fall asleep over the salamander box. Broads! You were right, Tanda! You can do any fool thing to 'em, and they love it!

I spilled face cream down one woman's cleavage, then they was all clamorin' for the same thing. And then when that Deveel showed up with a cart full of scarves, I thought they'd tear him to pieces. They all wanted to try his stuff on at once.”

“I told you,” Tananda said, smugly, counting through the day's receipts. She piled the coins in stacks. There were several, one of them of gold. “Very, very nice. And our cut of the Deveel's profits make a nice addition to our income. We've already nearly paid for our furnishings. This business is very profitable! Once our job is over we might keep the salon going.”

“Speak for yourself, Little Sister,” I said, pouring the last basin of iced water over my head and sinking to the carpet that was covered with clippings of hair, shed scales, and feathers, and dozens of dirty towels. “I would rather go back to my nice, peaceful life as an unfashionable intimidator.”

“There's just one thing more left to do,” Tananda said. “Birkli! Did you get all of them?”

A small creature popped out from behind a tent panel. His body was about the length of my hand, with a hard, blue-black carapace that glittered in the twinkling light of our oil lamps. He was a Shutterbug, from Mount Olimpis in the dimension of Nikkonia. In their natural habitat the males used their ability to reproduce beautiful sights they'd seen on the iridescent scales of their compound wings to impress prospective mates, so they were both artistic and well-traveled. Tanda had had no trouble persuading one to come to Deva to assist us, promising him unique views that he could use to wow the ladies back home.

“All right on the roll,” Birkli chirped, extending a thin black leg. Wrapped around it was a narrow coil of a translucent substance. Tananda unrolled it and looked at it with the aid of a magic lantern behind. The lantern expanded the images so they were visible to larger creatures than the diminutive Shutterbug. “I put them together so you could see them easier. What do you think? What do you think? Do you like them?”

As was the case with all males of his species, he was eager for Tananda's approval. Guido gave me a grin. He and I might as well have been absent. Tananda patted the Shutterbug on the shell and he glowed.

“They're perfect,” she said. From the collection on the table under the mirror she handed him a small but brightly polished silver coin. “There, a Gnomish groat. And the same every day, as we agreed?”

“Perfect, perfect, perfect!” the little creature carolled happily, stowing the coin away under his hard shell. I believe he was happier to receive praise than money. We have had less amenable allies.

“Good,” Guido grunted, as the Shutterbug climbed up into the canvas roof to sleep. “Let's go see if your buddy can recognize any of these dames.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, take it outside, please!” pleaded the bartender at the Shoppers' Repose, an inn at some miles remove from our establishment. Percy agreed to meet me there for a prescheduled brawl. Roaring, I threw a table at the innkeeper. Percy snagged it neatly out of the air before it came anywhere near the Deveel, and broke it over his knee. “I'm begging you, go aw — watch out!”

Percy threw a lamp at me. I crushed the glass chimney, but kept the lit torch in my hand as he charged me, thrusting me out into the street.

“I want you to study these images and tell me if you recognize any of them,” I whispered, as we grappled for the torch. We were festooned with strands of horse brasses, banners that had lately decorated the ceiling of the bar, and hanks of one another's fur. No one who was not looking for it would see a strip of microscopic portraits. It draped across his eyes.

“I've told you I can't do it,” Percy howled. I pushed against his throat with my forearm. With a resigned sigh that sounded to the uninitiated like a moan of pain, scanned it while I bore him to the ground, still with the flaming brand over his head to light up the beetle-wing cells. “No! No one!”

He put a foot into my belly and flipped me over him. I landed on a party of Imps coming in the door. I scrambled to my feet, hoisted them up and dusted them off. With a final look of seeming disgust toward Percy, I uttered a loud “Huh!” and stumbled out into the street.

Tananda and Guido fell into step alongside me as I left the tavern. “Even I saw his reaction,” she said. “Relief, more than anything. None of these is our pigeon.”

“Well, he certainly ain't no pigeon himself,” Guido admitted. “Back to the hairspray, huh?”

“Every day until we get it right,” Tananda said. “Cheer up! Maybe you'll start to like it”

“I was hired by Don Bruce to rub out trouble,” the enforcer said grimly. “Not massage it”

After four days more of primping, polishing, and grooming I was beginning to get the hang of the higher beauty culture. As far as I could see it was as easy as Tananda had said: all one had to do was look confident and improvise, and the customers would be pleased. Ladies who had always retreated to the other side of the thorough-fare when I stomped toward them in the Bazaar were stopping me to coo and offer praise.

“I'll never go back to Mr. Fernando after you!” one Deveel maiden said, clinging to my arm, her face still a symphony of fluorescent colors from Guido's brush. “I told him, ‘you give a good scalp rub, but nothing as wonderful as I get at A Tough, A Troll and A Trollop!’ And your Mr. Guido's sense with cosmetics! Inspired! I feel so beautiful when I leave.”

I grunted some sort of acknowledgment as I stumped toward the beauty shop. Mr. Fernando was probably not best pleased to have his clientele deserting him.

“We had better solve this problem soon,” I told my two partners, as I reached our rented tent, “or every other personal care specialist is going to be out for our blood.”

Guido reached into his coat and patted the miniature crossbow that I knew reposed there. “That kinda fight I'd welcome,” he said. “Not this fancy-dancy stuff with a dozen perfumes and green drapes.”

“And who cuts your hair?” Tananda asked, teasingly.

“Mr. Chapparal.” Guido said, with an indignant look. “He's a cousin of Don Bruce. Does a real good job. His shop's all violet with stained-glass mirrors.”

“I understand the problem we're creating,” Tananda said with a sigh. “But we can't force our quarry out of the woodwork. They have to emerge by themselves.”

“I wish they'd hurry,” I admitted. “Percy grows more nervous with every nighttime encounter we have. He may flee the next one.”

We had not much longer to wait. As I assisted one ravished Gnome lady from a chair late one afternoon, I became aware that two figures were standing in the doorway. The two Pervect women, one an elderly female in a flowered frock and straw hat leaning on a cane, the other much younger and more fashionable in a split, knee-length leather skirt and a very tight bustier, looked as though they might be potential customers, but their all-over mien did not speak of devotees in search of a superior pedicure.

The Pervects' aspect also attracted the attention of the other customers in the tent. One by one they found excuses to slip out of the door or melt unobtrusively through gaps between the canvas panels of the walls. Before too long we three were alone with the Pervects and one hapless Imp matron who lay in a chair with her feet up, unable to leave because she was being ministered to with a foot massage by Guido. As soon as the chair tilted down, she sprang from it, pressed a large silver coin on Guido, and waddled hastily out of the tent.

“You've forgotten your hat,” Tananda shouted after her, waving a straw round-crowned chapeau pierced twice in the crown to allow the Imp's horns to protrude through. The Imp did not turn back, but undulated faster up the way, becoming lost in the crowd. Tananda, annoyed, spun and bent an annoyed eye upon the two remaining visitors. “Thanks. You've just lost us our profit for the afternoon. A few days like this and you'll put us out of business.”

“Oh, we would never do a thing like that on purpose,” the elderly Pervect said, grinning so that her yellow teeth looked like a chestful of knives. “They must all have misunderstood. We want you to stay in business. Don't we, Charilor?”

The other Pervect, shorter and stockier, resembling a female Aahz, smiled, her own dentition gleaming like sheet lightning. “But of course, Vergetta. That way everyone makes a profit.”

“That's what I like to hear,” Tananda said.

“Including us,” Vergetta added, with emphasis.

“I beg your pardon?” my little sister asked, putting steel into her voice.

“Not at all, darling,” the elder Pervect said, taking her hand in a grip that caused Tananda to wince. I moved forward, but the shorter Charilor moved in between me and them. “You're setting out on a difficult enterprise, you little dears, and that involves risks. Now, you may not be aware of how many risks, but an old lady like me, I've seen a lot in my life. I want you to stop worrying about outside pressures and succeed. To do that, you have to minimize disruptions.”

“Like this visit of yours,” Tananda said, pointedly.

“Exactly. Now,” said Vergetta as she settled heavily into one of our chairs and put her feet up on the foot rest, “you wouldn't believe how far I've walked today, darlings. Would you have a glass of tea somewhere? No? You will next time.”

“What makes you think there's gonna be a next time?” Guido asked. He didn't pat his breast pocket for emphasis; one only did that to underline a threat, and we were meant to look harmless. Besides, to indicate to a stronger enemy such as Charilor where his weapon was located was only to provide an extra one for her.

“Oh, of course there's going to be a next time, you muzhik. Here's the proposition.” Vergetta slapped her scaly knees. “We keep disruptions out of your way. You do business. You're grateful, so you give us a present…”

“Like … a cut of our profits?” Tananda finished. “No way, grandma. We just barely made enough in the last few days to pay rent on our equipment.”

“This trash? You may also need our friends in the moving … I mean, furniture trade. Not a cut of the profits; a flat fee is what we have in mind. A fixed expense, like rent. Five gold coins. So you always know how much you have to clear every week, because that's when we'll be back.”

“Week? Five coins a lot! Bad week, no money,” I interposed. “What if no money?”

“What if you have a bad week?” Vergetta asked, looking up at me. “Oh, my darling, you don't want to find out what happens.”

“We're only getting started,” Tananda said, looking alarmed. “If you take our profits this week, there won't be a next week.”

“All right,” Vergetta said, getting to her feet. She patted Tananda's cheek. “So maybe we give you a freebie this time. But we will be back. We are watching you.”

“And don't get cute,” Charilor grunted. “The Bazaar is big, but if you fold up tent here and start up somewhere else, we will find you.”

“They are new in town,” Tananda said, once we'd sealed the tent and put a spy-eye on it to make sure no one was listening in magickally. “Birkli!”

“Ye-es!” The Shutterbug flitted down from his concealed perch. “Scary green ladies! But I managed to get all the others before they ran away. I'm good! I'm the best!” He landed on Tananda's shoulder and handed her a coil of underwing cells.

“Of course you are,” Tananda said indulgently as she unreeled the Shutterbug's images and held them up to the magik lantern. “Subtlety is dead, gentlemen. I thought we'd have to uncover their identities from a crowd of subjects, but they just marched in here and made their proposition on the first visit”

“Dat means,” Guido said, raising his eyebrows, “dat dey're in a hurry.”

“Yes,” I added thoughtfully. “I wonder why.”

“Well have to learn more about them,” my little sister said.

“Should I take the images to Percy?” I asked.

“No. No sense in frightening him. We're sure who they are. We'll just have to play along for a week or two, and hope they don't hop before we figure out their angle and close it up for good. I'd hate to have them think they can just march in and use the Bazaar for an ATM” She looked around. “I miss Skeeve. He'd have asked what that is.”

I'd have been hard pressed to put my finger on the difference between the days before the two Pervects made their visit and the time after, but I sensed an uneasiness in our clientele that had not been there before. Not that I ever anticipated that Deveels, Imps, and the like would ever have become comfortable, nay, eager, to have a Troll anywhere near them with an eyelash curler, but palpable fear began to percolate through the tent. I didn't like it. During the subsequent days I found myself growling quietly while mixing cosmetics, provoked by I know not what unknown pressures. Guido kept casting his eyes around suspiciously, his hand never far away from the weapon concealed underneath his green smock. Tananda also was more highly strung than usual, pushing back cuticles with heartless precision, only snapping out of her trance when a customer yelped in pain.

“I don't like this,” she whispered, when she stopped near my chair to toss a basin of water out the tent flap. “I sense depressing magik surrounding us like a cone. I've felt all over the place, but I can't find the source — no live magician within range, not even a handy line of force.”

“It may be purely technological,” I remarked. “A remote installation that makes use of a stored source of power. Perv is known to be comfortable with both technology and magik.”

“Well, so are we,” Tananda said. “We had better do something, or by the end of the week we won't have a single client”

That night we took the place apart, quite literally. I wrenched up the chairs one at a time so that Guido and Tanda could look underneath them. We unstitched the tent panels, tested every jar, vase, bottle, and container that might conceal a device. We checked the lamps and rugs for disgruntled Djinni or Efreets, both known to inhabit such items. Little Sister even employed Assassin techniques to find footprints or airprints of every being that had been anywhere near us since the Pervects' visit.

“Anyone who's been here has come in on foot except Birkli,” Tananda said, after our searches proved fruitless. “See the wing prints?” Guido and I looked at the feathery traces on the air that her magik had brought out.

“Wait a minute,” Guido said, pointing at two different lines of flutter marks. “Dese ain't the same as dose. I've tracked a lotta fly-by-nights, and I know my wing prints.”

“By heavens, you're right,” I declared, after a quick inspection. “What can that mean?”

“I don't know, but I know who can tell us,” Tananda said, tapping her foot impatiently. “Birkli!”

“Coming right this minute, lovely lady! Ready when you are!” The gaudy Shutterbug dropped out of the ceiling. “Here are today's ladies, one and all! Are they perfect? Are they beautiful?”

Tananda held out a hand and he lit upon it. She drew him close to her face, her voice purring. “But you're leaving one out, aren't you, Birkli?”

“Not one, not one, fair green girl!” Birkli protested, his antenna drawing down over his multiple-lensed eyes. But he seemed a bit put out.

“Who is she?” Tananda asked.

“Who?” I interrupted.

“The flitter who made those other wing prints,” she said, without breaking eye contact with the Bug. “You were supposed to take an exposure of every being who came into this tent except us. Why didn't you take one of her?”

“How'd'you know it's a she?” Guido asked.

“How do I know?” Tananda repeated. “Look at him!”

The Shutterbug did seem to be in the deepest throes of embarrassment. “Forgive one who loves too well but not wisely,” he wailed. “Such a beauty was this Lady Bug, to fall in beside me as I flew out among the fabulous sights of the Bazaar. Her spots, so black; her shell so red! She praised my wings, my legs, my scales! thought it would do no harm to bring her here, where it was private. I showed her my images, and she was impressed, most impressed!”

“If that isn't the oldest line there is, bringing a girl back to look at his etchings,” Tananda fumed. “And I suppose she left you a keepsake of some kind?”

Birkli flew back into the folded cloth that served as his temporary quarters and returned with a small glowing sphere the size of his head. “Only this, fair lady. Forgive an ardent male too easily blinded by the beauties of female-hood!”

Tananda held it up between her thumb and forefinger. “As we surmised, Big Brother. A bug, as only a Bug Lady can make it Compact, powerful and easily concealed.” She tossed it to me, and I crushed it in my fist. Birkli backed away uneasily as I let the powdered remains fall from my hand to the floor.

“We're not gonna dust you,” Guido said, going eye to eye with the Shutterbug. “Not if you cooperate. Now, let's see the pic of the moll.”

Hastily Birkli produced a strip of wing-cells and handed them over. The denizens of Trollia were ardent lovers themselves, but even I felt abashed as Tananda held them in front of the magik lantern. “Hot stuff, what?” I said, awkwardly.

“We're not trying to pry into your private life,” Tananda assured Birkli, “but we've got to be careful. I thought we told you that.”

We accepted Birkli's apologies. Tananda paid him off and sent him back to Nikkonia. “We don't really need him any longer,” she explained. “We know who our enemies are now, and we know they're quick-thinking and willing to exploit any weakness they perceive.”

“I agree,” Guido said. “We were buggin' ourselves, under the circumstances. How do we know he didn't sell 'em images of us?”

“Didn't need 'em,” Tananda said shortly. “They knew we were here. Two days' observation would tell them that if we weren't the beauticians we claimed to be, we were putting in enough work to prove we wanted to be taken for beauticians. To a blackmailer, that's enough to exploit.”

“So, what is our next attack?” I asked. “We pay them,” Tananda said simply. “What?” Don Brace's enforcer burst out. “Not a bent nickel.”

“Yes, a bent nickel,” Tananda corrected him, with a wide grin on her face. “And whatever else they ask for. This week. I have a plan.”

With a wave around our heads to create a silence spell to shut out any potential eavesdroppers, my little sister drew us close. In a moment, we were smiling as widely as she.

Tananda allowed us to look as sour as possible when Charilor came by the next afternoon to collect their fee. “There, I told you,” the Pervect said, watching Little Sister count coins grudgingly into a sack. “Five gold coins wasn't so hard to raise!”

“It would have been a lot easier if you hadn't put a gloom spell on the place for two days,” Guido said resentfully.

“That was Vergetta's idea,” the chunky Pervect said, with a twist of her lips, as she glanced back toward the elder female waiting by the entrance to the tent. Did I sense disapproval of her senior's methods? “But you still managed to raise the dough. We should've asked for more.”

“We couldn't have raised more,” Tananda said, eyes wide, managing to sound a little desperate. “This is all we made this week. I mean, everything! We've even had to put off some of our expenses, and our creditors are not happy. You're not going to raise your… fee … are you?”

Charilor swept the leather purse into her belt pouch and stood up. “No. You have our word: our demands will never go up.”

Vergetta shook a finger at us from the doorway. “You'd still better have the same waiting for us next week.”

“We will have your payment here waiting for you,” Tananda promised. The Pervects stalked out. Warily, shyly, our regular customers started slinking in.

Guido chafed visibly over the course of the next week. He objected to the delay during which Don Bruce would lose yet another round of “insurance” payments. I also knew he was worried lest anyone from the Mob would come in and see him performing beauty rituals instead of his usual, somewhat more insalubrious tasks. Yet, when he wasn't thinking about public humiliation, he handled his duties with aplomb. Now comfortable with the balms and unguents, he massaged, polished, and clipped with a flourish. He'd completely lost his fear of the body paints, and where he'd created cranial graffiti before, he was now performing abstract art, each piece unique for the lady who bore it, smiling, out of our salon. The customers adored him. He was gathering quite a little coterie. Some of his regulars had begun to bring him small gifts, treats, and gratuities. Those attentions embarrassed him as much as would the appearance at the door of one of his Mob fellows.

I myself found it difficult to keep from humming a little tune as I awaited the arrival of our extortionists. Action, that was what was called for. Tananda's plan had risks, to be sure, but in her estimation it had at least a forty percent chance of success. Those were not odds I would normally have celebrated, but since no one else had succeeded in resisting or exposing these blackmailing females, it was worth a try.

At the lunch hour on the appointed day, we supped alone in the tent. We had deliberately made few bookings to coincide with the time we expected Vergetta and Charilor to appear. Our midday repast was simple, consisting of food that we had prepared ourselves from ingredients we had not allowed out of our sight since we had brought them from another dimension early that morning. The chances that the Perverts had observed and followed us to our sources of supply were nil: while on a provisioning run we never returned to a dimension twice, and we took all precautions upon our return. That suggestion had been made by Guido, who had, during his military career, accrued lengthy experience in existing in hostile territory. For all the years that we had lived in the Bazaar, I had never before had cause to feel it hostile, but for survival's sake, and the sake of our mission, I must think so now.

Darkness interrupted the blaze of sunshine from the doorway. I glanced up from my now empty trencher. It was the Pervects. Guido, beside me, clenched his fists on his knees underneath our humble tabletop.

“Good afternoon, darlings,” Vergetta said, sailing into the salon as though she owned it But she did not. Yet.

“Hello,” Tananda said cautiously.

“So, are you ready for us?” The elderly Pervect sat down on the bench and nudged Tananda until she moved over to make room.

“I suppose so” Tananda said. She produced the box that contained our receipts for the week. Vergetta rubbed her hands together vigorously, then dumped the load of coins out onto the table. Her fingers began to sort through the coins as though they were indeed greatly practiced at the skill. With a stern expression Charilor loomed over my shoulder, if such a term could be used to describe the actions of a being considerably shorter than the one being loomed over.

“Hold on here,” Vergetta said, piling the last coin in a neat stack. She peered at Tananda, her yellow eyes narrowed to horizontal slits. “There's only four and three-quarters gold coins' worth here.”

“That's all we've got,” Tananda said. “It's been a slow week.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Well, that's all there is. Take it or leave it.”

Charilor leaned across the table and took my little sister by the throat of her smock. “Just who do you think you're talking to, babycakes?”

Tananda looked up at her without fear. “Blackmailers, that's who. Scaly ones, at that”

“Why, you pipsqueak!” Charilor heaved her up over her head and flung her at the mirror, cracking it across. Two silver coins' replacement value! Tananda dropped to the floor.

“Oh, I say!” was surprised out of me. Charilor turned her attention on me, grabbing the fur of my upper arm in a perfectly manicured claw. With the amazing strength that was one of the Pervish people's advantages, she heaved me over the table, and began to pummel my back and head. I twisted, wrenching my arm loose. She merely swung a leg up and planted it on my back, continuing to pound. Her blows hurt!

“Chumley!” Guido stood up to come to my aid. Vergetta, feeble as she seemed, was still a Pervect. As he rose, she swept her cane out and around in front of him, snagging an ankle. He tripped. She hauled him up into her lap like a toddler and held him helpless around the shoulders and body, while shouting encouragement at Charilor.

“*&A% you!” Guido snarled. “Lemme go!”

“Such language!” Vergetta snapped, shocked. She opened up her befanged mouth and roared. “Nobody uses that kind of language around me!” Guido's hair blew over his ear from the blast.

In the meanwhile, at the cost of a hank of my fur I worked free and sprang up out of reach. Charilor charged after me. Tananda leaped to her feet and launched herself at the back of the Pervect.

“You leave my big brother alone!” she yelled. She landed on Charilor's back as the Pervect reached for my throat. I knocked her arms apart and made to put my hands around her neck and face, closing off her airways. Against the combined might of an Assassin-trained Trollop and a Troll trained in the martial arts, the contest should have been over at that moment.

It was not. Charilor used the last minim of space remaining between her mighty jaws to draw in a pinch of the palm covering her mouth, and chomped down.

“Ow!” I bellowed. I am ashamed to say that I lost my grip. Blood dripped from my hand. My wits regained, I threw my shoulder at her body. Tananda applied her arms in a nerve-blocking hold that ought to have disabled Charilor.

It only seemed to make her angiy. She went into a whirlwind frenzy, striking out with arms and legs. For a time I could see nothing but a green blur, then the maelstrom drew us in. The room revolved around and around us. I recall punching, kicking, even biting, but when the scene resolved itself, Tananda was draped over a chair, panting, and Charilor was literally wiping up the mess on the floor using yours very truly as a mop. Guido, sporting an eye in several colors that would have done credit to his palette, was lying face down yelping across Vergetta's lap. She spanked the mob enforcer's backside again and again, punctuating each blow with a syllable.

“You must never use that kind of language in front of a lady!”

If I had not been resolved already to discredit and drive these females from my purview, I was now. How dared she humiliate my friend! Charilor let go of my chest fur and let me stagger uneasily to my feet. I went to my little sister's aid, raising her from the chair across which she was draped.

“I'm okay,” she croaked, though her face was as colorful as Guido's. I imagine that if one were to part my fur I would be as battered as she. She clung to me for a while, then tottered away. “Look at this place!”

I surveyed the ruin of our erstwhile establishment, then looked back at her. “Place mess,” I said.

Vergetta looked up from the punishment she was dealing Guido. “Why, you're right Charilor, this will never do!” She sprang up, spryly for her appearance. “We must clean up this tent at once.”

“You bet,” the younger Pervect said. As readily as they had set about destroying it, they began to tidy it With a wave of her hand the elder Pervect reunited the shards of our shattered mirror, heaving it back into place on the hook on the wall. Charilor picked up all the scattered bottles and jars, and sorted them into various shelves and boxes.

“No, they don't go there,” Tananda said, running after her. “Put that over there. No, the cosmetics go on that shelf! Please! Don't mix the scale colorants with the nail varnishes! We won't be able to find anything when you're done!”

Charilor paid no attention, though Tananda pounded on her back with all her strength. I went to take her by the shoulders. They were shaking with fury. Her eyes blazed up at me.

“No wonder Vineezer didn't want them in his shop anymore!”

“Take it easy, Little Sister,” I whispered. “Calm. Keep control. We're nearly there.”

Stifling her anger, she watched as the two females transformed the ruin they had created into a perfectly neat and incomprehensible whole.

“There!” Vergetta said, dusting her hands together. “All better. Now, there's just the little matter of the last quarter gold coin that you owe us for this week.”

This was it. I held myself tense as Tananda went humbly forward, her hands working together.

“I told you, we just don't have it. You've got all the money we took in. We're even talking about food money.”

“Now, now, chicken, it's not so bad,” Vergetta said, picking up Tananda's chin with a cocked finger. “You'll eat tomorrow. What about bookings?”

Tananda showed her the appointment ledger. “We didn't make any more for today. We didn't know when you were coming, and frankly, you scare the other customers.”

“So?” Vergetta asked, raising a scaly eyebrow. “How do you plan to pay off the rest of your debt?”

“Service?” Tananda asked, hopefully. Only I saw the glint in her eye. “If youll let us give you the works … I mean, our best beauty treatment, everything, exfoliation, styling, manicure, makeup. I promise youll get your money's worth. It'll be more than a quarter gold coin's value.”

The two Pervects conferred for a moment “It's not so standard, but why not?” the elder said. “Just this once, maybe.”

“Yeah,” Charilor agreed. “You do a pretty good job on the others. Okay.” She swung into the nearest, most recently repaired chair and settled back. “The works. Careful, though. I'm ticklish.”

I moved in on her, ringers outstretched, to begin the scalp massage. I hoped neither of them could see the tremble in my hands.

It took longer than we expected, since none of us could find a thing in the rearranged shelves. Tananda kept up a pleasant line of meaningless chatter as she filed the tips off the Perverts' claws and varnished each one a shimmering hue.

“The gold goes with your eyes,” she assured them. “All my Pervert customers like yellow, but this is a special shade I save for the best clients.”

Like every being who had sat, crouched, or hovered in those chairs during the last few weeks, Vergetta and Charilor preened and bridled when they beheld their gradual transformation in the glass.

“And now,” Tananda said, winding cotton batting in between their fingers so the top coat of the polish wouldn't smear, “our cosmetician, Mr. Guido, will put the crowning touches on your beauty treatment.”

We both held our breath. Guido didn't look at all tense. He knew the job he had to do.

“Okay, ladies,” he said, loading a brush with pigment “Tell me if it tickles.”

In all his days as a reluctant beauty consultant he never had a finer hour. His strokes were ones of genius, drawing subtle tones of red, ochre, and more gold up to the tips of the Perverts' large, pointed ears, down to the sides of their cheeks and over their brows. Curlicues of jewel hues decorated their eyelids and around their cheekbones. An orange-red that did not shock against the green of their scales was applied to their lips. As they admired their reflections, Guido took up his fluorescent palette and added very subtle enhancements here and there, decorating the backs of their heads in a Baroque and complicated design. When at last he put down his brushes, Vergetta rose and picked him up in an enveloping hug.

“Honey, you're a genius. And this is all original art?”

“Ill never do another one like it,” the enforcer promised, a grin coming unbidden to his lips.

“Okay,” Charilor said to Tananda. “You're right This is worth more than a quarter coin. Good job.”

“I think so,” my little sister gushed, trying not to laugh in front of them. “Thank you. Now, enjoy your day. I think youll find it feels so different when you've been worked over… I mean, given the full treatment… I mean, been enhanced by A Tough, A Troll and A Trollop.”

Vergetta pinched her cheek. “You're so cute. See you next week, then, darling.”

And the two Pervects sauntered out into the sunlight. We watched them until they were out of earshot.

“How long do we have until the paint starts to react?” Tananda asked.

“About fifteen minutes,” Guido replied.

“We had better depart from here, then,” I said. “When does Murgatroyd's team come to retrieve the equipment?”

Tananda squinted at the sun. “In about an hour. I paid the damage deposit.”

“We won't get it back,” I said, cheerfully. “Coming, Guido?”

“Just one more thing,” the enforcer said. He carefully put his slab of paints down on the floor, then smashed his foot through it Wiping his foot on the bare ground, he grinned up at us. “I've been wanting to do that for over a week.”

“You've earned it,” I assured him. “Don Bruce will be very pleased with you that everything is going to be back as he prefers it”

“As long as he don't hear about how I did it” He felt an eye with gingerly fingers. “Including the part about lettin' myself get beaten up so they'd fall for the ploy.”

“He won't hear it from us,” I promised. “It would bode ill for our reputations, as well.”

“In about five minutes, those two are going to come boiling back here,” Tananda said, digging out our D-hopper from its concealed space under the rug. “We'd better hop out of this dimension for a while. I would also like to put some ice on this eye, and maybe a little concealer.”

“Don't do a thing,” I told her, taking her arm and escorting her out into the sun. “You look beautiful just the way you are.”

“Twice now those three T's have gotten away with paying short,” Charilor complained, as she and Vergetta marched down the street toward their next stop.

“Don't worry so much,” Vergetta said, waving a hand. “This time did they tell us to go away? No, they found a way to pay in kind. That shows they're intimidated. They'll behave themselves.”

“Good,” Charilor said “I'd hate a good cleaning to go unappreciated.”

“Oh, how I hate it when they grouse,” Vergetta agreed, tapping the ground with her cane. “But we do look gorgeous. Admit it”

“Ex …” a Deveel said, peering curiously as he overtook them.

Vergetta nodded her head regally. “What does ‘ex’ mean?” Charilor asked. “Who knows? Might be the latest slang for ‘pretty hot mama.’”

Two Imp maidens carrying embroidered straw marketing bags passed them, then giggled loudly. Charilor spun, glaring. The girls hurried away. A male voice behind them spoke slowly, as if uncertain what he was saying.

“Extor …?”

Vergetta rounded upon a Gnome, whose eyes widened as she glared at him. He disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“Extoringist,” said a little voice near their feet. “Mama, what does ‘extoringist’ mean?”

“Hush!” a Deveel matron said, hustling her toddler away from the furious Pervects.

“Extortionist!”

“Extortionist!”

“Extortionist!” More voices took up the cry. “Where?” Vergetta demanded. “Where? Who's saying that?”

“It's right there,” a Klahdish male said, grinning right in their faces. “Says so, right on the back of your heads. Yeah, both of you!”

“Why, you …!” Charilor started for him, manicured nails out and ready to tear his face.

“That's right,” a mournful voice broke over the sound of the crowd. It was the herbalist Vineezer, standing in the door of his dusty shop, his eyes glowing with unrequited revenge. “Those horrible women have been taking money away from poor old honest merchants like me for weeks, now.”

Vergetta shouted at him. “You! Did you do this to us?”

He only grinned, as the crowd continued to chant. “Extortionist, extortionist, extortionist!”

“They've robbed me, too!” yelled Melicronda, as her three strapping sons flanked their mother at the door of the wine shop. “Taking bread out of our mouths!”

Gradually, ominously, the faces of the shoppers in the crowd turned from idle interest to open anger. Instead of being frightened as Charilor and Vergetta lunged at their erstwhile victims, they moved toward them, seizing whatever they could find to use as weapons.

“We'd better get out of here,” Vergetta said, turning and fleeing up the street with the mob in pursuit.

“What about the plan?” Charilor wailed, as a thrown stone zinged past her ear. “We still need more money!”

Vergetta ducked a few stones as she felt in her purse for their D-hopper. “To the pits with the plan! The plan won't go anywhere if we're not alive to help! It's those damned beauticians! They marked us! Labeled us! Now everyone knows who we are!”

“Grr!” Charilor growled. “I knew that ‘free makeover’ was too good to be true!”

Vergetta spun the wheels on the little device and grabbed for Charilor's hand. She pushed the button as they dashed around a corner in between two shops. Her voice echoed on the air as they vanished. “As soon as the coast's clear again, I'm going to go back into that tent and tear all three of them into pieces they can stuff in their own little cosmetic bottles!”

But no one was left to confront. Within an hour, five or six heavy, multi-legged creatures, supervised by a Deveel with a clipboard, arrived and cleared out everything, including a broken cosmetic palette on the floor. Shortly, there was nothing remaining of A Tough, A Troll and A Trollop but the sign hanging by one hook over the door.

An Imp matron passing by peered forlornly into the empty tent.

“Mr. Guido?” she called.