The Thief of Thoth

21

A BROKEN-DOWN BED slumped in one comer of the room, and against the further wall, the remains of a cheap pneumo sagged. Cheap garish 3D girlie prints hung on the walls. The floor was uncarpeted, sheathed in wear-resistant plastic, and liberally sprinkled with dust, aromatique butte, and even a used ovo-snave wrapper or two. It stank of mildew, of old meals, cheap booze, and smoke.

But it was empty. The assassin, or assassins, had fled. Hautley sprang to the door and tried it, but it was locked. The murderer of old Shpern Hufferd must have left only an instant or two before, for the chemical stench of a needle-gun still hung on the stale, vitiated air.

Hautley darted one hand into his "business suit," and withdrew a slim silvery tube which he pointed at the door. Time was of essence; he could easily pick the lock with his all purpose electronic key, but precious seconds were a-wasting. The silver tube flashed blindingly. The plastic door sagged, its center panel sprawling limply like wet tissue. The door frame around the lock dribbled down in rivulets of smoking, stenchful stuff that puddled the floor and left the metalic lock still fastened, hanging onto the wall's edge. Hautley sprang through the smoking gap into a dusty ill-lit hall. Empty.

At the end of the hall was a staircase which led down to the bar on the first floor. Quicksilver went down into a large room crowded with shabby loungers inbibing pungent fluids, smoking noisomely, filing the air with a concatenation of odors and gabble. He caught the eye of a huge red barkeep in a checkered apron, chewing on the stump of an aromatique. He beckoned the fellow over with a hick of his fingers.

"What's yers, bo?'' the oaf growled around the much-chewed stump of his smoke.

"Information," Quicksilver said crisply, showing him a bright iridium coin in the palm of his hand.

The fellow leered inquiringly, revealing an uneven row of muss-green molars.

"Ask ahead, sport," he invited.

"The rooms upstairs—any of them taken?"

"Mmph. Lessee now. Yer can take yer pick, bud. De Mozart Room, de John Philip Sousa Room. de Oiving Boilin Room, dey is all free. Oney one taken is de Meredith Wilsson Room, what is let to a party till 2:30."

Quicksilver smiled thinly. "Cultural, aren't we!"

"De ol' songs are de best, kid," the scarlet-visaged barkeep leered, chewing on his smoke.

Quicksilver cast a swift eye about the crowded noisy saloon. It was a motley horde, the spewings of the gutters of a hundred worlds. But nowhere amidst the seedy loungers did his keen orb perceive a grey-complexioned Orgotyr in fluorescent scarlet tights slashed with dead-black piping and puckered ruffs, a kindly-faced Wollheimian in severely-tailored spray-on slacks with triple-gathered dockets down the cuff, a plum-skinned Schloim from Pazatar 9, or a white-furred and dual-headed entity from Wolverine 3. (May your historian point out that Hautley Quicksilver had known he was being followed all the time? I just wanted to call to your attention.)

Hautley showed the barkeep the coin glinting in his palm again, then asked who had taken the Meredith Wilsson room for those hours. The barkeep spat into the sawdust-strewn floor, and shrugged with a mountainous heave that set his various bellies and chins bobbling gelatinously.

"Jeez, mac, I dunno who he is. Stranger in town, never sawr him before . . ."

"Can you describe him, my good man?"

"Mmmf," the barkeep mused, dubiously, rubbing one ham-sized hand over his stubbled jowls as if to massage into heightened activity some dormant organ of recollection.

"Yeah, I guess so . . . lessee ... he was a grey-complexioned Orgotyr in flourescent tights slashed wid dead-black pipin' an puckered ruffs. I t'ink!"

"I thought so. And for what reason did he retain the accommodations of your upstairs suite?"

"Said he had a game goin'."

Hautley's mirror-bright eyes flashed like chips' of ice.

"And so he did, my man. The kind of game you hunt with a gun."

Hautley tossed the fellow the coin and returned to search the Meredith Wilsson Room swiftly but efficiently. He had not thought to be so lucky as to actually discover a clue, but the Gods of Chance were with him for a change. Near the shattered window he came across a curious talisman whose nature he could not at the moment recall. It was a bit of odd purple metal, no larger than a humanoid thumbnail, worked into the likeness of a hollow ellipse with a smaller circle contained within it—a symbol seething like an eye. Strange. He could not recall having ever seen its like. He nonetheless slipped it into a pocket for a closer examination at a later time.

Returning to the street by way of the noisy saloon, he reentered Huflerd's flat by means of the electronic key. Even though the former confederate of the Master Burglar of Capitan was defunct, Hautley hoped to find something in his quarters which might reveal the present location of Dugan Motley. Anything would do—an address book perhaps, or an old letter.

The light was burning. As soon as Hautley entered the room, he stopped dead ...

The assassin, whether it was the grey-complexioned Orgotyr in fluorescent tights slashed with dead-black piping and puckered ruffs, or one or another of his compatriots, had been busy while Quicksilver had interrogated the crimson-faced barkeep.

For the flat had been ransacked. It was a shambles; And any clue to Dugan Motley's hiding place that Shpern Hufferd might have had hidden away, must certainly have been discovered during such a thorough search.

Once more the Opposition had scored. Lips tightened grimly, eyes cold as intergalactic space, Hautley vowed silently that this would be their last coup at his expense.

But be was wrong ...