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  “That makes sense,” I nodded, not wanting to admit he had lost me again.

  “Now you take a look at what’s happening here. We’re getting all sorts of claims; vandalism, shoplifting, armed robbery, even a couple cases of arson. It’s too much of a mix to be the work of one group. We’re dealing with a lot of small-time independents, and if we can make an example of a few of them, the others will decide there are easier pickings elsewhere.”

  In a way, I was glad to hear this. I owed Aahz one more back-pat. He was the one who had decided that the efforts of our team were too limited. To accelerate our “crime wave,” he had introduced the dubious practice of “insurance fraud” to Deva ... and the Deveels were fast learners.

  Is your stock moving too slowly? Break it yourself and turn in a claim for vandalism. Trying to sell your shop, but nobody wants to buy, even at a discount? Torch the place and collect in full. Better still; want to fatten up your profit margin a little? Dummy up a few invoices and file a claim for “stolen goods.” All profit, no cost.

  The Deveels loved it. It let them make money and harass the Mob at the same time. No wonder Shai-ster’s table was fast disappearing under a mountain of claims and protests.

  It was terrific ... except for the part about making an example out of everyone they caught. I made a mental note to warn the team about being extra careful.

  “If it’s not a gang, and they aren’t working against us,” Nunzio scowled, “why is everything happening in our areas? My dad taught me to be suspicious of coincidences. He got killed by one.”

  “How do you know it’s just happening in our area?” Shai-ster countered. “Maybe we picked a bad area of the Bazaar to start our operation. Maybe the whole Bazaar is a bad area. Maybe we should have been suspicious when Skeeve here told us there were no police. You get this much money floating around with no police, of course there’ll be crooks around.”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Guido snarled, plucking his napkin from under his chin and throwing it on the table. “My boys can’t be two places at once. We can’t watch over our current clients and sign on new accounts, too.”

  “That’s right,” Shai-ster agreed, “so here’s what we’re going to do. First, we split up the teams. Two-thirds of the boys patrol the areas we’ve got under protection. The others go after new clients ... but we don’t just take anybody. We investigate and ask questions. We find out how much trouble a new area or a new shop has had before we take them as a client. Then we know who the bad risks are, and if we protect them at all, they pay double. Capish?”

  Both Guido and Nunzio were thinking, and it was obvious the process hurt.

  “I dunno,” Nunzio squeaked at last. “Sumpin’ sounds kinda funny about that plan.”

  “Crime wouldn’t pay if the government ran it,” I murmured helpfully.

  “What’s that?” Shai-ster snapped.

  “Oh, just something my teacher told me once.” I shrugged.

  “Hey! Skeeve’s right,” Guido exclaimed.

  “What you’re sayin’ is that we’re going to be policemen and insurance investigators.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t use those words ...”

  “‘Well’ nothin’. We ain’t gonna do it!”

  “Why not?”

  “C’mon, Shai-ster. We’re the bad guys. You know, crooks. What’s it going to do to our reputation if it gets back to the Mob that we’ve turned into policemen?”

  “They’ll think we’re valuable employees who are working hard to protect their investment.”

  “Yeah?” Guido frowned, unconvinced.

  “Besides, it’s only temporary,” Shai-ster soothed. “Not only that, it’s a smoke screen for what we’ll really be doing.”

  “What’s that?” I asked blandly.

  Shai-ster shot a quick look around the restaurant, and then leaned forward, lowering his voice.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but remember that I was telling you about how the Mob focuses on one field at a time? The way I see it, maybe we picked the wrong field here at Deva. Maybe we shouldn’t have tried the protection racket.”

  “So you’re going to change fields?” I urged.

  “Right,” Shai-ster smiled. “We’ll put the protection racket on slow-down mode for a while, and in the meantime start leaning on the bookies.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Guido crowed. “There’s always good money to be made at gambling.”

  “Keep your voice down, you idiot. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

  “So who’s to hear?” Guido protested.

  “How about them?”

  Shai-ster jerked his thumb toward a table of four enormous beings, alternately stuffing their faces and laughing uproariously.

  “Them? That’s the Hutt brothers. They’re in here about once a week. They’re too busy with their own games to bother us.”

  “Games? Are they gamblers?”

  “Naw ... well, except maybe Darwin. He’s the leader of the pack. But he only gambles on businesses.”

  “Which one is he?”

  “The thinnest one. I hear his fiancée has him on a diet. It’s making him mean, but not dangerous to us.”

  Shai-ster turned back to our table.

  “Well, keep your voice down anyway. How about it, Skeeve? The gambling, I mean. You’ve been here at the Bazaar before. Do you know any bookies we can get hold of?”

  “Gee, the only one I know of for sure is the Geek,” I said. “He’s a pretty high-roller. If you boys are going to try to pull a fast one on him, though, don’t tell him I was the one who singled him out.”

  Shai-ster gave me a broad wink.

  “Gotcha. But anything we get from him, you’re in for a percentage. You know, a finder’s fee. We don’t forget our friends.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I managed, feeling more than a little guilty. “Well, I’d better be going. C’mon, Gleep.”

  “Gleep!” echoed my dragon, pulling his head up out of a tub of spaghetti at the sound of his name.

  Fats had taken an instant liking to my pet, founded I suspect on Gleep’s newfound capacity for the maggot-like stuff barely hidden by blood-red sauce that was the parlor’s mainstay.

  I had never been able to screw up my courage enough to try spaghetti, but my dragon loved it. Knowing some of the dubious things, edible and in, living and non, that also met with Gleep’s culinary approval, this did little toward encouraging me to expand my dietary horizons to include this particular dish. Still, as long as I had Gleep along, we were welcome at Fats, even though my pet was starting to develop a waddle reminiscent of the parlor’s proprietor.

  “Say, Skeeve. Where do you keep your dragon during the day?”

  I glanced over to find Shai-ster studying my pet through narrowed, thoughtful eyes.

  “Usually he’s with me, but sometimes I leave him with a dragon-sitter. Why?”

  “I just remembered an ‘interruption of business’ claim we had to pay the other day ... had to pay! Heck, we’re still paying it. Anyway, this guy sells dragons, see, except for over a week now he hasn’t sold a one. Usually sells about three a day and says since he paid us to be sure nothing happens to his business, we should make up the difference in his sales drop ... and, you know, those things are expensive!”

  “I know,” I agreed, “but what does that have to do with Gleep?”

  “Probably nothing. It’s just that this guy swears that just before everything went to pot, some little dragon came by and talked to his dragons. Now they won’t roar or blow fire or nothing. All they do is sleep and frolic ... and who wants to buy a dragon that frolics, you know?”

  “Talked to his dragons?” I asked uneasily.

  For some reason, I had a sudden mental image of Gleep confronting Big Julie’s dragon, a beast that dwarfed him in size, and winning.
r />   “Well ... they didn’t exactly talk, but they did huddle up and put their heads together and made mumbly puffy noises at each other. Wouldn’t let this guy near ‘em until it was over. The only thing he’s sure of is the little one, the one he says messed up his business, said something like ‘Peep!’ Said it a couple of times.”

  “Peep?” I said.

  “Gleep!” answered my dragon.

  Shai-ster stared at him again.

  “C’mon, Shai-ster,” Guido said, giving his superior a hearty shove.

  “Talking dragons? Somebody’s pullin’ your leg. Sounds to me like he got a bad shipment of dragons and is trying to get us to pay for them. Tell him to take a hike.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Shai-ster grumbled, “but I suppose you’re right. I mean, all dragons look pretty much alike.”

  “True enough,” I called, heading hastily for the nearest exit. “C’mon, Peep ... I mean, Gleep!”

  Maybe Shai-ster’s suspicions had been lulled, but I still had a few of my own as we made our way back to the Yellow Crescent Inn.

  “Level with me, Gleep. Did you do anything to louse up some body’s dragon business?”

  “Gleep?” answered my pet in a tone exactly like my own when I’m trying too hard to sound innocent.

  “Uh-huh, Well, stay out of this one. I think we’ve got it in hand without you getting in the line of fire.”

  “Gleep.”

  The answer was much more subdued this time, and I realized he was drooping noticeably.

  “Now don’t sulk. I just don’t want anything to happen to you. That’s all.”

  I was suddenly aware that passers-by were staring at us. As strange as the Bazaar was, I guess they weren’t used to seeing someone walking down the street arguing with a dragon.

  “Let’s hurry,” I urged, breaking into a trot. “I don’t know what we can do about the Mob moving in on the bookies, but I’m sure Aahz will think of something.”

  THE SPORTS ARENA we were in was noticeably smaller than the stadium on Jahk where we had played in the Big Game, but no less noisy. Perhaps the fact that it was indoors instead of being open-air did something to the acoustics, but even at half-full the crowd in the arena made such a din I could barely hear myself think.

  Then again, there was the smell. The same walls and ceiling that botched up the acoustics did nothing at all for ventilation. Even a few thousand beings from assorted dimensions in these close quarters produced a blend of body odors that had my stomach doing slow rolls ... or maybe it was just my nerves.

  “Could you explain to me again about odds?”

  “Not now,” the Geek snarled, nervously playing with his program. “I’m too busy worrying.”

  “I’ll give it a try, hot stuff,” Massha volunteered from my other side. “Maybe I can say it in less technical jargon than our friend here.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I admitted.

  That got me a black look from the Geek, but Massha was already into it.

  “First, you’ve got to understand that for the most part, bookies aren’t betting their own money. They’re acting as agents or go-betweens for people who are betting different sides of the same contest. Ideally, the money bet on each side evens out, so the bookie himself doesn’t have any of his own money riding on the contest.”

  “Then how do they make their money?”

  “Sometimes off a percentage, sometimes ... but that’s another story. What we’re talking about is odds. Okay?”

  “I guess so,” I shrugged.

  “Now, the situation I described is the ideal. It assumes the teams or fighters or whatever are evenly matched. That way, some people bet one side, some the other, but overall it evens out. That’s even odds or 1-1.”

  She shifted her weight a bit, ignoring the glares from our fellow patrons when the entire row of seats wobbled in response.

  “But suppose things were different. What if, instead of an even match, one side had an advantage ... like say if Badaxe were going to fight King Rodrick?”

  “That’s easy,” I smiled. “Nobody would bet on the King.”

  “Precisely,” Massha nodded. “Then everybody would bet one side, and the bookies would have to cover all the bets with their own money ... bets they stood a good chance of losing.”

  “So they don’t take any bets.”

  “No. They rig things so that people will bet on the king.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “They could try, but I sure wouldn’t throw my gold away like that. I’d back Badaxe.”

  “Really?” Massha smiled. “What if, instead of betting one gold piece to win one gold piece, you had to bet ten gold pieces on Badaxe to win one back?”

  “Well ...

  “Let me make it a little harder. How about if you bet one gold piece on the King, and he won, that instead of getting one gold piece back, you got a hundred?”

  “I ... um ... might take a long shot on the King,” I said, hesitantly.

  “There’s always a chance he could get lucky. Besides, if I lose, I’m only out one gold piece.”

  “And that’s how bookies use odds to cover themselves. Now, how they figure out how many bets they need on the King at ‘x’ odds to cover the bets they have on Badaxe at ‘y’ odds is beyond me.”

  I looked at the Deveel next to me with new respect.

  “Gee, Geek. I never really realized how complicated your work is.”

  The Deveel softened a bit. They’re as susceptible to flattery as anyone else.

  “Actually, it’s even more complicated than that,” he admitted modestly. “You’ve got to keep track of several contests at once, sometimes even use the long bets from one to cover the short bets on another. Then there are side bets, like who will score how often in which period in the Big Game. It isn’t easy, but a sharp being can make a living at it.”

  “So what are the odds tonight?”

  The Deveel grimaced.

  “Lousy. It’s one of those Badaxe and the King matchups, if I was following your example right. In this case, the team you’ll see in red trunks are Badaxe. They’re hotter than a ten dollar laser and have won their last fifteen bouts. The weak sisters ... the King to you ... will be in white trunks and haven’t won a bout in two years. When the Mob put their bet down, the odds were running about two hundred to one against the whites.”

  I whistled softly.

  “Wow. Two hundred in gold return on a one-gold-piece bet. Did you remember to act surprised when they put their money down?”

  “I didn’t have to act,” the Geek said through tight lips. “Not with the size bet they came up with. Being forewarned, I had expected they wouldn’t be going small, but still ...”

  He shook his head and lapsed into silence.

  I hadn’t really paused to consider the implication of the odds, but I did now. If betting one piece could get you two hundred back, then a bet of a thousand would have a potential payback of two hundred thousand! And a ten thousand bet...

  “How big was their bet?” I asked fearfully.

  “Big enough that if I lose, I’ll be working for the Mob for the rest of my life to pay it off ... and Deveels don’t have short life-spans.”

  “Wait a minute. Didn’t Aahz tell you that if you lost, we’d cover it out of our expense money?”

  “He did,” the Deveel said. “And he also pointed out that if you were covering my losses, you’d also take all winnings if things went as planned. I opted to take the risk, and the winnings, myself.”

  Massha leaned forward to stare.

  “Are you that confident, or that greedy?”

  “More the latter,” the Geek admitted. “Then again, I got burnt rather badly betting against Skeeve here in the Big Game. I figure it’s worth at least one pass backing the shooter who’s working a strea
k.”

  I shook my head in puzzlement. “Aren’t you afraid of losing?”

  “Well, it did occur to me that it might be me and not the Mob who’s being set up here. That’s why I’m sitting next to you. If this turns out to be a double cross ...”

  “You’re pretty small to be making threats, Geek,” Massha warned.

  “... And you’re too big to dodge fast if I decide I’m being had,” the Deveel shot back.

  “Knock it off, both of you,” I ordered. “It’s academic anyway. There won’t be any problems ... or if there are, I’ll be as surprised as you are, Geek.”

  “More surprised, I hope,” the Deveel sneered. “I’m half expecting this to blow up, remember?”

  “But Aahz has assured me that the fix is in.”

  “Obviously. Otherwise, the Mob wouldn’t be betting so heavily.

  The question is, which fix is going to work, theirs or yours?”

  Just then a flurry of activity across the arena caught my eye. The Mob had just arrived ... in force. Shai-ster was there, flanked by Guido and Nunzio and backed by the remaining members of the two teams currently assigned to the Bazaar. Seen together and moving, as opposed to individually feeding their faces at Fats’, they made an impressive group. Apparently others shared my opinion. Even though they were late, no one contested their right to prime seats as they filed into the front row. In fact, there was a noticeable bailing out from the desired seats as they approached.

  It was still a new enough experience for me to see other beings I knew in a crowd at the Bazaar that I stood up and waved at them before I realized what I was doing. Then it dawned on me!

  If they saw me sitting with the Geek and then lost a big bet, they might put two and two together and get five!

  I stopped waving and tried to ease back into my seat, but it was too late. Guido had spotted my gyrations and nudged Shai-ster to point me out. Our eyes met and he nodded acknowledgement before returning to scanning the crowd.

  Crestfallen, I turned to apologize to the Geek, only to find myself addressing a character with a pasty complexion and hairy ears that bore no resemblance at all to the Deveel who had been sitting beside me.