Robert Asprin - Phule's Errand

Then, all of a sudden, his eyes went into sharp focus and he forgot entirely about the whirring of the Port-a-Brain. There, crossing the faux-Provencal landscape, was none other than Nightingale!

The owner of La Retraite Rustique sat in her office, looking over architects’ renderings of the new addtion she planned for her hotel. She hated trying to extrapolate from the drawings to the actual structures they purported to represent. “Damn lying pictures,” she muttered. “Why can’t they show you what it’s really going to look like?” The answer was obvious, of course-if the drawings looked like the finished product, the customer was a lot less likely to pay for the work.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” she growled, not really annoyed at the interruption as much as generally disgruntled. She’d once owned the most fashionable and lucrative resort hotel and casino on Lorelei. Now she was trying to start over on a new world-and finding it a lot more work than she had any appetite for.

Robert, the concierge, entered. “Good news, Madame,” he said. “We’ve just rented the Olympic Suite, at double the regular rate. Some Space Legion officer with a Dilithium Express card…”

“Space Legion officer? Dilithium Express?” Maxine Pruett sat bolt upright in her seat. “It can’t be… what’s this man’s name?”

“Captain Jester,” said the concierge. “Of course, all Legion names are pseudonyms…”

“Pseudonym, hell-I know Jester,” said Maxine. “For your information, his real name’s Willard Phule. The little son of a bitch nearly ran me out of business on Lorelei-or did you miss that particular episode?” Maxine had plenty of reason to remember it, since it had broken the mob’s control of the casino business on Lorelei. Combined with the defection of Laverna, her most trusted assistant, it had also toppled her from her perch at the top of the Lorelei syndicate-which was ultimately why she’d moved her operation to Hix’s World.

“I must confess I hadn’t remembered the man’s name,” said Robert, warily. “Would you like me to rind some pretext to deny him the room? It should be simple enough-I can always claim that some high official of the planet needs the space.”

Maxine frowned and lit a cigarette. “No, that would just move him someplace else. Let’s keep him here where I can keep track of him. What I want to know, though, is what’s he doing here? He has to know it’s my place-why else would he be here?”

“He apparently claimed a family connection,” said Robert. “That’s not impossible-but not very likely, either. I’ll tell the waitresses and bartenders to see if they can find out the real reason from him.”

“Tell ‘em there’s a bonus if they get what I want,” said Maxine, pounding a fist into her other palm. “He’s got to be here to interfere with my plans for the casino. How the hell did he find out? Bastard!”

“We’ll learn whatever we can, Madame,” said Robert. “I can probably have his suite searched while he’s out, as well. Are there any other instructions?”

“Yeah, search the suite,” said Maxine, nodding. “But be careful-I don’t want him to know he’s being spied on, and he’s probably got better security systems than most banks. We don’t want to make him suspicious. Find out where he’s going when he leaves the hotel, and who he sees. And let me know if anyone comes asking for him-especially anybody else in a Legion uniform.”

“I’ll tell the staff,” said Robert. “Anything else?”

An evil grin came to Maxine Pruett’s face. “Yeah. I’d like to set a trap or two for him. Here’s my idea…”

It took Phule something less than five minutes to get from the Olympic Suite to the gardens he’d been viewing from the window, where he’d seen Nightingale-or her twin sister. By the time he got there, the woman was nowhere to be seen, of course. But short of jumping out of a third-story window, there was no more direct way he could have gotten to the gardens.

He stared around in frustration, trying to figure out which way she could have gone. There were three paths leading away from the clearing where he’d spotted her, all of which turned corners quickly enough that he couldn’t see very far down them. He picked the path that seemed closest to the direction she’d been going when he saw her. Fifty paces down the path he came to a clearing, with three more forks leading away. There was no sign that anyone had come this way recently. Making a snap decision, he took the middle fork. Fifty paces farther, there was another clearing, again with three paths…

Phule stopped and scratched his head. Running blindly after her-without even knowing which way she’d gone- was a waste of time and energy. For one thing, he was likely to make enough noise to warn anyone worried about avoiding pursuit. On the plus side, he now knew that Nightingale and Beeker were in the near vicinity. Perhaps they were even staying at the same hotel! He was likely to get much quicker results by asking the right questions. He turned and headed back to the hotel; time to use my head instead of my feet, he told himself.

His first stop was the front desk, where he pushed the call button for the manager. As he waited, the gentle sounds of ancient folk music drifted out from the dining area: a harp, a flute, and some kind of soft percussion instrument. Phule wasn’t sure whether the sounds were live or recorded, although given the Hix’s World passion for rustic authenticity, live was a fair bet.

After a moment, the desk clerk appeared. This time the woman’s face broke into an eager-to-please smile, a predictable effect of his having flashed his Dilithium Express card at check-in. “Yes, sir, how can I assist you?” she chirped.

“I just saw an old family friend’s wife out the back window,” Phule said, in a casual tone of voice. “But she was gone by the time I got out there to look for her. I had no idea she and her husband were visiting Hix’s World, or I’d have looked them up to ask them out for dinner. Could you tell me which room Mr. Beeker is staying in?”

“Beeker, Beeker,” said the woman, knitting her brows. “Are you certain he’s staying with us? I don’t recall the name…”

“Older fellow, tends to dress a bit conservatively,” said Phule. “His wife’s a younger woman…” Phule gave as complete a description of the fugitives as he could, right up to what Nightingale had been wearing when he saw her out the window. But by the time he finished, the manager was shaking her head.

“That doesn’t sound like anyone who’s staying with us,” she said. “Our gardens are open to the public. She could have come in from the streets, or anywhere.”

“I guess that’s possible,” said Phule, rubbing his chin. “Is there someplace else they might be staying? Someplace close enough that one of them might be walking in your gardens?”

“Our gardens are a widely known attraction,” said the woman, spreading her hands apart as if in welcome. “They so regularly won top prizes in the Floribunda Fete that the former owners withdrew them permanently to give others a chance… But as for where this person might be staying nearby… Well, there are several private homes that take in tourists. Your friends might be at any of them.”

Phule nodded. “Fine, can you give me a list?”

“It’s not something we usually track,” said the woman. “Any list would be out of date rather quickly. Besides, your friends could well be staying with someone whom they know socially, rather than one of the boardinghouses.”

“That’s a chance I’ll have to take,” said Phule, leaning his elbow on the counter. “Just tell me any that you do know, and I’ll see if Beeker’s staying with them. If not, I’ll just have to catch up with the old rascal back home and tell him he missed a free dinner on Hix’s World.”