Eros at Zenith: Book 2 of Tales of the Velvet Comet (14 page)

“Are you this polite to everyone?” asked Pagliacci. “Or is there something about me personally that brings out the best in you?”

“I thought you didn't want me to lie to you,” said Crane.

“What I wanted was to make you laugh,” replied the comedian. Suddenly his face lit up with renewed enthusiasm. “Tell you what: I've got a detective routine that's an absolute knockout. As soon as this idiot is through murdering her obligatos, I'll perform it for you right here at the table.”

“Why are you so bound and determined to amuse me?” asked Crane with a touch of irritation.

“Because you represent a challenge.”

“Some other time,” said Crane, rising to his feet.

“Need a little company?” offered the comedian. “I'm not due on stage again for almost three hours.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Fine. Where are you going?”

“The casino.”

Pagliacci shook his head. “I'd better not,” he said. “I've already lost too much money there.” He smiled.

“No will power.” He leaned back on his chair. “See you around.”

“I doubt it,” said Crane. “I'm taking Morales back to Deluros tomorrow morning.”

“Then you'll always be the one that got away,” said Pagliacci. “If you'll leave your address at the reception desk, maybe I'll mail you a tape of that routine.”

“Don't do it right away,” replied Crane. “Give me something to live for.”

He turned and walked out of the nightclub.

He made brief appearances in the other three clubs, then wandered back to the casino, where he spent another half hour being visible. Finally he checked the time and began wending his way to the reception foyer.

Once there he entered a private communications booth and put through a call to the Dragon Lady. Her image appeared before him a moment later, and from her surroundings it was obvious that she was very near Morales’ room.

“How's it going?” he asked.

“Everything's quiet so far,” she replied.

“Okay,” he said. “I think it's time to entice our man out into the open. He's only got about eight hours left before I'm supposed to leave with Morales, and we don't want to scare him so much that he doesn't make an attempt.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked the Dragon Lady.

“Put every member of your staff that you can spare in the Resort's public rooms, and make them as visible as possible. We don't want our killer thinking that they're all waiting for him in Morales’ room. Then pull everyone who's left off the level Morales is on, but position them so they can get there in a hurry.”

“That might look too obvious,” she said. “What if I station one man by the door, but with strict instructions to look something less than alert?”

“Good idea,” agreed Crane. He tried to hide his tension as he issued the only order that mattered. “I also want you to shut down the security system at the Resort's tramway entrance for the next two hours.”

“Why?” asked the Dragon Lady. “Since he's a member of the crew, he's cleared for it anyway.”

“I had Cupid rig it to register weapons,” lied Crane. “I don't want alarms going off all the hell over and scaring him away if he happens to be carrying a pistol.”

“It seems to me that he's more likely to just have a knife—or if he
does
have a more formidable weapon, it's probably hidden in his room. Besides, we don't know for a fact that he isn't in the Mall or the Home right now.”

“If he's not in the Resort, then there's no harm done,” said Crane tersely. “If he is, let's make it as easy as possible for him to get where he wants to go.'’

She sighed. “You're the boss.”

“I'll check in with you in a couple of hours.”

“Where can I reach you if something happens in the meantime?”

“Oh, I'll be around. Just have Cupid page me.”

He broke the connection, spent the next half hour forcing himself to read stock quotations off a large monitor in the reception foyer, then walked over to the escalator and descended to the tramway level.

He walked up to the computer's retina scanner, breathed a sigh of relief when it didn't respond to him, then opened the gate that led to the platform.

The tramcar was nowhere to be seen, and he quickly jumped down into the tunnel and began walking rapidly, slowing his pace only when he felt he was far enough from the platform so that no one could see him. He ducked into a maintenance port as the tramcar passed by, remained there until it picked up a handful of passengers from the Resort and headed back toward the Home, and then resumed walking.

Finally he reached the port where Infante's body had been found, wedged himself into it, sat down, and waited.

Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and finally half an hour. He was just on the point of admitting to himself that he had guessed wrong when he heard footsteps approaching. He waited until they were quite close, then rose to his feet and stepped out into the tunnel.

“Hi, Andy,” said Pagliacci with a friendly smile.

He carried a bottle of chilled champagne in one hand, and two crystal glasses in the other. “I think it's time that you and I had a little chat.”

“Well, I'll be damned!” said Crane. “So it's
you
!”

“What are you acting so surprised about?” asked Pagliacci easily. “You sure as hell look like you were expecting company.”

“I knew someone would be along,” replied Crane. “I just didn't know who.”

“Some detective!” snorted Pagliacci with a chuckle. “I don't ever want to hear you criticize my comedy routines again.”

Crane pulled a small handgun out of his pocket and trained it on the comedian.

“Careful how you point that thing, Andy,” said Pagliacci. “I'd hate to see you miss me and hit this beautiful bottle.”

“How long has Stanley Dombroski been dead?” asked Crane suddenly.

“Oh, a long time,” replied Pagliacci. “Ten or twelve years now. I've been reciting his idiotic jokes for so long that I'm really getting rather good at it, your criticisms notwithstanding.”

“And who are you?”

“I'm the guy who wants to talk to you without being overheard.” He paused. “You chose a nice place. I've always had a fondness for returning to the scene of the crime.”

“Talk all you want,” said Crane. “But when you're through, I'm going to arrest you for the murder of Edward Infante.”

Pagliacci shook his head and smiled confidently.

“When I'm through, what you're going to do is
thank
me.”

“You think so?”

“I
know
so. This may seem a little difficult for you no believe, but before the night is over you and I are doing to be partners.”

“You haven't done your homework,” remarked Crane dryly. “I'm every bit as ambitious and incorruptible as I'm supposed to be.”

“I certainly hope so,” replied Pagliacci. “I'm counting on it.”

He popped open the champagne and filled the two glasses.

“There's another service port just across the tunnel,” said Pagliacci, jerking his head in its direction.

“Do you mind if I sit there? The tram could come by any minute, and I get just a little nervous standing out here.”

“Be my guest,” replied Crane, keeping his weapon trained on the comedian.

“Thanks. And, since you're not a drinker, I hope you won't mind if I take both glasses with me.”

“Not at all.”

Pagliacci walked some fifteen feet to the port, stepped into it, and carefully lowered himself to the ground. “Good stuff,” he remarked as he took a sip from one of the glasses after placing the other on the floor. “You don't know, what you're missing.” He paused. “Were you really going to take Morales to Deluros if I hadn't approached you?”

Crane shrugged. “It never occurred to me that someone wouldn't try to stop me. I should have figured out that you'd be the one.”

“Don't go blaming yourself for not knowing. I was pretty careful: you didn't have much to go on.”

“I had one thing,” contradicted Crane. “Whoever killed Infante couldn't wait five weeks until his next visit—and your contract is up in three more weeks.”

“True,” agreed Pagliacci thoughtfully. “I probably should have killed him during his last visit. I just kept hoping that I wouldn't have to.”

“Is this as big as I think it is?” asked Crane suddenly.

“Probably,” said Pagliacci. “But you tell me what you think, and I'll tell you if you're right.”

“You killed Infante to frighten Morales.”

“Let's say that I did it to convince him of the urgency of the situation.”

“He doesn't have anything you want, or you'd have taken it from him,” continued Crane. “That was a very professional piece of work you did on Infante.”

“He has
one
thing,” contradicted Pagliacci. “But he'd have died before he gave it to me.”

“Whatever he has, it's inside his head,” said the detective. He waited for a reaction, but the comedian offered none. “He's either doing something that you want stopped, or not doing something that you want started.”

“So far, so good.”

“I knew that after I'd been here two hours,” said Crane disdainfully. “The trick was figuring out what it was you wanted him to do, and why.”

Pagliacci drained his glass, placed it down, and picked up the other one. “And did you figure it out?”

“I've got most of the pieces,” replied the detective. “Maybe you can help me put them together.”

The tramcar suddenly whizzed by.

“What do you think you've got?” asked the comedian, after it had passed.

“Well, for starters, I've got Morales and Infante.”

“You've got Infante,” corrected Pagliacci.

Crane shook his head. “I've got them both, or you wouldn't be here.”

Pagliacci smiled. “I stand corrected.”

“They'd been together only twice—on Deluros VIII and on the
Comet
. They had no business dealings, and there's no record of Infante ever meeting with Morales up here, though I suspect he must have.”

“He did.”

“I assume such meetings were his sole reason for coming here?”

“I think you could call that a fair assumption,” agreed the comedian.

“They had one other thing in common,” continued Crane. “They had both been to New Sumatra.”

“But not at the same time,” noted Pagliacci.

“That threw me for awhile,” admitted the detective.

“Until I checked to see if either of them had been there during the Bello Affair. Then I had it.”

“And what did you have?” asked Pagliacci, amused.

“The connection. Morales was on New Sumatra during Bello's reign. Infante was there a few years later. They probably knew many of the same people.

Then they were both on Deluros together. Then Morales came to work aboard the
Comet
, and immediately thereafter Infante became a regular patron.”

“Are you suggesting that Infante was blackmailing Morales for something he had done on New Sumatra?”

“Not a chance. Either you or Morales might kill a blackmailer, but neither of you would then go out of your way to make sure the body was discovered while you were still on the ship.”

“A telling point,” commented Pagliacci. “You're as good as I thought you'd be.”

“So if the connection wasn't blackmail, then I have to assume they were working for a common cause, and that the cause has something to do with the Bello Affair.”

“For example?”

“Well,” said Crane, “now we get down to guess-work. I assume that some remnants of Bello's organization are headquartered on Deluros VIII. My guess is that Morales is some kind of contact man, and that Infante was a messenger. They couldn't converse by computer, since we'd have complete records of everything they said, so they had to meet in person.

There's no place as secure as the tunnel, but I imagine Morales and Infante could have exchanged a few words in the casino or the reception foyer without being overheard.”

“My own guess is that they passed written messages,” interjected Pagliacci.

“Then I'm right?” asked Crane.

“Let's say that you're very warm.”

“Then we come back to why you killed Infante,” said Crane, “and I keep coming up with the conclusion that it was to make Morales
do
something. If you'd wanted him to
stop
doing it, you'd have killed
him
instead of murdering a patron and risking the kind of investigation you wound up with.”

“Very good, Andy!” said Pagliacci. “I can see that you're going to make an excellent partner.”

“Anyway,” said Crane, ignoring his remark, “everything boils down to what you wanted Morales to do.”

“That it does.”

“And I keep coming up with the notion that, since he's a contact, you want him to get in touch with his superiors and tell them something.”

“Absolutely right.”

Crane stared at him. “I don't know a hell of a lot about New Sumatra, but I can't imagine that there's more than one man who makes this kind of risk worth taking.”

Pagliacci smiled. “You've got it, Andy.”

Crane nodded. “Bello's alive and hiding on Deluros VIII, isn't he?”

“A temporary yes to both questions,” replied Pagliacci. “He's alive and he's on Deluros; neither condition is going to last a whole lot longer.”

“How long has he been there?”

Pagliacci drained his second glass. “About five years.”

“And how did you find out about it?”

“I'll be happy to tell you as soon as you put your weapon away,” said Pagliacci. Crane hesitated. “Come on, Andy, you don't want
me
, not when I can give you the Bloody Butcher of New Sumatra. Hell, all
I
did was kill a man who was in the employ of a genocidal war criminal. It's not me you want—it's Bello. Think of what this can do for your career.”

“I'm thinking.”

“Then let me help you a little bit,” said Pagliacci, and now he was no longer smiling. “If you take me in, you're going to find yourself giving testimony against a fucking hero. I'll admit to everything you say, and I'll still get off the hook.”

“I assume you're willing to gamble your life on that?” said Crane dryly.

“On that, and on the fact that you're as incorruptible and ambitious as you think you are,” answered Pagliacci. “If you don't agree to work with me, our conversation ends now. You'll never know how to draw Bello out of hiding, and better men than you have failed to find him on Deluros.”