She gave a deep sigh without looking at me.
'Remember when I asked you why you wanted to set up business at the Bazaar?'
'Sure,' I said. 'And I told you that it was because the Bazaar was where I was best known and had already established contacts.'
'Uh-huh,' Bunny said. 'Think about that for a moment.'
I did and came up blank.
'I don't get it,' I said. 'It still makes good sense to me.'
'Oh. Skeeve,' Bunny said, shaking her head. 'Here at the Bazaar, everyone does know about the Great Skeeve. When you retired, you were the hottest act in the dimension. Of course people are going to come to you when you open your own business.'
'Isn't that the whole idea?' I said, genuinely puzzled.
'Of course, that's the same pool of clients that are currently going to M.Y.T.H., Inc., isn't it?'
'But... That isn't... I ... Oh.'
Suddenly everything fell into place, and I was in complete touch with my feelings. Mostly, I felt immensely stupid.
'Two of their biggest clients are the Chamber of Commerce and Don Bruce, both of which made their original deals directly with you,' Bunny said. 'How do you think they're going to react when they learn that you're opening your own solo operation?'
Now, in addition to feeling stupid, I was feeling the beginnings of a splitting headache. Sometimes I think being in touch with one's feelings is massively overrated.
'Maybe I should go back and talk this out with them,' I said, turning around and gazing back toward the direction where the tent lay. 'This isn't at all what I intended. If nothing else, there's no way I could take on either the Chamber of Commerce or Don Bruce's jobs by myself— excuse me, with just the two of us.' I didn't want to offend my only remaining colleague. My brain felt as if it wanted to force its way out of my eyeballs.
'No. Let it sit for a while,' Bunny suggested. 'Like you said, they are your friends. Give it a while to sink in. They don't want to keep you from going back into business any more than you want to put them out of business. In the meantime, you might be putting some time into figuring out exactly what kind of work you'll be looking for that isn't in direct conflict with their operation.'
I followed her glumly toward the Merchants Association tent. First things first: we needed a place to set up shop. Then I needed to think about what exactly I would be doing in it.
'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'
A week later, Bunny opened the box the Deveel messenger had dropped on her desk and squealed with delight
'Skeeve, the new business cards are here!'
I nodded without looking up from the fifth revision of the proposed lease for the new building that the two of us now occupied. The tent had even less charm than M.Y.T.H., Inc.'s had had when we first moved in and less than a quarter of the space. The Merchants Association of the Bazaar at Deva had some idea that since it was me, they were entitled to boost the rent for the tent skyward. I was mentally composing the reply I was going to send them, starting with the information that it was still my signature on the first lease and ending with a reminder that they had not disclosed all the hidden flaws in the first tent I had rented from them, most particularly the back door that opened out into the dimension of Limbo, a fact that would have put us off renting the place if we had known. The argument was pure formality among Deveels, who, of all the dimensional inhabitants I have known, are the most fond of negotiating matters to their own benefit, preferably at the top of their lungs. While we were still in Klah, I had thought about changing headquarters to a less potentially haunted location, but after so many years, the old tent was where clients expected to find me. No sense in making people in trouble try to hunt down another address in the Bazaar. I'd had no idea that it would be necessary for the friends I had left behind that I do
so, and promptly.
The Merchants Association had been happy to take us on a midnight magic-carpet tour of available properties. I had rejected outright an otherwise desirable six-room storefront with a courtyard garden inside for Gleep and Buttercup to play in, mainly because it stood directly beside one of the Bazaar's busiest brothels. Not that I had anything against people in professional horizontal work, but the clients waiting to be interviewed by the majordomo had begun to size up Bunny as new talent. I didn't want any misunderstandings, so I had turned the place down on the spot and dragged Bunny away before she could ask why. Only a moment later she came to the same conclusion I had and gave our tour guides a fierce glare. They had the grace to look sheepish, not an easy task for Deveels, who were born with a greater capacity for gall than maybe anyone but Pervects.
The next two showplaces were frankly insults. The property next to the arena selling dragons had fallen vacant, to no one's surprise. It always emptied out at the end of every lease, no matter how desperate the tenant. I couldn't even consider it. The noise and the smell alone would have put off clients, let alone the danger of running into some of the merchandise if it ever got loose. And it would have. Deveels had a tendency to cause havoc among people they see as having money they wish to acquire, and set up 'accidents,' which they then blame loudly on the moneyed individual, the only remedy for which was a hefty load of cash. It had happened to me enough times to make me wary. I looked over the burn marks on the wall of the stand that faced the dragon lot. 'No,' I had said flatly.
One of the Deveels showing us the property sulked openly. I assumed he had a financial interest in the dragon booth and had had visions of gold coins dancing in his brain.
The second one, only a block away, had nothing to redeem it either. The modest tent faced away and was invisible from a busy corner not a dozen paces distant.
'Too subtle,' Bunny had said. 'The Great Skeeve needs a place with more pizzazz. More eyeballs.' She had whipped Bytina, her Perfectly Darling Assistant, her handbag, and ordered up a map of the Bazaar. She indicated a few points on the map to the representatives.
'What have you got in these areas?' she asked.
With a sigh, our guides directed the Djinn driving the carpet in an easterly direction, toward the faint fingers of light heralding false dawn.
Location, location, location, as Catchmeier, the real-estate Deveel, kept reciting to us, as if repetition made it truer than anything else he said. Just before the sun came up, we landed in front of a tent I wouldn't have looked twice at if I'd been on my own. To my surprise, it lay across a busy passageway from the Golden Crescent Inn, one of my favorite eateries, a reliable spot for private conferences, and workplace of some of my closest friends in the Bazaar who didn't work for me. The rental property lay just exactly at the angle one's glance would fall on as one came around the corner of yet another throughway, one that even at this early hour was full of carts and foot traffic. It had looked promising, even to my increasingly bleary eyes.
'It's got all the comforts of home,' Catchmeier said, holding aside the flap of the tent. I peered inside. The decor in the transdimensional building concealed by the magikal portal hadn't been updated in years, maybe not since the spell was laid, but I couldn't see anything basically wrong with it. I got a glance of tired walls painted in faded designer beige, worn wooden floors, and battered lintels between rooms. ''Skylights in the two main rooms. Outhouse out the back. Regular trash pickup. Safe neighborhood—hardly any murders in the last ten years. Well, the last two anyhow. Last two months,' he admitted at last. 'What do you think?'
Bunny and I looked at one another. 'We'll take it,' she'd said. The Deveels and the Djinn driver looked relieved.
'Just come with me,' Catchmeier had said. 'We'll have the paperwork drawn up for you in no time. No trouble.'
No trouble. Hah. I turned over the second-to-last page, to make sure all the changes we had agreed on
