The Third Lynx

to his socks. But unlike a lot of people I'd met over the years, he wasn't going to let fear or panic make his decisions for him. 'You still haven't given me any reason to trust you,' he said.

I chewed at the inside of my cheek. There weren't a lot of ways for one stranger to prove to another that he could be trusted.

But there was one that might work. 'Fine. Come with me.'

I headed back down the indentation toward Fayr and Bayta. Stafford, with only a moment's hesitation, followed. 'How are they doing?' I asked Fayr as I stepped to his side.

'They're quiet, and very unhappy,' he told me.

I looked at the toughs. 'Taking the opportunity to make their peace with the Creator, I hope?'

The leader twitched at that. 'If they're wise,' Fayr said.

'I don't think wisdom has ever been much of a burden for any of them,' I said. 'But there's still a chance they'll get to live out the rest of the night. Maybe even longer than that.' I pointed to the leader. 'You know of a nice, quiet place where you won't be tempted to make trouble?'

[There are rooms behind the entryway.] he said, his eyes seemingly glued to the bulge in Fayr's poncho that concealed the Rontra's muzzle. [We live there.]

'Who else uses those rooms? Or any of that area?'

[No one,] he said. [The foundation and walls are damaged. No one else is willing to take the risk.]

Apparently, plain simple common sense wasn't any more of a burden for them than wisdom was. 'Good enough,' I said. 'Fayr, take them back and get them settled in for the night. Keep them quiet, of course.'

'No fears,' he assured me, gesturing with his gun.

Silently, the four Tra'ho'seej got up, two of them assisting their still wobbly companion, and filed off through the crowd. Fayr was right behind them. 'Why not just use snoozers and put them to sleep?' Bayta asked.

'Because we may still have some questions for them,' I told her. 'Don't worry, they're way beyond the point of making trouble. The sight of submachine guns will do that to a person.'

'What now?' Stafford asked.

'First, we pretend this is a civilized universe,' I said. 'Bayta, this is Daniel Stafford. Stafford, my partner and assistant Bayta.'

'Pleased,' Stafford said shortly. 'What now?'

'Now we prove ourselves to you,' I told him. 'Question: if we're involved with your uncle's murder, why haven't we already killed you?'

He snorted. 'Obviously, you want the Lynx, and you know killing me won't get it for you.'

'Right,' I said. 'Now, what if we did have the Lynx, and still didn't kill you? Would that prove we could be trusted?'

He studied my face. 'Probably,' he conceded. 'But that assumes I'll just hand it over to you.'

'Not at all,' I said, letting my gaze drift slowly around the courtyard as I settled my mind back into Westali investigator mode. The Lynx had to be here somewhere, I knew. Stafford wouldn't risk stashing it someplace where he couldn't keep a close eye on it.

But he wouldn't be carrying it on him, either, especially not after what happened to Kunstler. He also wouldn't leave it someplace where one of his fellow artists might stumble over it. That left out most of the maze of rooms and cubbies in the amphitheater, which were out of his sight as well as being out of his control.

Buried in the courtyard somewhere, then? But ground that had been recently turned over was pretty obvious even to a casual observer. Besides, unless Stafford was digging under his own tent—which was itself way too obvious—the operation would be bound to attract unwelcome attention.

Unless he'd buried it under someone else's tent? Someone he knew would be gone at a given hour, thereby giving him the necessary privacy, or someone he trusted enough to bring at least partially in on the secret?

I looked at Stafford, at the taut wariness in his eyes and cheeks and throat. No, he wouldn't have risked a stranger noticing something odd about his tent and investigating. And he certainly wouldn't have trusted anyone here that far.

So it wasn't hidden in the amphitheater complex or in the courtyard. What was left?

I looked past Stafford toward the end of the indentation where he'd been working. Silhouetted against the smoky firelight was the lump of claywork he'd been playing with when he'd been so rudely interrupted.

Clay.

I smiled. Rule number one in the investigators' handbook: if you can't hide something, disguise it.

I started into the indentation. Before I'd gone five steps Stafford was at my side. 'Where are you going?' he demanded, an anxious edge to his voice. 'Don't mess with my sculpture.'

'I'm not going to touch it,' I assured him. The fire was still pretty hot, but no longer unbearably so. I reached the inner edge of the indentation and looked down.

The logs feeding the fire had been stacked in the middle of the pit in a standard crisscross pattern. There were four layers of them, the ones in the top tier mostly burned to ash, those on the bottom blackened but still reasonably intact. Each of the logs was about sixty centimeters long and twenty in diameter, a convenient size for handling.

Stafford was hovering at my side now, trying very hard not to look nervous and not succeeding very well. 'Clever,' I complimented him. 'Even if someone figured out where it was, he'd have to wait until the fire died down to get at it.'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' Stafford insisted.

'There's only one small problem,' I said. 'Remember I told you the Viper you came here to buy didn't exist anymore? That's because it exploded.'

He seemed to shrink back a little as he looked down into the fire pit. 'What do you mean, exploded? How?'

'I don't know, exactly,' I said. 'Best guess is that the sculpture's made of some kind of exotic explosive.' I looked back at the logs, searching the lower tier for one that didn't show the same scorch pattern as the others on its level.

And there it was. The closest one, naturally, to our particular indentation. 'So far you've been lucky,' I said, pointing to it. 'You put it there on the bottom, where it's coolest, and all that glazed ceramic clay wrapped around it probably protects it pretty well from the heat. But we'd still better get it out of there as soon as possible.'

He looked at me, his eyes uncertain for the first time since I'd met him. 'This isn't just a scam, is it?' he asked hesitantly. 'I mean …to get me to …?'

'To admit to what I already know?' I shook my head. 'As to the Viper blowing up, I've seen the damage. In fact, they're holding an art auction at the museum tomorrow night to raise funds to fix the pit it made.'

He exhaled carefully. 'I'd heard stories,' he murmured. 'I thought they were just rumors.'

'They weren't,' I assured him. 'So. You trust me yet?'

He gave me a tentative smile. 'Well, you at least have to keep me alive until you can get the Lynx out of there, don't you?'

'Absolutely,' I said. 'While we're waiting, let's find a quiet place to talk.'

The best place for a private chat turned out to be the damaged section of the amphitheater where Fayr had taken the five Tra'ho juvenile delinquents. We kicked the six of them back out into the tunnel—Stafford confirmed that the gang really did help keep out the riffraff at night—and Bayta and I settled down to hear Stafford's story.

'He'd been getting offers to buy the Lynx for probably three weeks before the robbery attempt,' he told us. 'Strange offers, from a mysterious unnamed buyer.'

'How strange?' I asked.

'The man was naming a price way above what the Lynx could possibly be worth,' he said. 'That alone made Uncle Rafael suspicious. He started looking into the current status of the rest of the Nemuti sculptures, which was how he found out they'd been disappearing right and left. He doubled the guard on his estate and the gallery and started trying to backtrack the would-be buyer.'

'Only they got in anyway,' I said.

Stafford winced. 'Yes,' he said grimly. 'I think that was what hit Uncle Rafael the hardest. There was no way they could have penetrated the security system without the help of one of the guards.'

'Not necessarily,' I said. 'There are techniques people in my former line of work would know.'