“What are you doing to our children?” “Thief! Thief! We'll call the authorities!”
“Just a minute, Skeeve,” Massha said, gently, taking the boxes away from me. She dealt them out to the girls as smoothly as a card shark. “You're solving the wrong problem.”
I turned my scowl on Asfodeel. “Where did you hear about Hermalaya?”
The Deveel looked at me as if I were feebleminded. “She's all over the place! I saw her in the crystal ball at breakfast yesterday, and got a shipment from my factory on a crash basis. I mean, there's instant publicity. Why shouldn't I cash inI mean, provide a figure from current events for these lovely children?” He beamed at the eager little girls.
“Because,” I said, pushing in on him from one side as Nunzio did from the other, “there might be some severe repercussions for doing it.”
He felt Nunzio's crossbow bolt poking him in the rib cage. Deveels might have been loud and dishonest, but most of them were also cowards.
“Well, if you put it that way ... How about I cut you in on the action? Say . .. two percent of net?”
I had a different offer. “Say ... you stop making these, and you get to keep your factory and your shop?”
“And who are you to threaten me?”
“He's Skeeve the Magnificent,” Nunzio said. “Like he told you. I thought you were listening.”
“Your name has no meaning anymore, old man. Nothing you can do will stop me. Your Hermalaya is a public figure. She's got no special rights to her own image. I got advice.”
“What kind of advice?”
Asfodeel smirked. “A guy told me you was a has-been. He says there's no fight left in you. You've lost all your in-fluence. All you're breathing is hot air.”
“Who told you that?” The Deveel shook loose from our grasp. “Forget about it. I don't blab my sources.” I fumed. “Aahz.”
“You don't know that, Hot Stuff,” Massha said, but the look on Asfodeel's face told me I had hit gold. Aahz had told this guy I was a has-been. He was actually talking me down in the Bazaar! The ... the Pervert!
“I'll show you how powerless I am,” I said, throwing back my sleeves. Asfodeel stuck up his chin.
“Come and take me on, big Klahd. I'll tell everyone the Great Skeeve is afraid of competition. You haven't been around much lately. Word on the street was that you lost your nerve. How about that? Are you willing to attack one of the little guys? In front of witnesses?”
I stopped short. The fact he was taunting me meant he wanted to cash in on the controversy. I knew all the ear-marks. I'd been in this position once or twice before. I didn't like it, but I held on to my temper.
“You're not even worth my discussing it with you,” I said haughtily. “Come, my friends. Let's go.”
I withdrew, hating him with all my being but absolutely unwilling to give him an inch. Within three steps, As-fodeel was at my side.
“But what about a percentage? You're just going to walk away? When I'm unauthorized?” I allowed myself a tiny grin. He WAS hoping I'd fight him or partner up. What he never counted on was neither. Maybe I had learned some-thing.
“Unauthorized, unappetizing, and unimportant,” I said. I left him in the midst of a crowd of clamoring little girls and their parents. When I walked away, they sensed a bar-gain. I covered half a block before I let the grin take over my whole face.
“I figure Asfodeel's going to lose some money on the crash basis.” “But what about the dolls?” Nunzio asked. “He's gonna get more.”
“As much as I hate to say it, we should just ignore them,” I said. “We ... I made her a public figure. It's my fault. But if we make a big deal about these dolls, it will draw more attention to us.”
“Let me go back there and negotiate with him, Boss,” Nunzio pleaded. “Something ought to befall him for vio-lating our copyright.”
“Something's going to befall him, but not directly,” I said. “I think I'll take Gleep for a walk here later on.” Nunzio grinned. “Perhaps this is the day that his obedi-ence training just happens to fail.”
“I'm counting on it. The Cake ceremony imposters, though, have got to be shut down. That affects our very bread and butter, so to speak.”
Myth 18 - MythChief
TWENTY -THREE
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” CHINESE COPYRIGHT ENFORCEMENT AGENCY “This is the address,” Massha said, after we had turned about eight corners.
It looked like an ordinary bakery. I ducked my head to pass underneath the flour-sack towel that had been nailed over the doorway. Inside, a bunch of blindfolded Deveel children were playing Pin-the-suit-on-the-lmp. Each tot had a cutout of an incredibly ugly suit and was trying to tack it onto the image of an Imp wearing a red-flannel union suit. He didn't look any more embar-rassed than I was.
“Hi, there!” called a nice, middle-aged Deveel woman. “Are you one of the parents? Oh, wait, you're a Klahd. No offense. Can I help you?”
I looked around. This was definitely the place. Imita-tions, and cheap ones at that, of all of Hermalaya's beauti-ful ritual objects were arranged throughout the big room, but it was a far cry from her oasis of peace.
“Are you the one running Reynardan Cake ceremo-nies?”
“Sure am! You just missed one! We're all done now.” She caught one of the children as
