Wagers of Sin: Time Scout II (26 page)

Born showman, Goldie thought. It was a very good thing that he'd ended up adopted by that downtimer couple Goldie'd run into. The pair had been running from taxes they couldn't pay and, in their terrified flight from slavers, accidentally ran straight through the Porta Romae into La-La Land. They'd had coins she'd been able to "help" them with.

"That him?" he asked.

"Yes," Goldie said, ginger-honey in her voice. `Would you please tell him that all I want is to talk to him about what he wants most. Tell him if he will make a promise not to run, I will deliver his enemy into his hands."

Young Julius spoke, his Latin pure and flawless, in a quiet, dignified manner that would have pleased even Claudius himself. (Goldie suspected Imperial Blood in him, because he hadn't been left on the city's heap of dung to be taken into adoption or, far more often-slavery, but had been exposed, instead, outside the gates of the Imperial palace, with a little placard around his neck that read, "So all shall know, this is Julius, son of a concubine who has died in childbirth. It is fit that her issue die also.") Goldie watched the gladiator's face as Julius translated her offer. His expression changed drastically in the space of five seconds. First, incredulity, closely followed by suspicious disbelief, then his glance darted this way and that, searching for nonexistent station security squads, from that to puzzlement, and finally very cautious acceptance of the truly odd situation in which fate had placed him.

"Please, Julius, ask our guest to sit beside me."

Julius didn't particularly get along well with the plebeian parents who'd raised him he found them clinging and mindless-but he thanked all the gods for having landed them here. He absorbed more in one day in La-La Land than he'd ever learned from his adoptive parents. They didn't want to adjust (Jupiter forgive them if they attempted something new and radical, like flipping on a lightswitch rather than filling the apartment with smoke from candles and lanterns scattered here and there, too dim to see much of anything except shadows dancing on the wall).

Goldie Morran drew him out of deep thought. "Julius, would you be so kind as to explain to this man the location of the enemy he seeks?"

Julius grinned. Then turned to the big man beside him and started speaking rapidly in Latin.

Marcus turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving the gladiator to gape after him. He was aware that Lupus tried to follow, so he dodged through Victoria Station, only half aware when Julius' Lost and Found Gang hijacked Lupus Mortiferus' for Goldie Morran, of all people. By the time he returned to the Neo Edo, Skeeter had abandoned his attempt at theft and had long since gone. Marcus took the stairs, pounding angrily so the noise echoed up and down the stairwell, an emerged on the third floor, his meticulously kept records and depleted money box tucked under one arm.

"Curse him!" Marcus spat to the empty corridor.

He pounded on the door to room 3027 with a closed fist and wondered what he would say to the man whose debt he could not now pay. The door opened with alacrity. Marcus swallowed hard and faced down the man who'd bought him out of a filthy, stinking slave pen and brought him, fainting with terror, to La-La Land.

"Marcus," the man said with a tiny smile. "Come in."

He didn't want to go into that room.

But he stepped across the threshold, fingers white around the metal money box, And waited. The click of the door closing reached him, then a tinkle of ice against glass came in the silence. Liquid splashed.

Marcus recognized the label. His one-time master had a taste for expensive liquor. He did not, Marcus noted, offer a second glass to him. Cold and angry, Marcus waited while the man sipped and studied him.

"You've changed." The Latin rolled off his tongue as neatly as it had that day in Rome.

"That is your doing," Marcus replied in English.

One brow rose toward a greying hairline. "Oh?"

Marcus shrugged in that Gallic gesture which had survived the centuries. "You brought me here. I have listened and learned. I know the laws which forbid slavery and the laws which forbid you to bring men like me into this world."

Dark eyes narrowed.

"I owe you money," Marcus went on doggedly, "for repayment of the coin you spent for my purchase. But your slave I am not. This is La-La Lang. Not Rome."

He dropped the record books on the bed. "There are the notes you sought. Men who traveled with the zipper jockeys to the brothels of Greece and Rome. Men who returned with the art you seek. Men who did business with Robert Li when they returned and men who did not."

He thrust out the money box. "Here is most of what I owe you. In another few seven-days, I will have earned the rest. If you would tell me your name," he allowed sarcasm to creep into his voice, "I will have it sent to you uptime."

His former master stood very still for a very long time, just watching him. Then, slowly, he accepted the money box and set it aside, unopened. "We'll discuss this later, Marcus. As for my name," a brief smile touched mobile lips without reaching dark, watchful eyes, "it's Chuck. Chuck Farley. At least," he chuckled hollowly, "it is today. Tomorrow..." He shrugged. "Let's see those records of yours, shall we?"

He held out a hand for them.

Marcus, torn between the desire to stand his ground and the hope that his one-time master understood and would reasonable about the arrangements for the rest of the money, hesitated. Then slowly picked up the record books and handed them over.

"Ahh ..." Chuck Farley settled into a chair and flipped on a light, sipping whiskey and poring over Marcus' notations, making occasional comments that meant nothing to Marcus. "Very interesting. Hmm, now I wonder-of course." And he laughed, darkly. Marcus fought a shiver. Farley read through each book before glancing up again. "You've done very well, Marcus. I am impressed by your eye for detail and the thoroughness of your notes." He gestured with the glass toward the ledger books. Ice cubes tinkled like bones against the glass. "Now, as for the other matter, let's just see how much you have left to pay off, shall we?"

He opened the money box at last and counted out everything Marcus owned-and almost every bit of what Ianira had earned. They'd kept back just enough to buy food for the children.

Farley whistled softly. "You managed to save all this while keeping a roof over your head on the terminal? I'm impressed again." His glance was full of smiles this time. Marcus repressed a shiver. "Here." He shoved the metal box aside and found another glass, poured whiskey for them both, this time. "We'll celebrate, shall we? Your emancipation. Yes, we'll drink to your emancipation. You should be able to earn the balance in no time."

Marcus accepted the glass automatically. In truth, he felt a little numb, unsure what to think or believe.

"In fact, you could discharge the rest of that debt in one little job, tonight."

Whiskey untouched, Marcus just waited. Farley smiled. "Drink. This is a celebration."

He drank. The whiskey burned his throat. He managed just barely-not to cough. Whiskey, of any kind, was not something his palate was accustomed to, despite the amount of it he dispensed to others in the course of a week.

Chuck Farley-or whoever he really was-was speaking. He tried to pay full attention, despite the heat and disconcerting dizziness spreading rapidly through him.

"Now. I'm heading through the Porta Romae tonight to do some art collecting. I have quite a bit of baggage with me and I don't want to leave it behind. Things always manage to get stolen from luggage left in the care of a hotel." His smile sent a shiver down Marcus' overheated back. "Hmm ... I'll tell you what we'll do. Act as my porter tonight, help me get all that baggage to the inn, and we'll call the debt even. I know downtimers work as porters all the time. I'd save myself a good bit of money, if you agree, and you'd be out of debt." His eyes twinkled, but darkly, like black diamonds.

Farley was smiling, now, while the whiskey sank into Marcus' veins. Farley refilled his glass. "Drink up, Marcus! We're celebrating, remember?"

He drank, feeling the burning heat sink into his belly and spread like dizzy fire through his whole body. His head whirled. Return to Rome? The very thought terrified him so badly his hand, unsteady around the glass, sloshed expensive liquor on to even more expensive carpet. He drank just to empty the full glass and spare Kit Carson's cleaning bill.

Actually return to Rome? But it would be a quick, simple way to discharge the remainder of his debt.

Carry a few bags through the Porta Romae, then return free of debt to the woman he loved and the children they had made together. It sounded so simple. Farley was smiling and chatting easily, now, refilling his glass, urging him to sit down, drawing him out about the men in his dry, factual notes. Marcus found himself talking about them, about the sexual art they had smuggled through for rich, uptime collectors greedy for rare, explicitly sexual items in pottery, stone, and ivory. Frankly, Marcus didn't understand the fuss. He'd grown up with so much of it around him, it was like walking past Connie Logan's and seeing the familiar figure in wildly mismatched clothes she was trying on for fit.

With Farley drawing him out, he talked and drank and through a haze of whiskey, heard himself agree to the bargain over his debt. Porter for a trip to Roma for complete freedom of debt. His honor was satisfied. But he couldn't help wondering if he'd made a bargain with the gods of the underworld themselves.

"Good! Very good." Farley glanced at his watch. "Just another hour, or so, and the gate will be cycling. We'd better get into costume, eh? I'll expect you back here in, say, fifteen minutes?"

Marcus found himself nodding dumbly, then stumbled into the hall and made his unsteady way down and down still farther to his empty apartment. He still had the tunic and sandals of his first days on the station, tucked away in a box at the back of the closet. They felt alien against his skin. He left the fringed shirt Ianira had given him sprawled across the bed, along with a note in an unsteady hand, leaving word of where he was going and why, then-garbed as a Roman of the poorest, most abused classes returned resolutely to the Neo Edo.

In an hour, he would be free of all debt and obligation to the man calling himself Chuck Farley. He knocked on the door to Room 3027 and quietly collected the man's bags, following silently to the brightly lit Commons and the crowded waiting area surrounding the great Porta Romae.

"Wait here," Farley told him. "I have some money to exchange."

Marcus just nodded, standing guard over the bags as told. He wondered where Ianira was, wished he could tell her everything was turning out fine, after all, then noticed that Farley disappeared in the direction of Goldie Morran's shop. He considered warning the man against her, then shrugged. Farley clearly knew what he was doing. Exhausted, head still befuddled from the whiskey he'd swallowed, Marcus simply waited for Farley's return and the end of the coming ordeal.

Chuck Farley wasn't his real name, but it was admirably suited to his line of work-and sense of humor. Chuck was close enough.

He hid a smile, looking forward to the little scene about to unfold. Passing through the Urbs Romae section of the terminal, he paused to change clothing in a men's room, slipping into a custom-made harness arrangement under uptime clothes and stuffing his Roman disguise of tunic and toga into a shoulder satchel, then sought out the shop of that appalling, purple-haired gargoyle of a money changer. He entered as quietly as an owl on the hunt for a particularly delectable mouse.

The gargoyle glanced up from another customer. Goldie beamed at him. Chuck smiled politely back and waited, laughing inside already.

Ah, what joy it was, setting up someone who thought themselves a pro .... She finished hastily with the other customer, all but shoving him out the door in her greed.

"Mr. Farley, what a lovely surprise! Have you reconsidered?"

Chuck allowed himself a small smile. "Not precisely." He reached into the satchel holding his Roman garments and extracted from a side pocket the bait. "I wanted to discuss this with you." He rubbed the back of his neck as though self-conscious. "I was told you were the expert on such things." With well-practiced deference, he handed over a faded newspaper clipping.

Eyes glancing curiously from his face to the bit of paper, Goldie Morran scanned what he'd handed her. Avarice gleamed for a lovely instant. Hook, line, and sinker.

"Well, that is most interesting," Goldie Morran said with a slight clearing of her throat. "This is legitimate?"

"I assure you, it is. I'm something of an amateur historian and I was tracing some of my family's history. I came across this in my uptime researches into the Gold Rush in Colorado. Imagine my surprise." It came out droll enough to cause Goldie to laugh. He smiled and gestured to the newspaper clipping. "There I am, preserved for posterity, standing over the gold mine I discovered, while some primitive cameraman takes my photograph for the folks back home." He chuckled. "So, you see, I have this opportunity-destiny?-and all I require to fulfill it is a grubstake to purchase the blasted bit of ground."

"Ahh ..." Goldie smiled and beckoned him to a comfortable seat on the customer side of her counter. "You'll be wanting to exchange uptime currency for American currency of the proper type for the Wild West Gate, then?"

"Exactly. I'll need a lot of money downtime to buy the camping gear, mining equipment, horses, and so on, to develop the mine quickly and make me seem legitimate. And you understand I don't want to exchange such a large sum of money officially-the ATF is suspicious, you know."

Goldie chuckled unexpectedly. "No wonder you weren't interested in any of my suggested investments. You had your own nicely arranged. Very clever, Mr. Farley." She wagged a talon at him. "How much did you have in mind to exchange?"

"A hundred thousand."

Goldie Morran's eyes widened.

"I did bring the cash," he added with a small smile.

"All right. A hundred thousand. I'll see what I have. There will, of course, be a small transaction fee included in the exchange rate."

"Oh yes, I quite understand," Farley reassured her.

She walked down the counter and opened up a locked drawer. She returned with a large wad- of oversized bank notes and a handful of gold and silver coins.

He then dutifully unbuckled the money belt under his uptime clothing and counted out a hundred thousand-dollar bills. Goldie's eyes gleamed. She swiftly counted the money he handed to her, and pushed the unwieldy pile of downtimer money to him.

The exchange completed, Goldie smiled. "You realize sir, that you'll also need a good quantity of gold nuggets to take into the assayer's office as proof of your strike, in order to stake a proper claim."

Chuck looked taken aback. "I hadn't realized that. But I was told I'd need at least this much money to buy the new gear in 1885 because of the high prices during the gold rush. And this is all I have."

Goldie nodded, reminding Chuck of a cathedral downspout he'd once seen, come to full and hideous life. "Well, maybe I can help you. As it happens, I have a good bit of my own assets in the form of gold.

I'll give you the gold you need to substantiate your claim if you cut me in for a percentage of your strike. Say about fifty percent?"

Farley looked eager, then less so when she named the percentage. "Well, that seems a bit steep. How about twenty percent? After all, I did find it."

"Yes, but without my gold, you'll have to spend a lot of back-breaking, sweaty work just to rush into town to make your claim before the gate closes. Then you'll have to get back to your mine, wasting time that could be devoted to getting more gold out of the ground."

"True enough. Hmm, how about fifty percent and you agree to exchange my share of the gold dust I bring back without charging your usual fee?"

"Done, sir."

She dove into back room and after a short time came back with a rolling cart on which were piled small sacks with odd lumps sticking through the cloth. She pulled out a set of scales and calibrated weights from a shelf underneath the counter, and sat down.

"Now, mostly what I have is dust, but there are a few nuggets," she said with a smile. "This should be enough to convince the assayer about your strike." She set up the scales carefully, filling one side with brass weights designated in troy ounces. She opened a sack and tipped gold into the other pan until the scale read level. "At the current rates of exchange, that's a hundred dollars."