"Hiding what, Duke?"
"I've been told sweet little Reetal always carries a sweet little gun
around with her in some shape or form or other."
Reetal shook her head, her eyes widening. "Duke, what's the matter?
I...."
He let go of her suddenly, and his slap exploded against the side of
her face. Reetal cried out, dropping her head between her hands.
Immediately he had her wrists again, and her fingers were jerked away
from the jeweled ornament in her hair.
"So that's where it is!" Fluel said. "Thought it might be. Don't get
funny again now, sweetheart. Just stay quiet."
She stayed quiet, wincing a little as he plucked the glittering little
device out of her hair. He turned it around in his fingers, examining
it, smiled and slid it into an inside pocket, and took her arm again.
"Let's go to the front room, Reetal," he said almost pleasantly.
"We've got a few things to do."
* * * * *
A minute later, she was seated sideways on a lounger, her wrists
fastened right and left to its armrests. The Duke placed a pocket
recorder on the floor beside her. "This is a crowded evening,
sweetheart," he remarked, "which is lucky for you in a way. We'll have
to rush things along a little. I'll snap the recorder on in a minute
so you can answer questions--No, keep quiet. Just listen very closely
now, so you'll know what the right answers are. If you get rattled and
gum things up, the Duke's going to get annoyed with you."
He sat down a few feet away from her, hitched his shoulders to
straighten out the silver jacket, and lit a cigarette. "A little while
after Bad News Quillan turned up just now," he went on, "a few things
occurred to me. One of them was that a couple of years ago you and he
were operating around Beldon at about the same time. I thought, well,
maybe you knew each other; maybe not. And then--"
"Duke," Reetal said uncertainly, "just what are you talking about? I
don't know--"
"Shut up." He reached over, tapped her knee lightly with his
fingertips. "Of course, if you want to get slapped around, all right.
Otherwise, don't interrupt again. Like I said, you're in luck; I don't
have much time to spend here. You're getting off very easy. Now just
listen.
"Bad News knew a lot about our operation and had a story to explain
that. If the story was straight, we couldn't touch him. But I was
wondering about the two of you happening to be here on the Star again
at the same time. A team maybe, eh? But he didn't mention you as being
in on the deal. So what was the idea?
"And then, sweetheart, I remembered something else--and that tied it
in. Know that little jolt people sometimes get when they're dropping
off to sleep? Of course. Know another time they sometimes get it? When
they're snapping back out of a Moment of Truth, eh? I remembered
suddenly I'd felt a little jump like that while we were talking
to-day. Might have been a reflex of some kind. Of course, it didn't
occur to me at the time you could be pulling a lousy stunt like that
on old Duke. Why take a chance on getting your neck broken?
"But, sweetheart, that's the tie-in! Quillan hasn't told it straight.
He's got no backing. He's on his own. There's no gang outside
somewhere that knows all about our little deal. He got his information
right here, from you. And you got it from dumb old Duke, eh?"
"Duke," Reetal said quite calmly, "can I ask just one question?"
He stared bleakly at her a moment, then grinned. "It's my night to be
big-hearted, I guess. Go ahead."
"I'm not trying to argue. But it simply doesn't make sense. If I
learned about this operation you're speaking of from you, what reason
could I have to feed you Truth in the first place? There'd be almost a
fifty-fifty chance that you'd spot it immediately. Why should I take
such a risk? Don't you see?"
Fluel shrugged, dropped his cigarette and ground it carefully into the
carpet with the tip of his shoe.
"You'll start answering those questions yourself almost immediately,
sweetheart! Let's not worry about that now. Let me finish. Something
happened to Movaine couple of hours ago. Nobody's fault. And something
else happened to Marras Cooms just now. That puts me in charge of the
operation here. Nice, isn't it? When we found Cooms lying in the hall
with a hole through his stupid head, I told Baldy Perk it looked like
Bad News had thrown in with the Star boys and done it. Know Baldy?
He's Cooms' personal gun. Not what you'd call bright, and he's mighty
hot now about Cooms. I left him in charge on our level, with orders to
get Quillan the next time he shows up there. Well and good. The boys
know Bad News' rep too well to try asking him questions. They won't
take chances with him. They'll just gun him down together the instant
they see him."
He paused to scuff his shoe over the mark the cigarette had left on
the carpet, went on, "But there's Nome Lancion now. He kind of liked
Cooms, and he might get suspicious. When there's a sudden vacancy in
the organization like that. Nome takes a good look first at the man
next in line. He likes to be sure the facts are as stated.
"So now you know the kind of answers from you I want to hear go down
on the recorder, sweetheart. And be sure they sound right. I don't
want to waste time on replays. You and Quillan were here on the Star.
You got some idea of what was happening, realized you were due to be
vaporized along with the rest of them after we left. There was no way
out of the jam for you unless you could keep the operation from being
carried out. You don't, by the way, mention getting any of that
information from me. I don't want Lancion to think I'm beginning to
get dopey. You and Quillan just cooked up this story, and he managed
to get into the Executive Block. The idea being to knock off as many
of the leaders as he could, and mess things up."
* * * * *
Fluel picked up the recorder, stood up, and placed it on the chair.
"That's all you have to remember. You're a smart girl; you can fill in
the details any way you like. Now let's get started--"
She stared at him silently for an instant, a muscle beginning to
twitch in her cheek. "If I do that," she said, "if I give you a story
Nome will like, what happens next?"
Fluel shrugged. "Just what you're thinking happens next. You're a dead
little girl right now, Reetal. Might as well get used to the idea.
You'd be dead anyhow four, five hours from now, so that shouldn't make
too much difference. What makes a lot of difference is just how
unpleasant the thing can get."