I, the Constable Read online

  As he expected, Hilt opened his mouth to protest, but Quark spoke first. “You know, as the oldest male relation of the deceased, that is my right.”

  Hilt remained silent for a moment, his upbeat mood quashed. “Well, Mister Quark, I’d love to accommodate you, but I’m quite busy. You did come unannounced, after all. And did I mention that I’m expecting a client at any minute?” He rose from his desk. “Why don’t we set up an appointment for you to come back when I have more time, and by then I’ll have everything prepared for you.”

  “And when would that be?” Quark pressed.

  “Make an appointment with my assistant.”

  Quark made a show of glancing over his shoulder at the outer office. “You don’t seem to have an assistant.”

  “He’s out to lunch.”

  Quark feigned surprise. “You give him time for lunch? You’re a generous man. When will he be back?”

  “When he’s finished with his lunch,” Hilt said through gritted teeth. “Why don’t you call tomorrow?”

  Quark decided to pull out his metaphorical ace. “You know, you say you’ve never heard of me. I suppose that’s possible. The educational system here isn’t what it used to be. But I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of my brother: THE NAGUS—”

  Quark was about to add something particularly pithy when he heard a noise in the outer office. “Oh—might that be your assistant, back from lunch?” he queried. “Or would it be your next appointment?”

  Strangely, Hilt didn’t reply. And one look at his apprehensive expression told Quark that he wasn’t expecting either.

  “Well, maybe we should just find out who it is,” Quark said. He turned, but felt Hilt grab hold of his arm before he could take a step toward the door.

  Another noise in the outer office, and Hilt’s grip tightened. Quark realized that the financial manager’s hand was trembling.

  What’s he so scared of?

  A second later, the door to Hilt’s office burst open. He heard Hilt squeal in terror, then heard his own voice join in.

  There was a burst of blinding light, and the smell of singed flesh, and then . . .

  Darkness.

  This darkness.

  Quark was filled with a mixture of horror (he could now quite clearly remember that Hilt was dead), and relief (But I didn’t get shot!), and several pertinent questions (First on the list: Why didn’t I get shot?).

  He sat in the dark for a few long minutes, then slowly struggled to his feet (which, he realized, also were bound), and began to hop, first in one direction, then another. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for; he decided that he’d know it when he found it.

  And then—whomp!—he did find it—a vertical surface. A wall. Good! And where there’s a wall . . .

  He slid along the wall until he found a shallow indentation. A door!

  He pushed at it with his body, shoved it hard—once, twice, thrice—but it remained firmly in place.

  If only I had a battering ram!

  But he didn’t. All he had was his head.

  That would have to do. And he began thumping his head against the door, hoping against hope that someone would hear him.

  It didn’t do the headache any good whatsoever.

  But it did bring someone!

  Whoosh! The door slid open. Quark initially was blinded by the contrast in light. Then a dark shape in front of him coalesced into a Ferengi—a slovenly, somewhat overweight Ferengi, with a sour expression. Their eyes met and Quark grunted passionately about his plight.

  His expression unchanged, the Ferengi on the other side raised one of his hands slowly, then extended his index finger—and poked Quark, hard, in the chest.

  Quark fell backward, landing painfully on his posterior.

  Then the door slid shut, and he once again was in the inky blackness.

  Chapter 11

  The former constable and the security chief departed from the nagus’s office together. Quirk paused on the stairs and took a deep breath of the rain-sodden air. “Beautiful night,” he commented. “You can smell the fralix and the phobin quite clearly.”

  Odo decided not to ask if Quirk was talking about flora or fauna. He couldn’t smell either in any event, and he had a different topic of discussion in mind. “If you don’t mind my asking, Chief Quirk, why are you looking into this matter, rather than the FCA or some other government organization?”

  Quirk smiled. “This crime doesn’t rate their attention. It isn’t in their league. They deal with matters of state and planetary concerns. The high-level financial dealings that make this world go round. My responsibilities are much more parochial: personal assault, murder, mayhem. That probably represented the bulk of your casework on that space station. But here—” He gestured past the neatly manicured fungi field in front of the building, toward the lights of the surrounding Sacred Marketplace. “Here that adds up to a very small percentage of crime. In the capital city, I’m a force of one.”

  “I see,” Odo commented. Quirk continued walking, but Odo held his position at the bottom of the stairs, wondering if he was required to follow. “Chief Quirk,” he called out as the distance between them grew, “am I free to go?”

  Quirk turned. “That depends,” he responded. He studied Odo closely. “Did you kill Hilt?”

  Odo stiffened. The question offended him. “Would you believe me if I said ‘No’?”

  “Got any interest in latinum?” asked Quirk.

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Fine. You’re free to go.”

  Odo stared at him. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.” Quirk took a step in the direction he’d been going, then turned back toward the shape-shifter. “Don’t leave the planet.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” Odo said. “But just so you know, I do plan to continue searching for the nagus’s brother.”

  Quirk shrugged. “Be my guest. Let me know if you find him. I don’t know if he was the one responsible for making that big hole in Hilt, but if Quark is still alive, he probably knows something. I want to talk to him.”

  Odo nodded. Then the two investigators headed off in different directions.

  Chapter 12

  Quark stared into the blackness. It’s darker than death or night, he thought as he felt a growing (and, considering the gag, futile) urge to scream. His backside hurt where he’d landed on it.

  Fighting the bindings on his wrists and legs, he crawled to where he thought the door had been, then inched up until he was standing. Precariously. He placed his ear against the door and listened. Nothing. But someone had been out there before, so probably someone would be out there now.

  He took a deep breath and started thumping the wall the way he had before. With his head. Hard. And squealing a muffled cry of agony each time he did.

  Bang! “Ow!”

  Bang! “Ow!”

  Bang! “Owwwwww!”

  And suddenly the door whisked open.

  Quark’s initial perception of the light from the outer room was of a blinding red flash, but as the throbbing pain in his head began to subside, it softened to a dull yellow. He blinked several times and at last two male Ferengi came into focus in front of him.

  They had very similar faces, and for a moment he wondered if he might be seeing double. Then he noticed that they were dressed differently. He had no idea which one had opened the door previously. He hadn’t thought to study anyone’s wardrobe—which seemed a good idea, now that he got a better look. The one directly in front of him had on an ill-fitting checkered green suit with very large lapels. Quark wouldn’t have allowed it in his bar, let alone his closet. The guy was sucking on a tooth sharpener—a disgusting habit, in Quark’s opinion. He recalled Ishka’s ultimately successful efforts to break Rom of the behavior when the future nagus was going through his “I want to be as coo
l as the other guys” phase while attending (and failing) at the Capital City Brokerage Academy.

  The other Ferengi had flabby bare arms that poked out from a shiny orange vest. His baggy pants were burgundy colored, and looking at the two hues together made Quark’s head hurt even more.

  Well, these are a couple of real winners.

  Still, they were the ones in control of the situation. He’d gotten them to open the door again, but facing his tormentors couldn’t really be considered much of a victory. Nevertheless, their slovenly appearance emboldened him and lifted his spirits. They didn’t look to be the brightest bricks in the bank, so he decided to take a chance on defending himself with his most powerful weapon: his gift of gab.

  Or rather, he decided, he would as soon as he got them to remove the gag. He began to grunt at them.

  “What’s that he’s saying, Bakke?” the Ferengi in orange asked.

  “I think he’s thanking us, Rascoe, because he knows,” the other said, turning and looking directly into Quark’s eyes, “that in a minute WE’RE GONNA PUT HIM OUT OF HIS FRINXING MISERY!”

  If the statement was meant to frighten him into silence, it only served to make Quark start grunting faster. Finally—whether out of frustration or curiosity, Quark couldn’t tell—the Ferengi in the orange vest pulled a shiny hunting blade from his belt. Light from the outer room flashed over its polished surface as he waved it in front of his prisoner’s face. Then he stuck the blade under the gag—and cut it free.

  Refreshing air rushed into Quark’s gaping mouth for the first time in . . . in . . .

  In truth, he wasn’t sure how long he’d been trussed and gagged. But as quickly as the oxygen filled his lungs, he pushed it out, shaping it into his finest salesmanship spiel.

  “Gentlemen,” he began. “It might surprise you to know that I’m aware of what you’re experiencing right now. You feel that you’ve got yourself a problem.”

  The Ferengi with the blade held it closer to Quark’s throat.

  “Aaannnnddd . . . I . . . I know that I may seem to be that problem,” Quark faltered as he attempted to lean back away from the blade without falling over. “Yes, it’s true that I saw what you gentlemen did to Hilt. And I suspect that you’re not quite sure what to do with me. At least I hope you’re not. But please allow me to assist you with your evaluation.” He cleared his throat to give his next statement more impact. “You see, I’m not just your average troublesome witness. I’m the nagus’s brother. The nagus’s brother. Think about it.”

  One of his two captors rolled his eyes at this. The other made an extremely rude noise sucking on his tooth sharpener.

  The response was somewhat less than he’d imagined, but Quark plowed forward. “And, uh, that makes me more valuable than you know. You shouldn’t be viewing me as an enemy. You should be viewing me as an asset. A huge asset. And what I mean by that—”

  “Stop . . . talking!” Green Suit barked.

  “Okay,” Quark responded obediently, only slightly cowed. “Okay, I can be quiet. But I really think you need to understand how listening to me would be to your advantage.”

  The two Ferengi exchanged glances. And Green Suit—That’s Bakke, Quark thought, matching his name and description in his head—lifted his eyes toward the heavens. Orange Vest—Rascoe—matched the movement, then looked back at Bakke and shrugged. Suddenly, Bakke pushed the button that slid the door shut, leaving Quark once again in the dark.

  At least they didn’t knock me over this time, he thought. He leaned against the door, allowing the minutes to pass. He could hear them talking—but not what they were saying. And then everything was so quiet that he almost drifted to sleep.

  At last he heard—or perhaps felt more than heard—the pounding of two sets of feet coming closer. And the door again whisked open.

  “Get him outta there,” Bakke said, and Rascoe obediently lifted Quark by the scruff of his neck.

  Clearly he was stronger than those flabby arms suggested.

  As his bound feet left the floor, Quark began to scream, fear of the unknown finally getting the best of him. But the scream was abruptly cut off when Rascoe dropped him on the floor like a sack of larval swamp tubers.

  I’m out, he thought. I’m out of there! Out of that awful—

  —Storage closet? As he glanced back through the open door at his recent prison, he noted for the first time a cluster of cleaning supplies on some high shelves and a programmable floor mop in the corner. They had me in a storage closet?

  He would have been incensed at the indignity of it all if he’d had time. But Rascoe quickly grabbed him under the armpits, Bakke took hold of his bound ankles, and the two of them began to drag him up a nearby flight of stairs.

  A very steep flight of stairs.

  And Quark’s buttocks slammed against every single step as they climbed.

  Bang! “Ow!”

  Bang! “Ow!”

  Bang! “Owwwwww!”

  Chapter 13

  My dear Nerys,

  I spent a good portion of today trying to recover the ground that I lost yesterday when Rom—

  Well, never mind that. The interruption gave me an opportunity to regenerate, so I was able to start this day fresh.

  I went back to one of the saloons I visited yesterday. I wanted to ask the bartender—a Ferengi named Pug—a few more questions, hopefully without the presence of an eavesdropping barfly whose proximity had given Pug a sudden case of laryngitis.

  But neither one was in the bar. A young Argelian woman was serving up drinks to the afternoon crowd. She had long red hair that made me think of yours. It seems that Pug hadn’t shown up for his shift, and she was filling in. She told me she assumed Pug was ill.

  That was disappointing, but an investigator learns to play the cards he’s dealt. I described the Ferengi barfly to her, making sure to mention an important detail: the tooth sharpener he’d been sucking on. Did she know him? I asked.

  As it turned out, she did, and she was happy to spill everything she knew about the unsavory fellow, beginning with his name: Bakke.

  Fara—the Argelian—described him as a “scumbag” who ran up substantial monthly tabs that Pug always took care of.

  That piqued my curiosity. I asked her, “What does Bakke do for a living?”

  “Nothing, as far as I can tell,” she responded. “He’s always talking about what a big deal he’s going to be when his casino business takes off.”

  “Does he have a casino?”

  After she stopped laughing, Fara expressed the opinion that from what she’d seen, Bakke didn’t have enough latinum to buy himself a drink, let alone a casino.

  “Why do you think Pug covers his tab?” I asked.

  She shrugged and said, “You can’t ask Pug questions like that. He just clams up. It’s odd, though. Pug acts like Bakke is his boss or something. Like he’s important. Gint knows where he gets that idea!”

  Playing a hunch, I described Hilt to her, and asked if she’d ever seen him come in.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen him,” she said. “Comes in once in a while, and if Bakke’s here at the same time, they split a pitcher of hot millipede juice. Well, at least until last week.”

  “What happened last week?” I asked.

  “They had an argument. Ended with Bakke throwing a pitcher at Hilt.”

  “What were they arguing about?”

  “Who knows? Bakke was yelling something about slugs. Like ‘Keep your nose outta my slugs or you won’t have a nose!’ ”

  I’ve been looking for a lead on something called Sludge Liquid Investments, so I asked Fara if the word she’d heard Bakke say might have been “sludge.”

  But of course she couldn’t say.

  Nor could she say where Bakke lives. She claimed that she didn’t want to know.

  I tried a different tack.
“What about Pug? Do you know where he lives?”

  She looked me straight in the eye. “Why would you want to know that?” she asked.

  “Maybe I want to bring him something to make him feel better,” I said.

  To my surprise, she put her hand on top of mine, and said, “How about if I tell you where I live? Maybe you could bring something to make me feel better.”

  I’ll be honest. I didn’t know how to respond. I wasn’t sure if she wanted latinum or . . . something else.

  I vow, Nerys, I had done nothing to provoke this behavior on her part.

  But I did want to find Pug, so we began to negotiate. And eventually, she gave me the address.

  I’m on my way there now.

  Chapter 14

  The tram route didn’t go anywhere near the address Fara provided for Pug, and Odo knew he was unlikely to find a skimmer willing to take him into that neighborhood.

  So the Changeling decided to walk.

  It was raining when Odo left the bar. Glancing out the window, Fara had described the precipitation he was about to encounter as thloppering.

  He knew that the Ferengi language had 178 words for rain, each describing moisture of a certain type and severity. Although Odo wasn’t familiar with all of them, he decided that thloppering must fall somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of intensity.

  By the time he got to Pug’s neighborhood, however, he realized that his estimate had been low. Much, much too low. It was as if the sky had come down and wrapped itself around every unlucky soul who had the misfortune to be outside. The sheet of precipitation embraced Odo like the Great Link . . . except where the Great Link was warm and nurturing, the rain was cold and bleak and offered no sustenance.

  There were no visible signs of illumination at Pug’s humble shack. Odo considered the possibilities. If Pug was home alone, sick or not, he’d probably have turned the lights on by now. If he had company, he’d also have turned the lights on by now. Of course, he could have hightailed it out of town, spooked by the questions Odo had asked at the bar. Or he could be sleeping.