The Sheriff of Yrnameer (29 page)

“Oh, by the way, Sheriff, have you had a chance to meet Geldar?”

“Can’t say I have. Nice to meet you,” said Cole.

“Pleasure’s all mine, Sheriff Cole,” said Geldar, and Cole wondered if he had imagined the slightly amused emphasis—
Sheriff
Cole. And as he pondered that, the information danced its way across the border.

It couldn’t be.

Impossible.

“Well, we don’t want to distract you,” said Mayor Kimber without irony, and the two continued on their way, Geldar giving Cole a little salute.

Cole watched them walk off.

Geldar the sembluk.
If
that was his name, and that’s what he was. Probably. Almost certainly. Then again, thought Cole, maybe he and
Bacchi weren’t the only criminals hiding out in the village of Yrnameer. And if so, there might be something else, something so valuable … Impossible.

“Three aces,” said Bacchi.

It was evening. Cole had called an early halt to the construction efforts and sent the exhausted townspeople home. He and Bacchi were once again on the porch, playing cards, Cole distracted.

“Three aces, Cole,” repeated Bacchi.

“What? Oh, right.”

“You know, you could at least put up a struggle and make it interesting,” said Bacchi, dealing another hand. “You’re not even paying attention.”

Cole grunted and buried his face in his cards, but what he was seeing was Geldar. He’d watched him surreptitiously for the remainder of the day, staring at him, hoping for some insight. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Because it was absurd, that’s why. Could it be him? No, of course not. And even if it was, that didn’t mean that he actually had the thing. Ridiculous. A sembluk. Geldar the sembluk.

“Sembluk,” said Bacchi.

Cole looked up, startled. “What?”

“I said, there’s that sembluk.”

Cole followed his gaze. Geldar was ambling down Main Street, carrying a few cloth shopping bags in his hands.

“You ever see a sembluk before?” asked Bacchi.

“Not before coming here, no.”

“Remember that guy, Stirling Zumi, the one who told everyone that he’d trademarked the trademark symbol?”

Crap. Of
course
Bacchi would be wondering the same thing. Keeping his voice neutral, Cole said, “Sure. Said he collected a royalty each time something said ‘TM,’ had everyone investing in that gigantic pyramid scheme. Are we playing, or what?”

“Biggest one ever, they say,” said Bacchi, shaking his head in admiration. “Suckers bought in, thought they’d be making a slice of his profit. Except, of course, there is no profit. He makes billions, everyone else gets screwed.”

“Whatever. Two cards.”

Cole didn’t tell Bacchi that he’d met Stirling before. He’d worked for him briefly, helping Stirling launder his ill-gotten gains by shifting some merchandise from Point A to Point B, the two planets Cole hated the most. Cole remembered him as a fat, loudmouthed guy with greasy, slicked-back hair, a human who liked to drink and take stupid risks and brag about it.

“Billions, they say,” repeated Bacchi.

“What’s your point?” said Cole.

He also didn’t tell Bacchi that he already knew what his point was.

“My point is, they say he went kind of crazy. Got all spiritual, gave it all up. Gave away most of his money, ran away. And you know what they say he did, so that no one would ever be able to find him?”

Turn himself into a sembluk, thought Cole.

“Turn himself into a sembluk,” said Bacchi, with a triumphant little smile.

“You believe that nonsense?” said Cole.

“It’s true!” said Bacchi. “I hear humans can do that! Won’t make you into a cannibal or anything!”

“Hmm,” said Cole, doubtfully. “I’ll raise you.”

“And here’s the other thing,” said Bacchi, dropping his voice.

Cole already knew about the other thing. The diamond.

“A
diamond
. They say he didn’t
really
give it all away—he kept enough to buy a neutron star diamond.”

A neutron star diamond, the ultimate status symbol. Just a tiny microscopic speck, the remnants of the core of a neutron star after the mining companies were done with it.

“One of those things, they’re worth one hundred million, easy. They say you can barely see it, but it weighs tons,” said Bacchi.

“Yeah, I heard that.”

“So …,” said Bacchi.

“So?”

“So …,” he repeated, gesturing with his nose toward Geldar, who was getting closer.

“Oh, c’mon,” said Cole.

“Could be. This is the perfect place to hole up! Who would come looking for him here?”

“Bacchi, you know what I heard about that guy, that Stirling? That the Saden syndicate caught up to him and made him into something spreadable.”

“Yeah, I heard that, too,” admitted Bacchi.

“So …,” said Cole.

“Could still be him,” said Bacchi.

“Mm-hm. Pair of sixes.”

“Three of a kind.”

“Crap.”

“Hey,” said Bacchi, trying to talk without moving his mouth as he shuffled the cards, “he’s coming over here.”

Cole looked up. Geldar was now ambling toward them.

“Hi, there, Sheriff,” said Geldar when he got close. “Can a guy play some cards?”

Cole had been working very hard over the past several hours, devising a strategy to cultivate Geldar’s trust and elicit the truth. It would be a subtle, multistep process, one requiring a surgeon’s skill and patience.

Midway through the first hand, Bacchi started right in, stomping all over Cole’s beautiful, sterile operating theater with crap-encrusted work boots.

“Soooo,”
began Bacchi, utterly failing to keep his tone casual, “where you from?”

“Oh, you know, here and there,” said Geldar. “Raise you two.”

“How long you been here?” said Bacchi.

“Mmm … a little bit now.”

“What did you do before you came here?” pressed Bacchi.

“Oh, this and that,” said Geldar with disinterested equanimity. “Yourself?”

Bacchi shifted uncomfortably before answering. “This and that.”

Cole sat back, annoyed.

“What about you, Sheriff Cole?” asked Geldar.

There it was again, that whiff of emphasis. Maybe it
was
him, daring Cole to guess.

“Illegal things, mostly,” said Cole.

“Oh,” said Geldar, sounding a bit taken aback. “Oh. Ha ha ha!”

“Ha ha,” said Cole.

Geldar lay down his cards. “Flush.”

Cole tossed his in, followed by Bacchi.

“Look at that,” said Bacchi, indicating Geldar’s hand. “All
diamonds
.” He looked at Geldar hopefully. Cole scratched his ear and looked away.

“Excuse me?” said Geldar.

“All of your cards … are
diamonds
.”

“Uh … yep. That’s what makes it a flush, right?” said Geldar.

“Get a flush with
diamonds
, you have to be a real
star
.”

“Let me see, is it my turn to deal?” said Geldar.

No. It’s not him, thought Cole. He couldn’t imagine the Stirling he knew responding like that: the sincerity, the hint of honest confusion. Plus, look at him: the shell, the sluggy skin, the three eyes … who would do that to themselves?

They kept playing, Bacchi not letting it go. When Geldar won three hands in a row, Bacchi said, “Wow. You just keep winning. It’s like your …
trademark
.”

“I think I just got lucky a few times.”

“Maybe you’ll get another flush with
diamonds
.”

“I suppose that’s possible, but not very probable.”

“Hey, look—I’m stacking my coins in a
pyramid
.”

“Yes, I see that.”

Geldar’s voice had acquired the cautious, patronizing tone reserved for the cognitively or emotionally challenged. More than once he glanced at Cole as if seeking some enlightenment regarding Bacchi’s behavior, or at least moral support. Cole shrugged apologetically.

“These coins, they’re so silvery,” said Bacchi. “Like
sterling
.”

“I think maybe one more hand and I should call it a day,” said Geldar politely. It wasn’t him. Cole knew it without a doubt.

Then Geldar lost the next hand, and said, “Oh, paxeration.”

Cole had no idea what the term meant. All he knew was that he’d only heard it once before, when Stirling Zumi had slopped some wine on his white silk shirt.

Holy farg. It
was
him.

After Geldar left, Bacchi said, “You may not have noticed, but I was doing a little interrogation thing there.”

“Really.”

“Yep. It wasn’t him. There’s no way.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

˙  ˙  ˙

Cole walked slowly back toward the ship that night, his head whirling. So Geldar was Stirling. And if something that improbable was true, why not the other rumor as well? The sheer thought of it was staggering—something so precious, right here in the middle of nowhere.

His heart was thumping with excitement. He had to find some way to divine if Stirling actually had the diamond, and if so, how to go from ascertaining that fact to attaining the item.

Yes, he’d still be in a village that was about to be flattened, on a planet he couldn’t escape. But somehow he knew—he just
knew—
that if he could get his hands on that diamond, everything would somehow work out, that Runk and this absurd situation and all the petty obstacles before him would just fall away, and there would be a new Cole: a Cole who didn’t have to scrabble after crumbs, a Cole who had everything and wanted nothing. A wealthy, happy Cole. A Cole with MaryAnn by his side.

But he was getting ahead of himself. That shimmering future would never materialize unless Cole could confirm that Stirling indeed had the diamond. But how to do that without raising suspicion? How would he ever be able to—and then he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Yes,” whispered Cole.

Yes. That’s how. It might take some time, and the results might be negative, but it would work. Yes.

He started walking again, jaunty now, grinning, almost laughing. “Yes,” he said again, and pumped his fist. As he passed the diner, he glimpsed his ebullient reflection in the large picture window and nodded to himself, the smiling Cole with a potentially glorious future.

And then he stopped dead again, the smile vanishing along with that glorious future, or any future at all.

Through the window he could see MaryAnn sitting at the counter, a half-finished meal in front of her.

That was not what made him stop. It was her companion. Sitting next to her—or, more accurately, covering the five stools next to her—daintily sipping tea, was Kenneth.

Just as the adrenaline was hitting his system, prepping him for a desperate sprint to safety, Cole felt a gentle yet firm squeeze around his ankle. He looked down to find a tentacle looped around his lower leg. He followed the tentacle with his eyes to the diner door, about two meters away, where it flattened and somehow passed under the narrow crevice between the door and the scuffed, coin-shaped white tiles of the entranceway. Cole couldn’t track its path beyond that, but he had little doubt that its final destination was Kenneth.

He felt a tap on his calf. He looked down again. The tip of the tentacle was poking him like an impatient finger. Then it pointed to the interior of the diner, the import of the gesture unmistakable.

Cole looked back up. Kenneth’s eyeballs seemed firmly focused on MaryAnn, not a single one turned in Cole’s direction.

The tentacle prodded him again, and then repeated the pointing gesture, this time more insistently.

“Cole!” said Kenneth when he walked in. “What a wonderful surprise! We were just talking about you!”

“Hi, Kenneth,” said Cole. “Really good to see you.” He nodded at MaryAnn. “MaryAnn.” She returned the nod, but only after a short pause, as if she were considering her options.

“Please, come sit with us,” said Kenneth. A tentacle patted the stool to MaryAnn’s right.

“How could I say no,” said Cole.

“You really couldn’t,” said Kenneth, his tone jolly.

Cole sat. MaryAnn’s gaze followed him, her expression guarded. Cole suspected he knew why.

“I was just telling your friend MaryAnn all sorts of stories about you,” said Kenneth.

Yep, that was why.

“Great,” said Cole. “You know, Kenneth’s always been a kidder. Right, Kenneth?”

“Oh, you know me. I love a good joke.”

“Cole’s a bit of a kidder himself,” said MaryAnn. “Right, Cole?”

“Gosh it’s good to see you, Kenneth,” said Cole, his mouth locked into a rigid approximation of a grin.

“And you too, Cole!”

“You know, I think I should be going,” said MaryAnn, putting some money on the counter. “No, don’t get up,” she said to Cole as she stood.

“MaryAnn …”

She smiled at him, but it was the sort of smile that was a few notches worse than dashing her coffee in his face. “Kenneth, it was very nice to meet you. Very … enlightening. I’m sure we’ll get a chance to talk again?”

“Oh, very definitely,” said Kenneth. “A real honor to meet you, too.”

“Thanks. Well, good night, then,” she said, and left.

Kenneth watched her go with most of his eyeballs. A few remained focused on Cole, who sat quietly, staring straight ahead. The hiccup-named owner was not in evidence. From somewhere in the back Cole could hear dishes being washed.