Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights II Streets of Shadows - Michael Reaves [75]
Turning away from the seemingly paralyzed Nuknog, Jax searched the room with his gaze and the Force. Where was Den?
“Interesting thing, reputations. They’re so often undeserved.”
Stepping from behind the same dividing curtain that had earlier revealed the now chastised bodyguard, the Sullustan rejoined his companion. Squirming beneath his right arm but failing to break free was the Lonjair. With a flourish, Den dumped him in front of the Jedi.
“My friend, meet the real Spa Fon.”
Jax looked from their supposed host down to the slightly built Lonjair. “You’re Spa Fon?”
“Don’t hurt me!” the Lonjair whimpered. Black spots of panic had broken out all over his body. His four eyes were rolling in so many directions at once that looking at them made Jax dizzy.
“I’m just a simple dealer in wanted goods,” the bona fide Spa Fon whined. “I take but I don’t harm. Don’t hit me, please!” Jax noticed that the thick patois the Lonjair had affected earlier had been replaced by perfectly understandable Basic. Off to the side, Sele growled something unflattering under his breath. The unabashed display of cowardice on the part of his former employer forced the Cathar to look away lest he share in the Lonjair’s shame.
Den gestured toward Jax. “My friend spoke the truth: we’re not police. We’re independent contractors, doing a job. Except we don’t hide behind a disguised droid.” He looked contemptuously back at the bogus Nuknog. “Now, for the last time—how and why did you murder the artist Ves Volette?”
Four desperate eyes goggled up at the Sullustan and the Jedi. “I didn’t, I didn’t! Not I, nor any of my people! Sure, I wanted more of his light sculptures. They’re quick and easy money. But I swear, I steal but I don’t kill!”
Jax leaned forward and reached out. The Force that he perceived as linear extensions of himself, as threads of purposeful intangibility, touched the pitiful creature lying before him. It took only a moment. “He’s telling the truth.”
* * *
“What now?” Den asked as they headed back toward the terminal.
“Back to our place,” Jax said. “I have Rhinann engaged in some research on an unrelated matter that I want to check on.”
Den shrugged. “Whatever.” He checked his chrono. “Just as well—it’s almost happy hour.”
nineteen
Rhinann sat before his access console, pondering his next action.
It had seemed a simple enough appeal from Jax: find out everything still extant about his father, Lorn Pavan, a small-time information broker, dealer in stolen goods, and, before that, clerical assistant employed by the Jedi Temple. All of this two decades and more in the past. A straightforward request for anyone save one of the Elomin, who were accustomed to seeing labyrinthine complexities and subterfuge beneath the surface of anything that seemed initially innocent. The fact that Jax had also enjoined him not to speak of this task to I-Five only added to Rhinann’s suspicion. He had made it seem casual enough, like an afterthought—“Oh, and by the way …”—but his studied insouciance only made Rhinann the more wary of a hidden agenda. For an Elomin, the concern was never about being too paranoid—it was about being paranoid enough.
“Open channel,” he murmured to the console. The holoproj responded by showing him the gateway to the HoloNet. Rhinann interlaced his fingers and pushed his palms out, limbering up his digits and cracking his knuckles. Then he bent over the instrumentation projection.
Five hours later he pushed back his formfit chair and stretched, feeling the muscles of his rhachis reluctantly unkink. He was too deep in thought to be aware of the trilling sound made by the passage of his breath over his vibrating tusks.
There was much to think about.
What he’d managed to put together was fascinating. Jax’s father had been a minor-level accountant and