Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 02_ Ruin - Michael A. Stackpole [56]
“What now?”
“I have a new place to look. I’ll talk there, I’ll get another place, and so on until we find her.”
Anakin turned sideways to slip between two hulking Ithorians, then caught back up with Chalco. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“What you’re doing. You manage to survive without really doing anything. You act like you know these people, but I’d bet you’ve never seen a one of them before. You just talked to that guy and he told you something.”
Chalco’s stubble bristled as he smiled. “I don’t know these specific people, Anakin, but I know them by type. The guy in the news shop, he hears a lot of rumors. People expect him to know things. He barters for information. I asked about secret Imp files at the university, he sent me to a guy.”
“But you didn’t pay him.”
“Sure I did.” Chalco nodded. “I told him that a shrewd operator on this rock could make a lot of money in the short term buying up bulk lots of rooms in hotels.”
“What?”
Chalco pulled Anakin into an alley and bent down a bit so they were face-to-face. Farther down the alley a ragged Gotal looked at them, but a snarl from Chalco sent him shambling down to the far end. “What I told him only makes sense, Anakin. This world is a nice world. Lots of people would want to live here. Now, the refugees coming from the worlds the Yuuzhan Vong have hit, they’ll end up here, too. They’ll need rooms and someone will pay for them. This guy buys blocks—or, more like, passes the information on to someone who will buy them—and someone will buy them off him. Inside a year he can double his money. I gave him information for information.”
“I never thought—”
“You never had to, kid, but I know your father did.” Chalco straightened up and tousled Anakin’s hair again. “Sure, I thieve a bit, but pretty much I’m a trader, like your father or Talon Karrde. I carry my inventory in my head. I look at things, I figure out the angles, and I make something out of them.”
Anakin frowned as they moved back onto the street again. “Okay, I understand that, but don’t you see that what you’re doing is harmful?”
“Harmful? Get out of here.”
“No, think about it. Let’s say the rooms get bought up and the price is raised to make it hard on the refugees.”
Chalco smiled. “The government will help them out.”
“Sure, but where does the government get its money?”
“Taxpayers.” The man winked at him. “I know where you’re going, but, hey, kid, you think I pay taxes?”
“Nope, but the people you thieve off do. If they have less money, they don’t have the things you want to take. You pay no matter how you try to Hutt out of it.”
Chalco’s mouth opened and then closed with a snap. “You want me to starve, don’t you?”
“No, just to consider the consequences of your actions.” Anakin sighed. “If you give information that allows speculators to profit off other speculators, the only folks getting hurt are going to be those who put their money at risk. The greedy people get hurt, not folks who have had their lives destroyed.”
“I get it. That leaves me what to work with? Produce futures? Commodities? They’ll do.” Chalco arched an eyebrow at Anakin. “You know, that ‘smart boy’ comment I made earlier, I didn’t mean nothing by it.”
“Yeah, I know. Let’s go.”
Their second stop took them to a curio shop. Anakin waited on the street while Chalco went in. Even before the man returned Anakin could sense the pleasure pouring off him. “Told you something, did he?”
“Yeah, where he sent the other person looking for that same information.” Chalco smiled carefully as he hustled Anakin along. “Said he’d forgotten about it, but his cash account came up short at noon. He played back the surveillance holocam output and caught his conversation with a Twi’lek. She must have blanked his memory, but the holo still had her, just like your uncle told me it would. She talked to him three, maybe four