The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [140]
"Girl, he did a great job. The idea is excellent, I applaud him. To be honest, it was pure dumb luck that I recognized him; the rest of our guys just plain missed him. Too bad he's not playing on our side…"
The Vice-Director's voice was almost tender: a victory invites both magnanimousness and self-criticism. He remembered the little café on Great Castamir's Square, the goblet of Núrnen he had drunk to the gondolier's success, and his verdict: "He is, indeed, an amateur – a brilliant and lucky one, but he'll be lucky once or twice and the third time he'll break his neck…" Now is the third time – no one can stay lucky forever.
"How did you recognize him under the hood?"
"The hood? Oh, you think he is one of the pilgrims?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Of course not. He's a prisoner, the right one in the first pair. His face is covered with a bloody cloth, and they all limp – the leg irons are no joke."
"But the gendarmes…"
"The gendarmes are real, and he's a real prisoner, that's the point! An excellent and really elegant solution. Don't halt or gape – people will notice. Learn from the pros while they're still around, girl… I mean him, not me."
Chapter 51
"I still don't understand… I mean, I don't understand fully," Fay admitted, seeing that her chief was in a great mood and thus predisposed to explain.
"He figured correctly: the gendarmes were sure to attract our attention – a captured uniform is standard cover – but their catch, provided the gendarmes were real, were much less likely to do so. So he became their catch. I don't know how yet, but it's not really important. There are many ways… for example, he could come to Irapuato and spill half a mug of wine on one of them in the local tavern. They'd beat him up, of course (giving him an excuse to bandage his bloodied face), but then they'd take him into the city without hindrance, hiding him in the best possible hideout for a couple months; neither we nor Aragorn's people would look for him in jail. That is, if he wants to lie low; otherwise he could contact one of his people – Alviss, say – through the criminals, and they'd buy him out in a day or two. Well, my plans don't include letting him cool his heels in a jail cell."
Following the gendarmes (who were, indeed, the 'bandit hunters' of Irapuato) at about fifty yards distance, Jacuzzi and his companion reached the harbor police station. The prisoners were divided at that point: four were herded on, while the team leader personally took Tangorn and the mountain man chained to him (Ras-Shua had already identified him as one Chekorello, Sarrakesh's nephew twice removed) into the station. After waiting fifteen minutes for propriety's sake, Jacuzzi went inside, too. When the guard attempted to stop two ragged beggars, he showed him a police commissar's badge (he had plenty of badges on his person, from Admiralty flag captain's to a customs inspector's – the important part was not to mix them up) and drily ordered him to take them to the local chief.
"Commissar Rahmajanian," he introduced himself once in the chief's office. Its occupant, a mussed-looking fat man with hanging jowls who looked like a caricature of a police chief come alive, made a not-entirely-successful attempt to pry his expansive backside out of the chair and greet his visitor: "Senior Inspector Jezin. Have a seat, Commissar. How can I help you? Is the girl from your staff, by the way?"
"Certainly." Fay's disguise had not fooled Jezin for even a second. A bunch of clues had already led Jacuzzi to conclude that the chief was, on the one hand, sufficiently perceptive (which was not surprising, given that the harbor station was a real gold mine, with plenty of contenders for that plum post), and, on other hand, simple and straightforward: for example, his table sported an unopened bottle of Elvish wine, which would have cost him about three months' salary in the Elfstone store on the Three Stars Embankment. Way too brazen, Jacuzzi thought sadly. Fortunately,