The Alternative Detective (Hob Draconian) by Robert Sheckley Page A

people are interested in Alex. People don’t keep up that kind of interest unless there’s money in it.”
    She thought about that. “I see what you mean,” she said after a while.
    “Good. Then what are you going to tell me?”
    “Hob,” she said, “the best thing I can say at this point is, it’s worth five thousand dollars to me to find Alex.”
    “Is that real money or play money?”
    She flushed. “Are you calling me a liar again?”
    “Not at all. I’m just pointing out that I have expenses, people to hire, bribes to spread around, plus my own payroll to meet.”
    “I can give you a thousand dollars right now.” She opened her purse, looking at me.
    “Tell you what,” I said, “give me two thousand now, and eight more when I turn him up.”
    “That’s ten thousand dollars!”
    “Yes.”
    “This isn’t a very nice thing you’re doing, holding me up like this in the middle of a case.”
    “You can take your complaint to the guild. It’s little enough, considering that you still haven’t told me anything useful.”
    “All right,” she said. “How soon do you think you can turn him up?”
    “Get your money ready,” I said. “I figure three days, a week at the most, and this case is going to blow wide open.”
    Afterwards I was to marvel at my prophetic soul.
     
     

 
     
    HARRY, MARIA
    26
     
     
    Harry Hamm felt a little self-conscious, walking down the pier at the port of Ibiza with Maria Guasch beside him. But he felt good. Maria was a handsome woman with a lot of class, and he was happy to be with her. He had begun hoping that they wouldn’t find out about the Guasch brothers too soon, so maybe they could have lunch together.
    But then Antonio Plannells told Maria that he’d seen the brothers leave. Once beyond the breakwater they’d set a course for Barcelona.
    Maria frowned when she heard that. Barcelona was far from their usual fishing grounds. “Why would they be going there? Antonio, could you try to call them on your radio?”
    “They’d be beyond my range,” Plannells said. But he agreed to give it a try. He told Maria and Hamm to wait on the deck while he went below into the crowded, messy little cabin and tried to raise the brothers on short wave.
    It was a bright, fair day. The wind whipped the little dark tendrils of hair that escaped from Maria’s kerchief. A white cruise ship from Mallorca was just coming around the island of Tagomago. Harry found that he was ridiculously happy, and for no reason he could think of.
    Then Plannells came back. “I didn’t get them. But I talked to Diego Tur, who saw them before he turned for home.”
    “Where were they?” Maria asked.
    “About twenty miles east of Cadaqués.”
    “Where’s that?” Harry asked.
    “North of Barcelona,” Maria told him, “almost in the Golfe du Lion.”
    She turned to Antonio Plannells and questioned him in rapid-fire Ibicenco. Then turned back to Harry.
    “They seemed to be going north. In the direction of Montpellier, or Marseilles.”
    Harry drove Maria to her finca. He wanted to ask her out again but he didn’t know how to go about it. You just didn’t invite Ibicenca women out for a drink.
    Later that day, reading the newspaper in a café in Santa Gertrudis, he came across an article, on page five of the International Herald-Tribune. Harry read it twice, then decided he’d better telephone Hob.
    Making an international telephone call from Ibiza is a major undertaking that can use up the better part of a day. Harry drove to Santa Eulalia, Ibiza’s third largest town. Some sort of festival was going on; the streets were crowded and there wasn’t a parking space to be found. Harry circled the streets twice, finally drove nearly a quarter of a mile out of town to the Hotel Ses Rocques where his friend Carlitos, who guarded the parking lot, let him park free. Harry started along the path back to town, exchanging good-natured pleasantries with friends and acquaintances he met along the