Aminni drew her fingertip around the lip of her glass.
“We-ell,” she said and stuck her tongue out at him a little. Across the bar, her roommate, Khyys, made a mildly obscene gesture of encouragement. Aminni ignored her. “I used to. But he was a jerk. I broke up with him awhile ago.”
“Does he know that?” the officer asked, putting his hand on her knee.
“You bet he does. I put him and all his crap in the hall outside my berth.”
“Of course you did,” he said as if he was talking to himself.
“He’d been stealing my stuff. I told him one more time, and he was out. And then it was one more time. And then he was out. I kind of miss him, though. Not him him. I just kind of … y’know.” She locked her gaze on his. “Miss.”
The smile came again, long, and slow, and Aminni felt herself blush a little. She tried to count back how many drinks she’d had. It might have been more than three. Well, what the hell. Only live once. She moved forward in the seat, lost her balance a little, caught herself, and kissed his cheek. His arm curled around her, his hand against her waist as if it belonged there. She bit her lips a little and lifted an eyebrow.
“Probably I shouldn’t have kicked him out,” she said, her voice a little lower than usual. “Probably I should have called you. You deal with things like that, don’t you?”
“Missing, you mean?”
“Thieves.”
“That, too,” he agreed.
“How long have you been in security?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Depends on how you count it.”
She excused herself to the women’s room to check her makeup, and when she came back out he was gone. She spent the rest of the night sitting with Khyys and her friends from resource management, feeling cranky and let down. Her night didn’t hit bottom until it was almost time to go home.
“What’s the matter?” Khyys asked.
“My datapad,” Aminni said, pressing a hand to her belt. “I thought I brought it, but it must be back at …”
Even drunk, she had the physical memory of a man’s hand around her waist, his fingers against her body.
“Son of a bantha,” she said.
“Baby?” Japet said, stepping into the corridor. He was wearing a splash of cologne and held a fistful of flowers he’d bought for half a credit from a vending machine on the fourth level. “Minni-baby? I got your message. You here?”
In the shadows, something moved, and Japet smiled a little.
“I see you back there,” he said. “I knew you were gonna call me. I told you, you remember? I told you you’d call me. You can’t go without your big Japet man, can you? No, you can’t.”
“You might be surprised,” a man’s voice said behind him.
Japet whirled. The man in the shadows wore an Imperial officer’s uniform, but the face was wrong. Not deformed or anything; it just belonged someplace else.
“Who are you?” Japet demanded. “Where’s Aminni?”
The man smiled. “Wait for it. It’ll come.”
Japet narrowed his eyes. He knew the guy. He’d seen him before, and recently. And then with a rush of ice in his veins, he knew. He spun around, half expecting the Wookiee to be standing behind him. Fear lit his nerves and he stumbled back.
“Please, Captain Solo, don’t kill me,” Japet said. “I’m sorry. It was Baasen. He made me.”
Solo spread his hands, smiling without the expression ever reaching his eyes. “You know nobody ever believes that line, right? No offense taken. I’ve used it a couple of times myself. I’m just telling you it never works.”
“I’m sorry. Please don’t shoot me,” Japet said. He tripped over his own feet, falling backward. The flowers scattered on the pristine corridor floor. The rebel pilot knelt beside him, blaster in hand.
“So here’s the thing. I know why you did it. Baasen promised to pay you. I’m a businessman. I understand that math. But because of you, I missed my cargo. And I have to find it now. You’re going to help me.”
“I can’t,” Japet said, tears welling in his eyes. Baasen had sworn that Solo would be off planet almost as soon as they nabbed him. He didn’t want to guess what had happened to the others.
“You should reconsider that,” Solo said, his voice getting rough.
“I want to! It’s not that I don’t want to! I can’t. I don’t know where she is. It’s not like she told me anything.”
“She told you enough to set a trap for me.”
“She didn’t tell me anything,” Japet said. “I found out about the drop because two of the guys from the rebels were talking about it. I did some work for her a few times because the pay was good. Little stuff. Working lookout when the guys were carrying a couple of data disks one place to another. Getting some dirt on some Imperial somebody.”
“Enough she started thinking you were on her side,” Solo said.
“I’ve only ever seen Hark a few times. But there’s this place down on level eight where these guys hang out sometimes, and I was there and everyone was a little drunk, and someone was talking about how they weren’t going to have to deal with any more of Hark’s errands because she was pulling out.”
“That’s the kind of talent she’s got to work with?” Solo said, shaking his head. “No wonder it went south.”
“I guess. Yeah. They said she was using the fountain drop. I took it to Baasen because he can use things like that sometimes.”
“So you didn’t mean anything against me, you were just trying to get Hark’s operation blown.”
“Baasen pays really well,” Japet said sorrowfully.
“Don’t ask where that money came from. All right. How do I find Hark now?”
“I don’t know,” Japet said.
“There has to be some way to signal her,” Solo said, looking down the corridor as if he were a hunter on a trail. “Does she know you on sight?”
“Don’t know. Like I said, I only met her a few times. But she’s got a reputation for remembering stuff you wouldn’t think. So maybe. I don’t know.”
“If I shot you, would it make the local news?”
“You know what you could do?” Japet said, snapping his fingers. “You could talk to the guy who said she was setting up the fountain drop. His name’s Wirrit, and his place isn’t far from here.”