Hanlon shrugged. "Doesn't look like it, does it?"
"Who are you spying for?"
"Who says I was spying?"
"Don't try to quibble with me, Gor Anlo. I want answers, and correct answers, or I'll let my pretty pets here take over, and see if you can elude them."
"And after I get through answering you'll cinder me anyway," Hanlon sneered. "Whatever gave you the idea I'd talk—if I had anything to say, that is?"
The mobster holding him cuffed him. "Don't talk to Ino Yandor that way, you phidi."
Hanlon turned his head and sneered into the man's face. "Watch who you're calling a snake." He twisted suddenly, drove his heel backwards into the man's shin, and pulled free. The fellow, even while yelping with pain, started to draw a flamer when Yandor commanded sharply, "Let him be. He can't outrun the tamous."
Hanlon spoke as though nothing had happened. "What gave you the idea I've been doing anything like you said?" he asked in a conversational tone. "What's this all about?"
"What were you doing, trying to look into—or get into—Adwal Irad's house?"
"That the name of the guy that owns it? Just looking for anything worthwhile I could pick up. Since you got me fired just because I drank a little too much one night, I got to make a living someway."