They closed in, disregarding him, and I cracked their heads together hard enough to make their knees bend like rubber. Then I took back my Quantrell and left them holding each other up like a pair of skohl addicts.
"You can phonovise me at the Argonaut Club if you change your mind about that weekend on Phobos," I told the redhead. "But don't wait too long or this will have gone the way of all credits."
I tucked the check away and went out with Perry Acree trailing apologetically at my heels. Shanig had sent him to bring back the smiley it seemed, so I let him tag along. He left the Annabelle with Joey under his arm and that mesmerized Sunday-services look on his face, and I strolled down to Martian Bankings with my check.
It wasn't really a surprise to find that Shanig had stopped payment on it. What did give me the devil of a turn, though, was realizing that he must have double-dealt me about the Annabelle, too. If he wouldn't honor a five-thousand-credit contract he'd certainly balk at giving up a twenty-thousand-credit ship.
I broke all sprint records back to the spaceyards and slammed the Annabelle's port practically in the faces of Captain Giles and a squad of patrolies who had been sent by Shanig to secure his latest acquisition.
Giles and his crew were yelling blue murder when I cut in the Annabelle's jets. A moment later they were racing like mad to beat the apron-flash of the blastoff.
It was all my own fault, I told myself. I should have suspected that desk-pad-and-stylus snare of Shanig's—he had slipped a telewriter plate under my contract release, and when I signed it I signed another paper, by remote control, in another office. A paper that surrendered my smiley and also my equity in the Annabelle.
All I had now was a worthless check and a ship spaced in defiance of legal foreclosure. I'd be lucky, I figured, if I didn't owe Shanig a few thousand credits into the bargain.
I didn't hit for open space, knowing that Captain Giles would have a radar spotting-net out for me. Instead I swung the Annabelle eastward and whizzed over Syrtis Major toward the abandoned oxygen-reduction plant where I had hidden Cora, my other smiley. I needed a hideout while I figured out a campaign to clear myself, and there was a flimsy old warehouse at the oxy-plant that would screen the Annabelle nicely.