"Fine," said Brandy. "Just remember. If this camouflage is bullshit, you won't be the first one that gets hurt. But I can guarantee you'll be the second."
Chocolate Harry put his index finger in the middle of his chest. "Brandy," he said, "a man that rode with the Outlaws ain't scared of much the Legion can throw at him."
Brandy stepped forward and grabbed the collar of his uniform and lifted. Big as he was, Harry found his heels coming off the ground. "Maybe you should be scared of what I can throw at you. Or of what I can throw you at, " she growled. She let go of his collar, and Harry fell back onto his heels, staggering a step.
"Uh, check, Brandy," he said. But she had already turned around and was stalking away from him. Harry reached into his hip pocket, pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his brow. He swiped it across his face, then took a look at it. It was camouflage purple. "Awww, shit!" he said and stuffed it back in his pocket.
Phule was working up a good sweat on the rowing machine, getting into a rhythm that was comfortable without being too easy, putting his back into the effort. He'd been neglecting his workouts for too long, and it felt good to get into the routine again. When his communicator buzzed, he muttered a single annoyed monosyllable, then put down the oars and lifted his left wrist to mouth level. "What's up, Mother?"
"Good news, sweetie," came the saucy voice. "Sushi says he's identified the man who robbed that restaurant."
"Great news, for sure," said Phule. Then, after a pause, "Uh, it's not one of us, is it?"
"Well, it's not me, and I'm pretty sure it's not you," said Mother. "Who else did you have in mind, lover boy?"
"What I'd really love is for it to be a civilian," said Phule. "But it looks as if I'm going to have to talk to Sushi to get a straight answer. Put me through to him, will you?"
"Why, I can't believe you'd insult me that way," said Mother, doing a passable imitation of wounded innocence. "I give you straight answers all the time, when you ask the right questions. It's not my fault when you ask a wrong one. But have it your way, sugar pie." Her voice cut off and Phule heard an electronic signaclass="underline" Sushi's communicator signal ringing.
"Hey, Captain, I've spotted our man," said Sushi, after a moment.
"Good news," said Phule. "I was beginning to worry we'd have to hand the case over to the local cops and leave the planet without solving it. Is it a civilian you've identified?" After Mother's semiserious reprimand, he'd unconsciously phrased his question in a more precise form.
"Yeah," said Sushi. "Definitely not Legion."
"Well, that's a relief," said Phule. "Have you told the police yet?"
"Nope, I didn't know whether you'd rather let them make the pinch or do it ourselves. Your call, Captain. If you just want to tell the cops, I can handle it and let you get back to work."
Phule shook his head. Then, remembering that Sushi couldn't see him, he said, "I told the Landoor police they couldn't arrest one of our men without my permission. I'll extend their civilians the same courtesy. We'll offer any assistance they'd like and let them decide. Why don't you zip me the data, and I'll pass it on to Landoor authorities."
"You got it, Captain," said Sushi, and he broke off the connection. Phule looked down at the oars he'd let drop and thought for a moment about picking them back up and rowing some more. But he'd broken his rhythm, and he might as well finish this business. He stood up, stretched his arms, and headed for the showers.
Journal #525
The Landooran police were at first reluctant to accept at face value my employer's information that the robber had been identified. Despite his general display of cooperativeness, they retained a degree of suspicion about the motives of the commander of an occupying force. Having intended to reveal the suspect's identity and then gracefully bow out of the police investigation, my employer found himself instead working to show the police how to interpret the evidence and then lending them assistance for the actual arrest. While he could little afford to spare the time or personnel at this critical juncture, the alternative seemed worse to him.
Now the question became how to assist without seeming to take control of the entire operation. It began to become apparent to my employer, as perhaps it should have some time earlier, that the civil authorities on Landoor were not necessarily the most efficient in the Galaxy at their assigned roles.
"Tell me again how you know this guy's the one," said Patrolman Dunstable. He was a big, beefy veteran cop, and he looked at Phule and Sushi with the weary air of having heard every possible story at least twice and not having believed a word. At the moment, they were sitting in a police hovervan, disguised as an antigrav installer's truck, outside the suspect's apartment building, waiting for him to come home from his job. Another team waited inside the building's lobby.
"Well, you gave us copies of the surveillance vids of the restaurant robbery," said Sushi.
"Right," said the cop patronizingly. "And if you looked at 'em, you know they're worth just about nothin.' Those things are so out of focus and jerky that you wouldn't recognize your own wife, half the time."
"Right," said Phule. "But in the Legion, we've got some pretty good equipment for enhancing that kind of raw material. And Sushi's our best computer man-"
"Sure, and you think that's gonna nail the perp," said Dunstable, shaking his head as if Phule had told him he thought the robbery had been committed by little green elves. "I'll tell you, the better computer enhancement gets, the less I trust it. The operator can make it look like anything he wants by the time he's done, and ain't nobody in the world can tell you how he got from where he started to where he ended up."
"Give me a little more credit than that," said Sushi. "We aren't just clearing up the picture; all that does is show us the person's appearance, which a good disguise or plastic surgery is going to change, anyway. With this equipment, I can pick out subtle patterns of movement and posture that are unique to the person, things even a trained actor can't disguise."
"There's another point, too," said Phule. "Sushi has certain contacts that-well, maybe I'd better not say too much about them. But they gave us a much wider sample of suspects than you'd come up with. As our chaplain told you, there are plenty of Landoorans that fit the description of the robber. But the man we're after today doesn't just fit the description, he has the right walk and everything else."
"He'd better have the right fingerprints and DNA profile, too," said the cop. "Arrestin' a citizen for something we can't prove can get us in a lot of trouble."
"Gee, you didn't seem to worry about that when you thought the robber was a legionnaire," said Sushi.
The cop glared at Sushi, but before he could say anything, Phule hissed, "Here he comes!"
They turned to look out the windshield along the street. Sure enough, here came a black-garbed figure, whose dark pompadour and long sideburns were visible even at a distance, rounding the corner just behind a young woman pushing a baby carriage. Dunstable pressed a communicator button to alert the indoor team, then turned to Phule and said, "That looks like the perp, all right. But like you said, there's dozens of guys look like that. How do we know this is the one who robbed Takarnine's joint?"
"This has got to be him," said Sushi. "He's the only member of the Church of the King who lives in this part of town. It'd be way too much of a coincidence for another one to show up here right when he's due home from work."