Being a bank manager she was skilled at the sympathetic nods.
"I see. How big an advance, may I ask?"
"One third."
"And that agreement, it was signed by Fadda Bing, I presume?"
"Correct," Rivqua replied more slowly, sensing a brake chute about to deploy in the otherwise nice conversation.
"And now Fadda Bing is deceased," said the owl with a thoughtful tap of her chin again, like she was laying out the facts in her mind, even though they weren't that complicated. "Which is one of those things that occasionally occurs, for better or worse, and is known by insurance adjusters as an act of higher powers beyond anyone's control or choice."
"It was murder," Zana said, adding with a shrug, "And someone committed it."
"Indeed, by poisoning, like you said," the owlish banker woman replied. "Most unfortunate. Regardless, it is certainly beyond our control and for the purposes of banking, utterly irrelevant."
"Okay," said Rivqua with some caution, "how about, for the purposes of getting down to what actually is relevant, let's discuss our money. That should be within our control, right? This being a bank and all? And we being owed some?"
The big owl sighed deeply and clasped her fingers around her massive tummy. She looked down at her toes. "Since Fadda Bing is the one who signs for the salaries of visiting artists, and he is now unable to sign for it, I'm afraid we have a problem."
The girls were not liking this. "A problem?"
The brake chute was fully inflated.
No comments:
Post a Comment