I walked through the city back toward the docks. I was suddenly ravenous and found a tavern that I knew served good food. I sat down at a table close to the back door, ordered some food and an ale and tipped the waitress generously in advance. I hadn't been there long, when a trio of shadows fell across the table.

"You look like you could use a friend," said the oriental gentleman as he sat down across from me. His two female escorts took up positions on either side of us so they could observe the room.

"I have plenty of friends," I replied as I sipped my ale, "especially a good one named DeGroot."

"Yes, he is a very good friend to have," replied the man smiling. "It's a shame your errand wasn't successful."

"Who said it wasn't?" I smiled back at him.

DeGroot lost his composure for the first time since I had known him. "Surely you didn't. . .?"

I continued to smile, a touch of grimness to it, now. "The Baron got everything he ordered and then some. I delivered exactly what he had coming to him. I am, after all, a man of my word, which is why I'm such a good trader."

DeGroot's jaw fell open. "But if you. . .Do you have any idea. . .?" He sat there in stunned silence contemplating me, fury building up in him. He opened his mouth to speak when a man burst through the door. He looked wildly about the room and finding DeGroot, zeroed in on him. He ran to DeGroot and whispered breathlessly into his ear. DeGroot looked shocked, then a slow smile spread across his face. "It does indeed, seem that the good Baron got everything he deserved," he told me. He called the waitress over to our table, ordered food and drink for all of us and insisted on putting it on his tab. "I don't do this very often," he told me, "but these are special circumstances."

"Yes they are," I remarked. "And they have been for some time."

We ate and drank for the rest of the day and DeGroot and his guards escorted me to several other establishments. He arranged to have the Starshine outfitted with new gear and replenished my holds for me. He was quite lavish in his expenditures and when I tried to beg off, insisted, on the basis that I had removed a dangerous rival for him and had made his life easier as a consequence. At the end of the day, he asked if there was anything else I needed or desired. I thought long and hard and could only come up with one request.

"Could you make sure that Pastor Jim is taken care of?" I asked.

DeGroot smiled his slow smile again and assured me that the good pastor would get everything that was due him.