Chapter 24
“A fake? What do you mean it’s a fake? It can’t be a fake!”
From Odo and Maihar’du’s perspective, Quark’s horrified face sat in the center of a collage of horrified faces. The entire family, with the exception of Bena, was tightly crowded around the bartender in front of Quark’s office communications screen, mouths agape after hearing what they had assumed would be good news.
“I scanned it, Quark,” Odo explained calmly. “The latinum is pure. It’s clearly another forgery.”
Squeezed into the bottom of the transmitted collage, Zek wailed, “This is a disaster!”
“Yes, Zek,” Odo assured him, leaning closer to Zek’s antique. “And it’s your disaster. You gave someone the original scroll, and apparently you got back not one, but two forgeries. The question is, who did you give the original to?”
Now all those faces tilted downward, toward Zek. As they waited for his answer, their expressions became disturbingly accusative. The wizened little man seemed to shrink before Odo’s eyes. It was obvious that he wished he could disappear altogether.
Finally, he murmured exactly what everyone anticipated: “I don’t remember.”
Despite the fact that he had just fulfilled everyone’s expectations, the entire group moaned, even Maihar’du, despite the discomfort to his throat.
Ishka put her arm around her dear one. “Zekkie, listen to me. You remember doing it, right?”
He nodded, looking up at her with some trepidation, as if he expected her to cuff his ears.
Instead, Ishka smiled encouragingly. “You just don’t remember his name?”
“That’s right,” he responded. “I remember talking to someone but . . . I don’t remember his name. I met him during one of those times I was on the station. Here, at the bar. He was always at the bar. Very popular with the ladies.”
On the other end of the conversation, Odo listened carefully. “What did he look like?” he prompted.
“Big fellow,” Zek mumbled. “He was a big fellow . . . with freakishly little ears. Always talking. Yammer, yammer, yammer. And always bragging about the people he knew.” A thought popped into his head, and he turned it around for a moment before speaking again. Then he lifted his gnarled hand to point a knobby finger at the door leading out of Quark’s office. “And he always sat on a stool near the end of the bar.”
Leeta gasped. “That sounds like—”
“Morn!” Quark, Rom, Leeta, and Odo all said in unison.
“He told me he knew the best forger in the quadrant,” Zek said, smiling faintly. “So I asked him to do me a little favor.”