With a large nose, muscles the size of pop stars ego and with a beard reaching his belly, I could see straight away that the pilot walking in to the reception hall came from one the high-gravity worlds.
He walked right up to my desk.
“Nice place ye got here, laddie” he said and sat down on one of the chairs.
“The interior of Bells Bank is a design by Urbain DiStrauss, based on an old earth theme called 'the New-Jork Vatikan'. Apparently his..”
“Like I said, a nice place” he interupted.
He leaned forward and asked “You guys do loans?”
“Loans?”
“Just in from five months prospectin' yer comet belt and in need of some eh.. diversion. This here station seems like the right place to do so. Thing is, I am a bit short of ready cash to spend here”.
I had seen this before.
Pilots coming in from a long journey looking for a place to do some -or a lot- of drinking, gambling and well..other things our space station could provide.
“Well, mister..”
“Scraggy, Scraggy O'Toole at yer service, lad”.
Well, mister O'Toole, we can oblige your every need but erm we would need some security”.
“Ah well, no problems there laddie, I 've got ye a nice mining ship in dock with a full cargo of good clean ore, ready fer sellin'”. He handed me a chip with access codes to his ship and cargo.
I did a quick scan.
Your average mining ship is worth at least a quarter of a million and with a full cargo hold this one could be worth twice that.
“And how much did you have in mind, Mister O'Toole?”
“Hows about two hundred thousand sound to ye?”
“One moment please, while I check with head-office on Nightwatch, sir”.
This of-course was completely unnecessary. I was just putting on a show for him.
After studying my computer screen for a while, making “hmmm”-noises I turned back to him and gave him my brightest smile.
“Mister O'Toole, your loan has been approved and we can even give you a free suite for the duration of your stay. Of course we will have to take temporary possession of your ship and tow it into one of our own holding facilities. The bank will expect 1.5 percent interest from you, maximum duration of 2 weeks.”
“No problem, laddie” he smiled back at me and tossed a small access code card over the table “ye just take good care o' her now”.
He was a fool of course.
His two hundred thousand would evaporate faster than a politicians promise once he would hit the casino's and bars.
Then his ship and his cargo would be ours.
Even if he did pay back we wouldn't be any poorer.
And so I handed him his credit slip.
Easy money, easy money...

Fourteen days later he was back and sat down in the chair again.
“Hello lad”.
“Mister o'Toole, welcome back”.
“Got something fer ye”.
He slid a credit slip over the table towards me.
“Its all there, lad. Two hundred and three thousand as we agreed”.
I ran the credit slip through my reader.
“Indeed it is, sir”
“And now I think you got something fer me as well, right?”
I handed him his ships access card and cargo manifest.
“We'll have your ship towed to a docking facility within the hour, sir”.
“Well done, laddie, well done” he rubbed his nose and stroke his beard “It was nice doin' business with ye”.
“Do you mind if I ask you something, sir?” I asked him.
“Not at all, laddie, fire away!”
“Sir, after you left I ran a few background checks on you and it would seem that you are a multi billionaire with enough money to buy this entire space station. Why did you need a loan?'
He leaned forward and his eyes began to twinkle.
“I didn't.”
“But...”
“Listen, laddie. Docking fees fer a mining ship fer two whole weeks on this station would have cost me at least fifteen thousand, not counting the extra cost for some armed guards. Ye lads took all care of that fer me fer a mere three thousand and even provided me with a place to stay”.
He winked at me and stood up.
“Ye take care now.”
When he walked out he turned around and said “Easy money, lad, easy money.”

niiiiiiiice.

You like recreating these kind of stories, I take it! Fun read, though!

Yup, I do.
As the saying goes, better to steal well than to invent badly.
It is fun to give an in-game twist to an old joke.

Made me laugh, good story

Rembrandt, your stories are always classic, great read