by James Axler
Ricky lowered his eyes, blushed, nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Sir?”
“Either,” Sand said.
The others introduced themselves.
Meanwhile Ryan was sidelong eyeing a huge, silent figure, with brawny arms crossed over a gigantic chest, standing by a side wall next to a door to another room. Between the man’s statue-like silent immobility and the random sweeps of gauzy fabric, it had actually taken him a moment to spot him.
Burly though Trumbo was, Baron Sand’s sec boss was short. A man like that would tend to employ sec men subordinates who needed pretty constant real-time intimidation to keep from challenging their boss at every other breath. That meant he had a shadow. Or something a bit more substantial: a right-hand man of unquestioned personal loyalty who was big enough to discourage that sort of dominance play from the subordinates.
And Ryan had duly located him. Apache, he guessed, from the long black hair, deep-set obsidian eyes and wide powerful cheekbones. From the man’s height, Ryan guessed he had more than a little of one the Plains nations in him, too: Lakota, probably, or mebbe Cheyenne. Apaches tended to be wiry, smart as they were tough and mean, and tough and mean as a diamondback.
The two of them were as out of place as sledgehammers in a vase of lilies. Ryan wondered about the dynamic inside this place. It could be important.
“You know what we came for, Baron,” Ryan said. “The only question is, then, how you want to play it.”
“You are so delightfully macho, Mr. Cawdor,” Sand purred, “without the tedious accompanying overcompensation we call machismo. Are you paying attention, Trumbo? You could learn a thing. Or two. But I try not to be overoptimistic.”
The sec boss growled low in his bull throat.
“I stole the Great Whatsit fair and square,” Baron Sand said. “I’m not giving it back.”
“What is it, anyway?” Ricky blurted. His obsession with gadgets had overpowered his common sense. Again.
“Valuable,” the baron said. “For what it’s worth, I have no more idea what its function is than you would if I let you have a look at it, which I won’t. It’s locked away somewhere safe and will so remain.”
Mystery came and sat on the arm of her chair. “This is boring, Baron,” he whined. “Make them go away.”
She reached up absently to caress his softly bearded cheek. “I find them stimulating, Mystery,” she said. “If you need more diversion I suggest you go in the back and find some of your...toys.”
He pouted but said nothing more. Instead he slouched into an attitude of sullen defiance directed at the companions.
“We could just take what we came for,” J.B. said.
“You could try,” Trumbo snarled.
Sand laughed. “For once I’m inclined to agree with my sec chief.”
She leaned back in her lounger and crossed her legs. She was visibly overweight, but even reclining she gave off an aura of grace—and several kinds of strength.
She was definitely weird. Mebbe not for a baron, Ryan acknowledged. The fact was, the average baron that Ryan encountered tended to show a bit more overt craziness. But Sand was a different kind of weird.
“I puzzle you. I know that. I puzzle everyone, including myself. I am a thief. I am a shameless hedonist. I have dark secrets. I am no more scrupulous than I need to be.
“But I am not, as some would have it—like a certain party in Amity Springs who swaddles herself in black and acts as if she has a pool cue up her pretty little butt—amoral. I consider myself Lord of the Manor and—surprise!—I am. I prefer to identify myself as baron, because that’s my whim. I take my pleasures seriously. I also take the welfare of my people seriously. And I did not get to where I lounge right now, in the lap of luxury remarkable in our time surrounded by beautiful boys and girls—and the occasional but necessary sore thumb—by being either weak or foolish.
“So, my friends. Should you care to abuse my freely offered hospitality by attacking me, or attempting to take some of my people hostage, why, then, feel free to try your hand. You might surprise me. And I’m certain it would prove most diverting. Although one of us would find it a great deal more fun than the other.”
“I think what Mr. Dix was trying to do was make sure everyone understood what was at stake here,” Krysty said.
Sand laughed. “You are diverting. For a random pack of desert wanderers, I find you quite unusual.”
“We mean to take the object back to Dark Lady,” Ryan said. “One way or another, we will. What we’re here to find out is if there’s an easy way.”
“No,” Sand said.
“Then I guess we’re done here,” Ryan stated.
“A pity. We could put business aside and get to know each other better as friends. No? Well, I would offer you refreshments, but I suspect you would fear they had been tampered with. And that would wound my sensitive nature. And believe me, none of us wants that.”
Ryan started to gesture his companions to the door. He’d be last out. He’d known this place was a potential death trap long before Sand had obliquely pointed it out. And he didn’t trust the baron as far as he could throw her—and given that the woman looked to be nearly as tall as he was, as well as hefty, that wouldn’t be far at all.
“There is one thing that might...ameliorate our situation,” the baron said. “I have a counter-proposal.”
“If it doesn’t involve our taking the item back to our employer,” Ryan said, “you may as well just save your breath and our time. We’re done.”
“Perhaps not. I will give you something to take back to Little Miss Self-Righteous Whore-Mistress—not that that’s a bad thing—back in her Library Lounge. But it is not your precious object, nor anything material. But rather, a reminder of my offer.”
“And what offer might that be, Baron?” Doc asked.
She raised a narrow-plucked eyebrow at him.
“At last you speak, Dr. Tanner. Your manner is...unusual in this barbarous age of ours. I look forward to the opportunity to expand our acquaintance on more amicable terms.”
He made a courtly bow. “May it be so, Baron,” he said. “I do, however, urge you not to underestimate the resolution of my friend and associate Ryan Cawdor.”
“Oh, I don’t, believe me. But I know there are more twists and turns in the situation than any of you are aware of, or can even guess at. So in our present case the future is even harder to predict than usual.”
She fixed Ryan with a gaze as cool as glass and just as soft.
“When you report back, please remind Dark Lady that my offer still stands.”
“Like the man said...” Ryan said. “What offer?”
Her laugh was gusty, like a man’s laugh. It wasn’t the laugh of a person who was afraid of much. Even Ryan Cawdor and his hard-bitten band.
He felt a strong inclination to like this baron. Not that it would slow his hand if the need arose to chill her, of course. Ryan had long ago learned the sad necessity of sometimes putting considerations like that aside.
She wasn’t one of his people, so she was expendable. As he knew he and his companions would be to her.
“My offer to buy the ville of Amity Springs, of course,” she said.
Chapter Ten
“You want to buy the ville?” J.B. asked.
“Of course,” Baron Sand said. “Did I stutter, perchance?”
“You can afford to buy the ville?” Mildred asked in amazement.
“I have resources, Ms. Wyeth.” She gestured around the bizarrely appointed room. “Obviously, I believe I can meet any reasonable terms.”
“Why would you want to buy a whole ville?” Ryan asked. “Looks to me like you got yourself a sweet thing going here.”
“Oh, I do. I do. But a girl is always looking to upgrade. As for why I might want to buy a ville, and A
mity Springs in particular, I suggest you ask your employer. I’m eager to learn what the poor girl has to say.”
The door opened.
Everyone froze. Ryan, having carefully positioned himself out of line with the doorway at the outset, was confident that if it was trouble coming in, the trouble would be more surprised than he was.
After an instant both Ricky and Mildred started going for their handblasters. They had arranged themselves to the left and right of J.B. Without his calm expression flickering, the Armorer reached out to touch them both on the arm.
Both had presence of mind to know what that meant, and stopped.
Scowling, Trumbo dropped his hand to the butt of the blaster in its holster hung from the web belt half hidden by his overhanging gut. There was no mistaking the piece; it was a Desert Eagle, of what caliber Ryan had no way of knowing.
The Eagle was a well-made weapon, he knew, designed to fire a powerful cartridge and hold up under the punishing recoil—even of a .50-caliber handblaster round. It was also high-maintenance, and mostly a big old unwieldy boat anchor, heavier than most seasoned blasters cared to weigh themselves down with.
So it was either a specialist’s tool, or another mark of a man with something to prove. Ryan already had calculated which he thought Sand’s sec boss was.
“Leave it, Trumbo,” Sand said sweetly. “It’s just another one of our guests. Come on in, kid.”
Trumbo’s face went red to his dark receding hairline. Not for the first time Ryan thought that was perhaps not the smartest way to treat your sec boss, but it was far from his place to say so.
The door opened the rest of the way, admitting a spill of sunlight that was almost dazzling after the pervasive dimness of the room. Jak Lauren stepped inside.
“Not ‘kid,’” he said, annoyance in his tone.
“Fair enough. But you are a sufficiently pretty young man to invite comparison, all the same.”
Jak gave her a narrow look of his ruby eyes.
Ryan reckoned it was more in suspicion, and likely befuddlement, than taking further offense. For one thing, if you got seriously crosswise of the albino, he tended to let you know about it right away.
He shifted his blood-red gaze to Ryan. “Trouble,” he said.
Mildred scowled thunderously. “If this is some kind of tr—”
Sand gave her head a quick shake. “It has nothing to do with my people,” she said.
“No,” Jak said. “Coldhearts.”
* * *
“AH, YES,” Baron Sand said, easing away from the window in the back bedroom of the playhouse and lowering the brass telescope from her eye. “Our dear little friends and would-be masters, the Crazy Dogs.”
“You recognize them at this range?” J.B. asked.
“It’s more a matter of who else would it be?” the baron said. “While they haven’t yet managed to secure a toehold in Newcombe Flats, they certainly have been circling like wolves around a campfire. And so provide us the unintended benefit of keeping other vermin at bay.”
She turned to Jak, who stood well away from the window. At J.B.’s quiet suggestion, the baron had hunkered down well back from the window, propping her elbows on the bed, in the shadows of the room where even the presumed enemy watching from the ridge top through binoculars couldn’t make her out.
“Careless,” Jak said. “Reflection.”
Krysty glanced at Ryan, who stood with his back to the unadorned wall by the door. He now had his Steyr Scout slung. Ricky and J.B. had likewise recovered their longblasters from the door before trooping back to see for themselves what was happening—though Ricky, with Mildred and Doc, was forced to remain in the hall. Trumbo had started to object, but the baron had quelled him with a look and a shake of her head.
Krysty could tell instantly that Ryan understood as well as she did.
The spy had taken up position lying on the top of a ridge slightly to the east as well as north of the funhouse. Though he was reasonably well hidden by some rabbit brush, he had made an amateur’s mistake: not counted on the sun rolling down the western half of the sky as the day wore on to afternoon—and, with the season, still fairly well to the south.
Jak, while prowling outside on the lookout for trouble, had caught a glint of sunlight off the big objective lens of the spy’s binocs. Krysty knew without needing to be told he had showed no sign of reacting. Because the stalking of prey was a game he knew triple well from both sides. Instead he’d gone on as if concerned with nothing beyond the stables and the big windowless structure, and then vanished around the side of the house and come straight in to report.
“At least there’s only one,” Sand said.
“That you know of,” Ryan said.
Her brow furrowed and her pale-green eyes narrowed at him. Then she smiled a wide smile.
“Point to you.” Her expression changed to thoughtfulness.
“Want me to take care of him, Baron?” Trumbo asked. He stood on the other side of the door from Ryan.
“No. I want you and your men staying here and guarding my house and my people, the way I pay you to.”
She sat back on her well-padded, velvet-clad haunches and regarded Ryan.
“I have a proposition for you, sport,” she said.
“We’ve got a job,” Ryan replied.
“What?” Trumbo barked. “You mean you won’t sell out to the highest bidder?”
“Not good practice,” J.B. said. “We don’t get a lot of repeat custom in our line of work, but we like to leave our options open.”
Sand shook her head. “Nothing to cause you conflict of interest, my dear curly wolf,” she said to Ryan. “Indeed, I hardly think even Dark Lady could find fault with it. These Crazy Dogs are starting to cause problems for everyone in the Basin, but mostly for me and mine. Their unwholesome activities have led to my recently increasing the size of my sec force several-fold, which you might imagine I find distasteful, not to mention expensive. If you can help me with that little issue, I will reward you well for it, regardless of anything else that transpires between us.”
“Can you trust her, Ryan?” Mildred asked from the hall.
“No less than I do anyone,” he said. “She’s just offered to pay us for chilling work. Do you really think she’s stupe enough to risk trying to hold back her side on a deal like that?”
Of course plenty had tried to do just that to Ryan Cawdor and his companions. Krysty smiled. In his own cunning way her man had just reminded Sand of the folly of trying to play such a trick on his kind.
Sand laughed and stood. “Last thing I want to do is to give you more motivation to come after me. Though I really want you to reserve judgment until you’ve heard and seen Dark Lady’s response to my offer. Anyway, you sort of have to at this point. And to sweeten the pot, if you take care of this sneaky little bastard, I’ll pay you on the spot. And after that—what happens, happens.”
“Right,” Ryan said with a nod.
Trumbo sidled up to Sand and put a hand on her arm. “I can take care of you,” he said in a husky voice. The tone made Krysty’s ears want to prick up like a hunting fox’s.
Sand shook him off. “Hands off the merchandise,” she said. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m a lesbian.”
She winked at Krysty. “You can feel free to make that assumption, too, Red.”
Krysty laughed. She was neither interested nor offended. But she traded quick glances with her mate.
He wasn’t the sort to take offense at that, either. But the slight furrowing of his brow told her that, like her, he thought that was a triple-stupe way to treat your own sec boss.
It wasn’t their problem, she knew. Clearly, the baron had at least been telling truth when she’d said there were undercurrents and implications in the situation that the outlanders couldn�
��t even guess at. Not that there weren’t always. She still wondered if Sand wasn’t showing a chink in her otherwise sound-looking armor.
“How do you intend to play it?” Sand asked. “It’ll take you a while to get up those heights and sneak up on him.”
“No need,” Ryan said.
“We’ll need a diversion,” J.B. added.
Krysty smiled. “Gentlemen,” she said, “leave that to me.”
* * *
RICKY MORALES CROUCHED by the front window of the playhouse, peering out. The frilly curtains had been pushed to the sides and tied with ribbons. He was trying hard not to be too conscious of the elbow digging into his left ear or the smells—mostly perfumes, but not all—of the warm bodies pressed against him, sides and back.
Most of all, he was desperately trying not to pop wood.
Alone, Krysty walked from the front door of the building. She followed a neatly raked path that led toward where the stream ran by to the west of the huge house. She seemed to be swinging her jeans-clad hips more emphatically than usual.
Ricky swallowed.
He was acutely aware of Mildred watching over his shoulder. She had told him if he watched he’d be struck blind, possibly by her. Krysty had only laughed and said the point was to be seen....
Some of the people working near the big house glanced up as Krysty approached the stream. She was an outlander, so naturally they were curious. Also she was tall, with that vivid red hair looking almost metallic in the sunlight, and breathtakingly beautiful. Naturally she’d attract eyes.
And, as she’d said, that was the point of her little show.
As she neared the stream, he could tell by the way her elbows started moving around by her sides that she was unbuttoning her blue shirt. As she approached the water, she pulled the hem out of her waistband.
She crouched to test the water with a finger. When she stood again, she shucked off the shirt and let it fall on the grassy bank by her feet. The only thing she wore on the upper half of her body now was a gray sports bra supporting her generous breasts.
More and more faces were starting to rise from shovels and hoes and other tasks. Many expressions were shaded by wide hat brims and hard to read by way of distance. But the way their faces were turned made it obvious where they were looking.
