3rd World Products, Inc. Book 7

by Ed Howdershelt

  As I was lining up to pop the nine in a corner, Donna snickered and asked, “Are all of your friends women?"

  Tapping the cue ball low to pull it back a foot after hitting the nine, I asked, “Did I talk when you were shooting?” as I lined up for the fifteen ball.

  "Did I ask you not to? It doesn't bother me to talk while I'm shooting, and you didn't answer my question."

  Uh, huh. Gonna be like that. Okay. I sank the fifteen and lined up the ten for another corner shot as I ignored her. Donna moved around the table to stand directly behind the pocket, the apex of her jeans framing the hole. Tacky woman.

  I grinned at her as I shot softly enough to walk the ten gently to the pocket and leave the cue ball where I'd have an easy side shot on the thirteen.

  It was only a ten-inch putt of a shot and would have left the cue ball sitting pretty for the twelve, but someone sharply banged the back of my stick sideways as I was shooting and the cue ball went in the pocket without touching the thirteen.

  One never knows why such things happen until they see who's behind them. Instead of immediately straightening up, I took a long, quick step sideways before I turned to see a guy sitting on one of the tall barstools with a beer in one hand and his other hand held up protestingly.

  "Hey, sorry, man,” he said with a weak grin, “My knee hit your stick when I turned around. Didn't know you were there."

  Yeah, shit happens. While I let him see my displeasure, I lowered my cue stick from the port arms position it seemed to have found all by itself at some point.

  Donna had come to stand by me. She took my arm and said insistently, “It's true, Ed. I saw it. He was talking to someone and he just turned around without looking. It was an accident."

  Wondering why she was talking so fast, I gave her one of those ‘why are you so tense?’ looks and noddingly indicated the table as I replied, “Yeah, I can see that. It's your shot."

  After a long look, she nodded and turned to study the table, then lined up a shot and made it. Moving around the table, she shot the rest of her balls and studied the eight's position between pockets before deciding to put it in the corner.

  "Scratch shot,” I said, “The cue will come back to the side."

  She looked up. “No it won't. I'll put some left on it."

  "Then you'll make the eight, but your cue will dive right into the other corner."

  Shaking her head slightly, Donna said firmly, “No it won't."

  As she eased her stick back into position, I said, “Yeah, it will, but don't let that stop you from buying the next game."

  Donna lowered her head, took a breath, and asked, “Are you going to let me shoot or discuss it to death?"

  "Well, hey, lady, you said talking doesn't bother you, right? And it's not as if I'm parking my crotch smack behind the pocket like a certain someone else did on my ten shot."

  Her shoulders shook as she chuckled and sighed, “Yeah. Okay. Sure. No problem. Fair's fair. If you want to stand behind that pocket, you go right ahead."

  Uh, huh. And she'd fire the eight at the pocket. Having seen balls leave the table at high speeds, I decided to turn on my five suit before moving to stand behind the corner.

  Donna grinned up at me for a moment, then aimed again. Sure enough, she slammed the cue ball into the eight and it, in turn, slammed into the corner pocket ... before it rattled back out and rolled a foot or so away.

  She ducked just in time as her cue ball bounced high off the rail, sailed back at her head, and rolled down her back and across the floor.

  I opined, “Seems you shot a little harder than absolutely necessary, ma'am,” as a guy at the next table picked up the cue ball. “Scratched on the eight, too. Got some quarters?"

  Donna reached in her pocket, but the guy who'd bumped my stick slid out of his chair, slapped three quarters on the table, and said, “I saw how you talked her out of that eight. You wanna try that on me?"

  "Got a better idea,” I replied, “No talking while the other guy shoots."

  "I don't see any reason to change the rules. Talk all you want, sport."

  I hate being called ‘sport'. It means the other guy is on the edge of becoming an asshole, if he isn't one already. When the rack was ready, he didn't move to one side. I gave a mental shrug and powered the cue ball through the rack.

  Six striped balls later I faced a long walk down the rail with the eleven. No way to bank it and no other clear paths to pockets. As I started to aim, he coughed, then grinned and raised his beer mug for a sip.

  "Hey,” I said, interrupting his sip, “You can cough. You can fart. You can scream and jump around like a monkey if you want. Go right ahead and get it out of your system."

  His gaze narrowed above another grin as he watched me aim, and just when I pretended to shoot, he stepped sideways behind the pocket.

  Donna sighed loudly and shook her head, muttering, “Aw, Jesus!” as she set her quarters on the table and backed away to sip her beer.

  I used the next stroke of the cue stick to send the ball down the rail to the corner, then lined up the eight in the other corner, said, “Over there,” and popped it in.

  The guy turned to Donna and almost demandingly said, “Lemme play him again. I wanna kick his ass."

  Moving past him to pick up her quarters, she said flatly, “You lost. I'm up."

  He reached to grab her arm above the elbow as she started to put the quarters in the table and quietly, firmly insisted, “C'mon, lady!"

  I never had a chance to say anything. Donna's other hand moved at warp speed, seeming only to touch the back of his hand in passing. The guy yelped loudly as he yanked his hand back and examined it. There wasn't a mark on it, but it obviously hurt like hell.

  When he looked up and yelled, “Bitch!” she'd already dropped the quarters on the table and made a spear of her right hand, which she jammed up under his jaw to tilt his head back. Her right hand then dropped out of the way of her left hand as she backhanded her fingers across his throat.

  Stepping back a pace, she turned slightly sideways and raised her fists in an ‘en garde’ manner, waiting for his next move without the slightest appearance of trepidation. Nearby people stopped talking and playing and watched to see how things would go.

  The guy realized he could still breathe, if a bit harshly, and glared total hatred at her for a few moments, but he wasn't quite drunk or stupid enough to ignore the fact that she seemed perfectly ready—possibly even eager—to duke it out.

  Donna snapped, “You grabbed me. I don't allow that. You called me a bitch. I don't allow that, either, and now it's time for you to leave.” With a small, tight smile, she added, “And you will, one way or another."

  When the guy glanced at me, I shrugged, parked my butt on the end of the pool table, and grinned.

  "If you think you can take her, go for it. I'll wait my turn."

  The guy eyed her for another moment, then made a show of standing straight and taking a sip of beer before he walked away from her. He said nothing to me as he passed, so I said nothing to him.

  The sound of quarters being placed in slots made me turn to see Donna feeding the table. She racked the balls, picked up her stick, and stood to one side of the table in silence.

  I laid the end of my stick on the edge of the table and slammed the cue ball through the rack, then ran five more solid balls before the cue ball glanced off the two and scratched.

  Donna must've been in quite a mood by then; she put in all seven stripes and the eight, then laid her stick on the table and picked up her beer for a sip as I walked around the table for the traditional post-game handshake.

  Some of the nearby people were still hooting and hollering at her skill. A woman and the guy she was sitting with came over to glad-hand Donna and congratulate her, but it was fairly obvious she was only being polite in responding graciously.

  As I reached in my pocket for a quarter to mark the table while I got more quarters, Donna waved and asked, “Do you really want to pl
ay again?"

  Since it was apparent that she didn't, I shrugged and picked up my quarter as I walked over to her.

  Donna swilled the last of her beer in two gulps, set her bottle on a table, and stuck her hands in her pockets as she asked, “Do you want to stay here?"

  I picked up her bottle and said, “Let's save Susie a trip,” then headed for the bar, sipping the last of my beer on the way.

  When I set the bottles on the bar and shook my head to stop her from pulling two more, Susie asked, “You're leaving?"

  "'Fraid so,” I yelled over the music, “You remember Linda? My boss? This one's a lot like her."

  Rolling her eyes, Susie grinningly replied, “There's a first aid kit under the bar."

  Waving as I backed away from the bar, I yelled, “Okay! Thanks, Susie!"

  Chapter Forty

  Donna and I walked out the back door. She looked around, then looked at me and asked, “Am I staying at your place tonight?"

  "Depends,” I said with a grin, “Are we just going to sleep, or are you ready to believe that rubbers don't bother me?"

  With a dismissing wave, she said, “Now that I know about nanobots, we won't need one, so it doesn't matter. Why didn't you tell me about nanobots then, Ed? That info could have saved us some grief."

  I laughed and pitched my voice mockingly to a parody of relating my story to someone else. “'And there I was, trying to convince her that we didn't need a rubber ... ’ Donna, do you really think you'd have believed me?"

  "Oh, well, maybe not right away, but..."

  "Sex is one of those things, milady. If not right away, zero results. But you were right about one thing; I prefer women who can put everything else on a shelf and just have a good time. Think you can do that?"

  She laughed and asked softly, “You mean ‘shut up and fuck like a bunny'?"

  Shrugging, I said, “After I've licked my way up your legs, sure. After I've ravaged your magic button and..."

  Donna quickly glanced around anxiously and hissed, “Okay! Jeez! Let's not talk it to death! Board on!"

  Her board appeared and she hopped onto it as I called mine up and stepped aboard. The bar's back door rattled and started to open and Donna instantly sent her board almost straight up.

  Sending a field to wedge the bottom of the door, I sent my board up at a more leisurely pace and canceled the wedge as I guided my board to the cover of a tree across the alley.

  The door opened and a woman stepped out and looked around carefully, then motioned to someone inside the bar. Hovering behind the tree, I felt Donna descend to my altitude before she slid into my peripheral view.

  "What are we doing?” she whispered.

  "We're watching people be devious,” I whispered back.

  "A drug deal?"

  "Dunno yet."

  "If it is, what'll you do?"

  Interesting that she'd assumed I'd do something. I glanced at her and repeated, “Dunno yet."

  Two guys joined the woman and she went back inside the bar as the guys quietly discussed something. After a few moments, one walked to the area of the building just in front of the van and moved something to retrieve a small baggie.

  The other guy had followed him. Money and the baggie changed hands and the guy who now held the money seemed unhappy. The guy with the baggie said something and the guy with the money reached to try to snatch the baggie. He got slugged hard for his effort and the other guy stood over him for a moment, then started to walk away.

  "I don't think so, motherfucker!” the guy on the ground said quite audibly.

  He had to pull three times to get the gun out from under his baggy shirt, but he finally produced it and aimed it at the guy with the baggie, who froze. The guy with the gun got up and started toward him. I stunned them both.

  As they collapsed, I summoned up a field screen and called the bar. Susie answered and I told her what was outside the back door, then described the woman who'd come out first and gone back in.

  "I see her,” said Susie, “She saw me heading for the back door and she's hurrying to get there first. Where are you?"

  "I'll stop her,” I said, “Don't worry about me. Fact is, you can have all the credit if you want it."

  "The what?"

  "Credit for the bust, ma'am. I don't want it. You take it."

  The back door almost burst open and the woman closed it firmly behind her, then ran to check out the two guys. Wasting no time on them, she grabbed the baggie, the money, and then reached for the gun. That's when I stunned her.

  Susie opened the door and stopped in her tracks as the woman fell across the guy she'd been robbing.

  After a long moment, Susie asked, “Ed? Are you still there? What happened to them? Are they dead?"

  "No, they're just asleep."

  "What if they wake up?"

  "They won't wake up until someone wakes them up. Just send somebody out to keep everybody away from them and call the cops. Bye, now."

  I disconnected. Donna knelt, then sat on her board, her legs dangling to either side of it as she watched Susie go back into the bar. Mike—one of the bar's senior customers and a friend of the owner—came out with his own cell phone open. He told someone, likely Susie, that there'd been no change and leaned against the van to wait and watch.

  The cops couldn't have been too far away; they arrived in a few minutes from both directions and blocked the alley. Their activities in checking and securing the people on the ground woke the sleepers. More cops came out the bar's back door and I saw flashing lights reflecting off the front edges of the building's roof.

  "Good ‘nuff,” I said, nosing my board around to keep the tree between me and the scene in the alley as I headed away.

  Donna followed the same course and asked as she caught up, “Why didn't you call the cops yourself?"

  "Don't want the hassle. But Susie'll likely tell ‘em who told her to look out back. I'll probably hear something about it."

  "So you'll have to deal with it then. What's the difference?"

  With a grinning shrug, I said, “A few hours of sleep, maybe. And maybe Susie won't tell them who told her. Y'never know."

  Giving me a fisheye look, Donna said, “Oh, I'd bet she will."

  "Guess we'll know if they drop by."

  We were nearing the intersection of Deltona and Forest Oaks when two cop cars that had been sitting at the gas station on the south corner suddenly headed west on Forest Oaks.

  There were no sirens and both cars turned on their red and blue lights at about the same time, but shortly turned off their red and blues—again at about the same time—as they continued toward US-19 at about fifty.

  That was interesting enough to make me wave at Donna to follow and veer westward after them. I climbed to five hundred feet to see what might be happening on US-19 that would be worth the hurry.

  As we neared US-19, I saw a string of headlights moving north at a high rate of speed. All but the car in the lead had police lights, and not far behind the fourth cop car was a small cluster of lights I recognized as belonging to a motorcycle.

  The bike passed the fourth car in line and moved up, weaving around a cop car that seemed to be trying to block that very move from happening.

  The blocker didn't stand a chance; the bike was one of those big-engine crotch-rockets and the rider seemed to know what he was doing. He zipped between the cars and was gone before the diversion could be executed.

  When the bike was alongside the third car, the driver tried to edge over and make the bike slow down, but the bike zigged and zagged and surged ahead past the car.

  Donna and I were above US-19 when the lead car, second car, and the bike roared past below in quick succession. I banked to place myself above the motorcycle on general principles and dropped to a hundred feet of altitude.

  Apparently the cops weren't too concerned with the biker's safety at that point. The second car tried to stay in front of the bike, and when it got fairly close, the car's driver tapped h
is brakes to try to cause a collision.

  Given their high speed and the action of the cop, it was fairly obvious that the cops considered the biker worth stopping any way possible.

  The cop's move was almost successful; the biker missed the cop car's rear bumper by what seemed only inches, then he twisted the throttle and blasted past the cop car too far away for the cop's leftward swerve to reach him.

  Gaining fast on the lead car, the biker swung to the right and straightened out a little behind and to the right of the car, then he took his left hand off the handlebars and reached into his jacket.

  When the biker's hand returned to the handlebar, it held a stubby little machine pistol—a MAC-11, it looked like—with a magazine as long as the pistol itself. Thirty rounds? Fifty?

  Whatever. I dropped to about twenty feet of altitude just ahead of the bike and extended a field tendril to try to grab the gun, but the wind kept me from doing any more than slap it a few times, which only alarmed the biker enough to glance up.

  When he aimed the gun up at me, I said, “Whoa, fuck that!” and stunned him.

  As the biker went limp, the gun dropped to the pavement and broke apart. Two large pieces went tumbling and skidding across the median amid a splattering of loose ammo.

  The bike veered to the right as it slowed, then it dove into the drainage culvert, where its front wheel mired in deep mud and it flipped endwise, slinging the rider ahead of the bike as it tumbled and bounced a few times up the other side of the ditch and started coming apart.

  Bits of the motorcycle caught up with the rider and pelted him, then the main body of the bike slammed down on him and bounced over the low wall of a housing development.

  Well up the street, I saw the car that had been leading the high-speed parade slow and stop, then move to the side of the road with the cop cars.

  Good enough. I banked and ascended to a hundred feet to head home. Long moments passed before Donna slid into position beside me and waved at me as she yelled, “Stop!"

  Okay. I stopped. Maybe she really hadn't expected me to cooperate? She shot past me and had to swing around to return, recovering a little lost altitude as she again positioned herself to my right and simply stood staring at me for a moment.