3rd World Products, Book 16 Read online

  3rd World Products

  Book 16

  CopyrightŠ2012 by Ed Howdershelt

  ISBN 1-932693-39-4

  978-1-9326-9339-3

  http://www.abintrapress.com

  Note: I’m not going to re-introduce everybody.

  Read my other 3WP-Books before starting Book 16.

  Caution: Erotic Content

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter One

  When the house phone rang a little after seven, I paused in making an easy four ball shot and used my orbital core to trace the call. It originated in Detective Lieutenant Greer’s office, so I opened a silent link to the phone before my machine could take the call.

  “You got me, LT. What’s up?”

  Greer said tersely, “Hi, Ed. A drug bust went bad. Very bad. Two dead and two on the way to the hospital and things are just getting started, I think.”

  “Got a sitrep?”

  “Five perps holed up in an old stone house in Ridge Manor. The situation’s static. They can’t get out, but they have a couple of rifles, so we’re keeping our distance for now. We want to neutralize the situation before anyone else gets hurt.”

  Popping the four ball into a side pocket, I set up to put the one ball in a far corner and said, “I’m at Sandy’s Place on forty-one, so I’m already halfway there.”

  As I popped the cue ball with some backspin to make it return a few inches, Greer said, “Great. The farm house only has a rural box address, so look for flashing lights on Crestline Road. I’ll be there in about fifteen. Lieutenant Merrick has command for now. He’s with Pasco. Any questions?”

  “Nope. I’ll get underway.”

  “Okay. See you there, then.”

  He hung up as I aimed to cut the three ball into a side pocket, then sent the cue ball to nick it just hard enough. The three dropped and the cue ball changed course for the end rail, where it bounced softly and stopped about three inches from the eight. The corner pocket was less than six inches away.

  Davis muttered something and turned to put his cue stick back in the rack. I tapped the eight in and walked around the table to put my own stick in the rack.

  I asked, “What’re you bitching about? We were both down to three and the eight. If your ten had rolled an eighth of an inch further west, you’d have run the table.”

  He sipped his beer and said, “Right. ‘If‘. That’s one word that don’t mean shit. Never has, never will.”

  Nodding, I sipped my own beer and said, “Those are words of wisdom, Mr. Davis. Back in a few. The table’s yours,” then headed for the bar. When Sandy looked up, I put my half-finished beer on the bar, then put a coaster on top of it.

  Sandy nodded and gave me a little wave as I headed for the door. I went outside, then stepped around the building to the big oak tree. When I called up my board in refractive mode, I watched myself disappear in the reflection from a car window.

  Heading straight up to a thousand feet in the early evening darkness, I looked east and saw the flashing lights Greer had mentioned a few degrees south near the horizon. That would put the bust on the edge of the Green Swamp.

  Sending probes ahead, I found over a dozen marked cars and nearly as many unmarked cars. Deputies from at least three counties were in attendance. A few cop cars had tried to go behind the old farmhouse and gotten mired in sand or the soft muck that passes for topsoil this close to the water table.

  Oh, well. Those deputies were where they’d be useful if anyone tried to escape into the woods. In fact, the whole area was crawling with cops. Most were sensibly behind cars or other cover, but I saw two who didn’t seem to understand the principle of not being seen by a guy with a rifle.

  One was standing half-behind a large palm tree, talking in low tones on a radio handset clipped to his epaulet. The other must have thought he was deep enough into the scrub jungle to be out of sight. Again… oh, well. Any attempt to educate them would likely be met poorly.

  As I neared the place, I saw two sedans and a pickup parked near the house. They were clustered at the house-end of a dirt driveway that looped around some trees near the house to meet itself. From above, the driveway looked like a short needle with a really fat eye. Well-used dirt ruts and tracks led around the house to a barn and a shed, indicating the place got some real use frequently. The barn and shed held only vehicles and tools.

  I turned my attention to the old two-story house and sent my probes through the place. As Greer had said, there were five guys; on the ground floor, two were at side windows, one watched the front, and one watched the rear. The fifth guy was lying on an old fabric couch, bleeding from a leg wound as he whimpered and ineptly tried to stop the flow of blood.

  My probes stunned them all and I sent the probes upstairs on general principles. Two women and a small child were hunkered in a corner of a bedroom. I stunned them, too, rather than trust they wouldn’t do anything stupid in a panic.

  A man lay on the floor in the hallway. His pulse was fluttery, but he was alive. Another man lay on the bathroom floor. He was wounded and conscious, but he’d lost a lot of blood.

  I said, “Athena,” and she appeared a foot ahead of me on my board. Without a word, she disappeared and my probes suddenly showed clones of her taking care of the injured.

  Leaving my hat in a tree, I descended slowly enough to be seen and recognized as a non-combatant, landing my board a few paces in front of the car sheltering Merrick. Putting up a two-foot screen, I ignored people yelling for me to get down or get behind a car and the like. I pointed at Merrick, then gestured for him to come see the screen. He glanced at the other two deputies hunkered back there, then stood up and walked around the front of the car.

  Showing him the house’s interior, I said, “Detective Greer sent me. Everybody’s stunned in there. The women and the kid are okay and the lady treating the wounded is an AI. You can talk with her, but don’t interrupt what she’s doing.”

  Merrick stared and said, “Uh… there are three of her!”

  With a grin, I asked, “How is that a problem, LT? She’s smart and gorgeous. Too bad there aren’t more of her.”

  He gave me a sharp glance that turned droll, then called a guy in swat black over to see the screen. After a quick look, the swat guy led the charge and soon called things secure. Medics moved a couple of ambulances near the house and took over Athena’s patients.

  Calling the job done, I lifted on my board as people yelped and backed away. Others yelled that I couldn’t leave yet. Heh. Someone always says that. I retrieved my hat and tried to ring Greer’s cell phone as I headed back to the bar. Busy. Oh, well. He’d get word soon enough.

  Through a link, I said, “Thanks, Athena,” and she repl
ied, “You’re welcome,” without appearing.

  Sandy saw me come in and grinned. She reached in the fridge for a fresh mug and filled it as I approached the bar.

  Setting the mug in front of me, she leaned over the bar and asked, “Will it be in the papers?”

  “Very likely, ma’am. A big bust went sour on Crestline Road. Helluva party. Half the deputies in Florida were there. Why a new beer? I still had half of the other one.”

  “They go flat. Don’t worry, I won’t get in trouble.”

  No, she wouldn’t, being the owner of the bar.

  I nodded. “Thanks. You know, if you weren’t involved…”

  She interrupted me with a laugh. “Crap. You know damned well I prefer dogs. Go drink your beer.” With that, she turned away to take care of the others at the bar.

  She’d been referring to one of our discussions in which she’d compared me to her cat. Sandy had gone off duty and called me into the back, ostensibly to have ‘a little checkup look’ at her computer, which I’d recently fixed.

  Pointing at the vidcam view of her bar, she’d said, “You can almost set your watch by everybody else who comes in here. Not you. You’re like my damned cat. He comes and goes any time of day or night. Sometimes you aren’t on your bike, but you aren’t in a car, either. And sometimes you disappear in the middle of things. I’ve seen you put your stick up and walk out in the middle of a pool game. Sometimes you come back in a few minutes or an hour. The first time you did that, I thought something hinky was going on, so I followed you out the back door. I wasn’t even five seconds behind you, but when I got out there, you were gone.”

  I’d tried to give her a sort of ‘who, me?‘ innocent look and Sandy’d laughed then, too. She’d met my gaze and said, “That got to me, Ed. It really spooked me. I didn’t know what the hell to think. I’d been meaning to put up a camera to keep an eye on the parking lot during bike events, but your little disappearing act made me put one up the very next day.”

  With a smug little smile, she’d said, “And the next time you pulled your disappearing act, I saw how you did it. When I saw that board, I knew right away who you were.”

  She’d hastened to add that she hadn’t told anyone. I’d thanked her, but I knew it was just a matter of time. My pic had been in the paper a few years before. I’d been visiting her bar for months, but someone was bound to recognize me sooner or later. In the meantime, our friendship and occasional free beers were attributed to my computer repair skills.

  Hm. Maybe I could use my sim? My almost-me field copy was proportionately the same, so I wouldn’t have to adjust my pool game much, if any.

  Greer called a few minutes later. I went to the juke box and pretended to study choices as I answered, “You got me.”

  “I just wanted to say thanks. You might hear from Merrick later. I told him… well, hell, you know what I told him. He might try to call you anyway.”

  I chuckled, “Thanks for the warning.”

  “Want to know how things turned out?”

  “Only if I screwed up somehow.”

  After a brief pause, Greer said, “Hell, no, you didn’t screw up. Certain people did ask why you stunned the women and the kid, though. What should I tell them?”

  “The truth would do. I didn’t know who they were and I didn’t want anybody moving around when the swat guys went in. Let the cops sort people out.”

  Greer chuckled, “That damned sure works for me. I’ll pass it on. Oh, there might be something to sign later.”

  “You keep saying that, but it never happens.”

  “I have to say it. I work for the county. Just for the record, would you really stop answering calls if it did happen?”

  “Officially, yes. Unofficially, things might go on about like they usually have, but without me making an appearance to let people know when it’s safe to go in.”

  There was another pause, then Greer said, “Ed, if we hadn’t moved in when we did, the guy on the couch might have bled to death. Delays can be costly.”

  “Then make sure the paper pushers and glory hounds know that, ‘cuz a dead drug dealer won’t mean spit to me.” I sighed and said, “Besides, Athena had it covered. Look, we go through some version of this after every call. I know some of it is you having to cover your ass. I also know you’re recording every word, so let’s make this another opportunity to let everybody know how things stand. First, I’m not even slightly obligated to answer my phone. Let’s also reiterate that your office handles all my official calls for all Florida stuff. I don’t even want to hear from the Governor unless he goes through your office. And no paperwork. No public appearances. No grip ‘n grin photos with politicians. Did I leave anything out?”

  Greer chuckled, “No, I don’t think so. Okay. Later, Ed.”

  “Later.”

  He hung up and I sipped beer as I looked for a song that would be worth a buck to me. Linking to the juke box, I quick-scanned the list and didn’t find such a song. In the glass front of the box I saw someone approaching me from behind and moved to one side.

  A tall woman of about thirty stepped up and studied the box. She had bottle-blonde hair and seemed to keep herself more than reasonably fit. She didn’t bounce at all where she shouldn’t, anyway, but she wasn’t skinny and she was damned good looking. She reminded me vaguely of some TV or movie blonde. Elizabeth somebody. Berkley? Yeah. A Biker Barbie version of her. Cuter face, though. Her black t-shirt read ‘Harley Davidson’, as did the sides of her boots.

  She asked, “Did you play anything?”

  “Nope.”

  Glancing at me, she asked, “Really? Why?”

  I shook my head. “Not in the mood, I guess.”

  Feeding the box five dollars, she said, “Too bad. Did you try the song search?”

  “Nope. Not enough interest.”

  Turning to face me, she canted her head slightly and studied me for a moment, then turned back to the juke box. As she poked the menu, she chuckled, “You like what you see? You’re looking at me hard enough.”

  I returned her chuckle with, “There’s absolutely nothing better to look at in here, and I’d swear that on a stack of Bibles, ma’am. Too bad you came in here with a guy who looked a lot like a husband.”

  She shot me a grin. “You can tell just by looking?”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s either a hubby or the same thing without the ring. He isn’t hovering around you or staying within earshot. That means he either trusts you or doesn’t care, and since he kissed your cheek on the way in, I’d say he trusts you.”

  Turning to face me again, she smiled as she softly said, “Wow! You don’t miss a thing, do you?”

  “Not when a woman like you walks in. Then I notice everything about her, including who she’s with and under what readily apparent circumstances.”

  After a pause, she asked, “A woman like me?”

  “Now you’re fishing, ma’am.”

  She chuckled, “Good. You didn’t miss that, either. ‘A woman like me‘? What does that mean to you?”

  “Hold that thought and I’ll tell you both. He’ll be here in a second to find out why no music is playing.”

  Looking past me, she saw what I’d seen in the faint window reflection behind her. Her guy had left the bar and started toward us. The blonde’s eyes came back to me and her left eyebrow went up.

  As the guy neared us, I looked past her at the song menu and said, “There’s nothing on that box I haven’t already heard too often. Most people play the latest twenty songs that are popular in whatever genre they prefer. Some play older stuff, but that gets… well… old, y’know?”

  She grinned at our cover topic and asked, “Oh, really?”

  Grinning back, I said, “Yeah, really. How many times have you heard ‘Red Solo Cup‘ lately? Know all the words yet?”

  The guy laughed, “If she doesn’t, I damned sure do. It’s on about once an hour at work.” Looking at her, he asked, “You weren’t going to play that, were you? We’
ll probably hear it again on the way home.”

  Shaking her head, the blonde laughed, “No, I wasn’t going to play it.” Then she looked at me and met my gaze as she said, “Now you can tell us what you were going to tell me about ‘a woman like me‘.”

  The guy looked at me and asked, “Is that a song?”

  I shrugged. “Might be, but I was referring to her.” After recapping our previous conversation, I said, “She asked what I meant, so I told her to wait ‘til you got here.”

  Nodding firmly, the blonde said, “That’s right. Somehow he knew when you started over here.”

  I said, “Timing and other circumstances. I’d say you two have this routine worked out pretty well.”

  The guy’s gaze narrowed. He asked, “Routine?”

  With a grin, I said, “Okay, then maybe only she has it worked out. In any case, the ‘routine’ part of it started when she asked if I liked what I saw. She knew exactly how long to stall the music to get you over here.”

  Looking at her, I said, “That ‘a woman like you‘ remark was because you remind me of Elizabeth Berkley. I don’t mind in the least letting you know I think you’re the hottest woman in this bar, ma’am — and possibly even in this side of the state, for that matter — but I’d hate to think you intended to stir up some trouble just to feed your ego.”

  That made her laugh again, then he laughed as well, which surprised me a bit. Neither of them seemed surprised at my comparison of her to Berkley.

  She leaned close and whispered confidentially, “I know I look like her. That’s what gets me work. I’m a stuntwoman.”

  Hm. True? False? Did I give a damn? Not really, but nobody seemed upset. Rule 13; play it where it lands.

  I said, “Not surprised. You’re pretty and fit and you carry yourself well.” Looking at him, I asked, “What about you?”

  He shook his head. “Not me. I’m just her live-in manager.”

  With a grin, I replied, “Kewl! If I become a manager, can I get a fancy blonde like yours?”

  She grinned hugely and he laughed, “Hey, they’re out there, dude! Give it a go!”

  Upshot: they’d been filming in Lake City and had two weeks to kill, so they’d rented bikes and hit the road. We talked through another round of beers. They told me they had time off because a production company had run short of money. I told them about my very brief career as a movie extra in Europe. A little before ten, they suited up against the cold night air and hit the road for Tampa. The blonde did a hundred-foot wheel stand when her tires reached the pavement of US-41.