He ambled past us to put the stick in one of the wall holders, and as he did so, he very quietly said, "He said she wouldn't miss, Carl. You pushed for a game anyway. The bet was a hundred."
"You might wanna stay the fuck out of this," said Carl.
Lou shook his head. "Nope. Don't think so."
"How'd you like to meet me outside, too?"
"Don't talk stupid, Carl. Sooner or later a few guys would show up to talk to you about it, and you know it. Nobody fucks with one of us."
"Who's us?" I asked.
"Just some friends. Carl knows who we are, right, Carl?"
Carl glared at Lou's back as Lou ambled back to his table, then pulled a hundred from his pocket and wadded it tightly before tossing it on the floor between us. He then grabbed his beer and headed for the bar. I shrugged, picked up the hundred, uncrunched it, and stuffed it in a shirt pocket.
Lou waved his beer at the other chairs around his table. Sue and I joined him. Lou's eyebrows went up when I held Sue's chair to seat her.
"I'd treat her like gold, too," he said, "Any woman who can shoot like that has to be kind of special."
"Yeah, she's very special," I said. "Sue, this is Louis."
"Lou," said Lou. "Sue, you could make some real money in the tournaments."
"It wouldn't be fair," said Sue, with a shake of her head.
"Why not?"
With a small smile, she said, "I never miss."
At Lou's grinningly skeptical look, I said, "You saw her shoot, Lou. She's not kidding."
He snorted a laugh and grinned at Sue as he said, "Well, there's people would pay to see that, too. Some guys'd pay just to get a look at her, I think."
Glancing at the bar, he asked, "You want me to walk you out of here? I don't think Carl's gonna lose gracefully."
I shrugged. "You can be a witness. If I don't deal with Carl tonight, he'll just be a problem some other night."
Lou nodded. "Yeah, he looks like a hard learner. That's his fourth beer." He smiled and added, "Not counting the one he took with him. Working up to something, you think?"
There was a thump from the other room and I caught a glimpse of Carl heading for the door as Susie reached to keep his barstool from falling over. He glared at us on his way out.
Yeah, he'd be out there, no doubt about it.
I looked at Sue. "No help, okay? I need the practice."
Sue grinningly chirped, "Oh, yes, sir. No help. Got it, sir."
Lou gave her an odd look, plainly wondering what sort of help she might offer. His eyes searched her and saw nothing suitable as a weapon.
When his gaze again met mine, I said, "She's had some training."
Her unruffled demeanor and my quiet confidence in her served to elevate Lou's opinion of her even more.
He sat a little straighter and sipped his beer, then said, "Well, just say when."
"Now's good," I said, putting my bottle down and standing up.
"Let's do it, then," said Lou, also getting to his feet.
Susie saw us readying to leave and came to join us.
"I'm walking you to your car," she said.
I asked, "If you're expecting trouble, wouldn't Allen be a better choice?"
Pulling a metal tube from her skirt's only pocket, she said, "Not necessarily."
The tube was a Japanese police baton known as an asp. Two sections of heavy springs with a steel button on the end that could bust a kneecap would shoot out of the handle with a flick of her wrist.
Sure enough, Carl was waiting, leaning on a white car. He saw Lou and Susie and smarted off about my needing bodyguards.
I stopped everybody and stepped forward to within a few paces of Carl, then said, "They're just here as witnesses."
Without warning or discussion, Carl dropped his beer bottle and stepped forward quickly to try to land a punch on my face. I stepped back enough to let his fist go by. He swore, swung again, and missed again.
When he threw his next punch, I ducked to the right and stepped in close. Grabbing his belt, I lifted him slightly off the ground, shoved his face sideways with my left hand, and let go of him. He dropped three feet to the ground and landed hard on his right elbow and shoulder.
Carl sat up, then got up. This time he lunged at me, trying to get his arms around me to drag me down. I backed up as he came forward and my knee found his nose, then his forehead. The second impact rang his bells briefly.
Almost diving forward, he swung at my crotch, but I moved aside, then slammed the heel of my hand into his nose from above. Crunch. He was bleeding profusely as he backed away.
Pulling a handkerchief, Carl dabbed at his nose, saw his own blood, and seemed to go nuts. He came at me screaming something I couldn't understand.
Ducking two of the nearer punches was enough for me. I hit his gut, backhanded his throat with my fingertips, and then grabbed his left arm as I kicked his legs out from under him.
He again landed hard on his right side, chokingly groaning as the shock ran up his arm from his elbow impacting the parking lot. When he tried to move he wound up grabbing his right hip in agonized shock and gaspingly swearing through clenched teeth.
"Are we through yet?" I asked.
Carl didn't answer. I decided to see if we were through, extending my left hand to see if he'd take some help getting up. He grabbed my hand and tried to pull me into a punch.
I ducked the little bit that was necessary and captured his right arm over my left arm, then stepped to my left and knelt without letting go of him. He toppled to his right again and his elbow wound up across my knee.
Putting a little pressure on his forearm, I said, "I can break it, Carl. Then we'd be finished for sure."
"N-no!" he hissed, shaking his head tightly. "No!"
"I'll let you go and we'll walk, right? No more shit?"
He nodded. "Yes."
I nodded, too. "Good. I think you bet money you couldn't afford to lose, right Carl?"
Carl nodded again as tersely as before. "Yeah."
Standing up, I pulled the bill he'd thrown on the floor out of my pocket and tossed it on the ground in front of him. His eyes fixed on it, then he looked up at me as if expecting a trap.
"Well, Carl, here's some of it back to you the same way you gave it to me. Go ahead and pick it up. I told you she didn't miss. I didn't lie to you then and I'm not lying to you now when I tell you that if I have to do this again I'm really going to hurt you. Expensive, hospital-type hurt."
Stepping away from Carl, I shook hands with Susie and Lou, thanked them, and said goodnight to them. Untrusting Susie kept her eyes on Carl almost the whole time.
Lou belatedly said, "Uh, yeah, goodnight," as Sue and I started walking to the car.
As I opened the car door for Sue, I asked, "Any questions, milady?"
She raised an eyebrow at me and asked, "About what?"
"Anything, I guess. Steph always seemed to have questions after something ugly happened. Just figured you would, too."
Sue shook her head and got in. "No, Ed. No questions."
I watched her skirt ride high as she seated herself and reminded myself that it was just a field illusion. But a damned good one. Every little detail covered... Or uncovered, as were.
When she was settled I closed the door and went around to get in with a glance toward the bar. I couldn't see anything past a van. Oh, well. I got in the car to find Sue looking at me thoughtfully.
"Maybe just one question," she said. "How much of what happened this evening was directly or indirectly due to your altercations with Selena and her mother?"
"Hm. Say about half. Maybe less, maybe more, but about half. I don't usually bet on pool at all, no matter who's shooting. That kind of thing can cause trouble, you know."
I couldn't help noting that it took as long to drive the seven miles home as it had to travel from Inverness to Spring Hill by flitter. After greeting Tiger and saying goodnight, I showered and dropped into bed.
Chapter Sixty
The next morning I entered the kitchen to make that first, all-important cup of coffee and give some thought to the day ahead. Tiger hopped onto the table to wait by my usual chair, and as I sat down I greeted him with a chin rub and a pat.
"Hi, Tiger. Gimme a minute and I'll zap you some bacon."
"Yahhh. Yah."
He sat more or less patiently on the countertop as I microwaved some bacon under a paper towel. While the bacon was going round and round I cracked four eggs into little micro-safe bowls. When the timer reached two minutes, I opened the microwave and added the egg bowls to the carousel, then hit the 'resume' button.
I felt a sudden extra presence manifest in the kitchen as I unloaded the microwave and set things on the table.
"Care to join us for breakfast?" I asked.
Sue appeared in the chair opposite mine.
Tiger greeted her noisily and she answered in kind, then Susanne turned to me and said, "Hi."
"Hi, yourself, milady. What did Steph tell you about me and mornings?"
"Only that you could be cranky until you'd had your first coffee."
"Hm. Right enough, I guess. Not today, though. Is that why you, um... invisibly appeared just now?"
"No. Ed, how did you know I was here?"
I shrugged rather than try to talk around egg.
"How?" she asked intently. "I really want to know, Ed."
"Just did. That's all the answer I ever managed for Steph, too, Sue. I just did."
"I monitored my fields carefully, Ed. No emanations extended beyond my field matrix. None."
Swallowing and sipping coffee to wash down the egg, I said, "Maybe it wasn't a field kind of thing, then."
My answer didn't seem to satisfy her, of course. I looked her over and then let my eyes find hers.
"Must be nice being perfect," I said.
Steph had never known quite how to answer such remarks, and Sue was no different in that regard. She simply smiled wryly and patted Tiger. Come to think of it, that was an answer of sorts, I guess.
After I'd soaked up the highlights of the Sunday paper and a second coffee, Sue, Tiger, and I took my fabric hang glider to the flight meet south of Orlando.
As we approached, we could see gliders in the sky and Tiger sounded off as his wings appeared.
"Tell him to wait," I said. "We'll be flying later, after I get rid of the other glider. Also tell him to stick close to us, okay?"
Sue discussed the matter with Tiger and his wings finally disappeared. I knew the meaning of the look he gave me. If he'd been a human, his lower lip would have been sticking out in a major pout.
We picked an open area near a row of merchant tents and set the flitter down long enough to offload the glider, two folding chairs, and my cooler, then she sent the flitter up about twenty feet to hover above the row of cars behind us.
When the flitter lifted we became visible. A late-twenties couple in the nearest dealer tent had been discussing one of the kites being carried to the tow-launch lineup. The man had leaned to reach into the cooler behind their chairs as we'd arrived, so he hadn't seen the event, but it must have seemed to her as if we'd suddenly materialized from the ground up.
The woman froze and her eyes first got very big, then very narrow. She poked the man in the back and he said, "Yeah, hang on. I'm looking for one."
Still peering at us, she said, "Harry, forget the Coke. Something just happened."
Harry sat up and looked around as he asked, "What? Somebody crashed?"
Pointing at Sue and me, she said, "No. Those people... Uh, they just, uh..."
He shrugged and started to say something, but her state of startlement made him pause and look at her very questioningly.
"Annie, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Them," she said insistently, jabbing her finger at us again.
"What about them?"
"They just... appeared."
Harry studied us briefly, then looked back at Annie, who made a sound of exasperation.
He again looked at us and said, "This is dealer's row. If you just want to set up a day camp, they're all over there." He pointed across the green open area at a cluster of little tents and people under fly tarps.
"Nope," I said. "We're not dealers; I just have this one kite to sell. Do I have to sign up somewhere in order to set it up and hang a sign on it?"
Before he could answer Annie jostled his shoulder and leaned to whisper in his ear. He turned to look at her skeptically for a moment, then stood up and walked over to look at my kite while taking a closer look at us.
After a handshake and a few questions about my kite's make, model, and airtime, Harry suggested that we set it up right where it was, hang a 'for sale' sign on it, and share the shade of his screen tent.
Annie gasped audibly when he invited us to visit. I carried our folding chairs to the tent and extended a hand to her. She rather hesitantly took it.
I softly asked her, "You think you saw us appear out of nowhere, don't you?"
Her eyes were rather wary as she nodded silently.
"Well, we didn't," I said with a grin, "Everybody comes from somewhere." Gesturing for her to come out of the tent, I asked, "Sue, would you extend the flitter field to cover us all in order to let Annie see how we got here?"
She smiled and nodded.
"Flitter?" asked Annie. "Field?"
"You'll see," I said, pointing above the cars. "Look over there, just above those three SUV's."
Harry also looked where I was pointing as we approached. His jaw fell and he stared hard at the flitter. Annie stopped walking and stood staring at it, too.
"Light bends around the flitter's field," said Susanne, "When the flitter lifted and moved away we became visible."
After a moment Harry asked, "Uh... Why put it up there?"
I said, "It's too big for a parking space."
Giving me the same look of disbelief he'd given Annie, Harry said, "I mean; why hide it up there? Why not park it down here? Nobody'd give you a hard time for parking something like that down here. Jesus! A flitter! Some of us have never even seen one up close."
I shrugged. "It's a glider event, not a flitter event. It might be disruptive. Besides, I came here to sell a kite and relax, not to answer flitter questions all day. If I bring it down here there'll be a mob scene in no time."
He looked at me again and said, "Yeah. Probably so."
"Later," I said. "After I get rid of this kite. Sue, you can retract the field now. Thanks, ma'am."
She did so, then we assembled the kite and I made a sign by magic-marking "For Sale" on the inside of a cardboard beer case and draping it over the guide bar.
Someone offered me $1500 for my kite almost as soon as I had it assembled with the orange plastic 'for sale' sign on it. Someone else upped that offer by fifty bucks. I said that the best offer by one o'clock would take the kite.
$1900 seemed to be the best offer over the next two hours, but then some guy offered $1950. About three minutes before one, someone offered $2000. I took his check and made out a receipt as Rich Engles walked over and sat down in one of the lawn chairs. The buyer went to look the kite over some more.
Although his most obvious attention was riveted on Susanne, Engles shook my hand and said, "You managed to get here after all, I see."
"Yup," I said, "Just sold the kite, too."
"How'd you make out?"
"Made a few bucks on it. Where's your kite?"
"I didn't bring it," said Engles. "I don't like to fly unless I'm feeling a hundred percent, and today I don't."
Glancing at Susanne, he said, "This isn't one of the ladies you were with the last time I saw you."
"Nope. Susanne, meet Rich Engles."
They shook hands, then he looked around in a rather obvious manner and asked, "So where's your new kite?"
"I'll show it to you as soon as I finish this receipt."
"Did you come here in the flitter?"
"Yup. It's hangi
ng above the first row of cars. Field's up. Can't see it right now."
Engles nodded and looked for it anyway, of course. I finished scribbling, checked the serial number again, and handed the receipt to the buyer.
"Want some help carrying it somewhere?" I asked him.
He waved at some guy at a nearby tent and pointed down at the kite as he said, "Nah. Got it covered. Thanks, anyway."
When they'd hauled it some distance away, Engles asked, "So, you were going to show me your new kite?"
"Yup." I stood up and moved a few yards away from everybody, then said, "Glider on green."
When my glider snapped into being, Engles backed up a pace in startlement, fell into his lawn chair, then he and the chair tipped over backwards. People began to cautiously cluster around me almost immediately.
I told them it was a prototype and that they'd soon be able to buy them, then I said, "Glider off." A couple of guys who'd been handling the wings yanked their hands back as if burned when the field-glider vanished.
Tiger dashed out to stand in front of me and spoke.
Needing no translation, I nodded and said, "Sure. Go ahead."
He spoke again and his wings appeared. Adopting a smug little expression, he tried to sit down and discovered that -- while his wings were extended -- he couldn't. People began to examine his wings as they had mine.
To Sue, I said, "Now we can show the flitter, milady."
Sue brought the flitter near us in visible mode. I placed Tiger aboard, handed her aboard, then stepped aboard myself. The flitter began rising quickly.
At three thousand feet I said "glider on red" and ran off the deck. Tiger hesitated only briefly before following me. By the time I'd landed near the dealer tents, a crowd had formed and questions were flying.
Glancing up, I saw Tiger circling the field. He still wobbled a bit now and then, but he seemed to be getting the 'hang' of things well enough.
Sue had set the flitter down where we'd boarded it. I probably could have sold a PFM to nearly everyone at the meet, but when I keyed my implant and called Steph about preorders, she said that she wanted to handle all orders through her yet-nonexistent company.
"Ed," said Sue through my implant, "One of the tow planes has an engine problem. A number of people have asked if the flitter could be used as a tow vehicle."
3rd World Products, Inc., Book 4 Page 50