Book 1: 3rd World Products, Inc.

by Ed Howdershelt

  When I used a jump shot to loft the cue ball over one of his stripes in one game, Gary mimicked the shot sometime later without hesitation. He missed, but only by a very narrow margin. I didn't say anything about that, either.

  Susie brought me another beer after our third game. She eyed Gary as she put the beer on our table, then glanced at me as she passed. I gave her a blank look and she kept going on her way back to the bar.

  After a quick glance around to see if anyone needed a refill, she leaned on the bar to watch us play. Either she'd also noticed Gary's quickness of learning or she just thought he was worth looking at.

  Gary might have been a lot of things and Dave's guess about Gary being Navy might have been true, but something about him didn't ring quite right with me. He reminded me of some of the spooks I'd worked with in Europe. They'd spoken the languages, worn the Euro clothes from the local stores instead of the stuff from the American PX/BX, and they'd generally been trained well enough to fake it if contacts with the locals remained very brief and superficial.

  In other times and places I'd learned to rely on my instincts. If something seems wrong about a trail, take time to figure out what. Leaves turned the wrong way or upside down, for instance, meant that someone or something has passed that way recently and damaged or moved some of the foliage, perhaps to try to conceal an ambush. You get to where oddities register and affect your judgment and behavior before you're consciously aware of them.

  Spring Hill and the area within about fifty miles of it in any direction held no military or other government interests worthy of note. MacDill AFB had closed, so there was nothing left to guard from spies. The idea of Gary being an off-duty government agent of some sort didn't ring quite right, either.

  I took a sip of my beer and said, “Gary, there may actually be one man in some branch of the U.S. military who honestly hasn't played pool, but I'd bet you aren't him. Either you lied about never having played before or you have a true talent for the game. Nobody shoots at a semi-pro level after only five games."

  "Oh,” he said, “I wouldn't call my shooting anything even close to semi-pro..."

  "I would,” I interrupted him. “I'm semi-pro and your shooting could probably surpass mine within a few more games at this rate. If you want a second opinion, the lady who keeps score on tournament nights is right over there."

  I pointed to Susie, who gave me a small wave and a smile.

  "Yup. Sure do,” she said. “You're too good to be true. You know what that means, don't you?"

  Gary looked slightly apprehensive. “Uh, no, I'm afraid I don't..."

  Susie gave him a big, bright smile and said, “It means you're fulla shit! You're too good at it. You guys ready for two more?"

  Gary looked slightly worried.

  "I'll take a new one,” I said. “Gary's still working his first one."

  As Susie nodded and turned away, I turned to Gary and said, “Well, there you have it. A more-or-less impartial second opinion."

  "Is she upset with me?"

  "I'm not, so she isn't, either. She doesn't care how good you are at pool. She just likes to make sure there's no trouble in the bar over stuff like this."

  Gary nodded thoughtfully as he looked in Susie's direction.

  We put up our sticks and moved back to the bar to save Susie a trip. Gary seemed thoughtful as he stared at his bottle and ticked the label loose at one corner. Susie's reappearance with my new beer actually seemed to go unnoticed by Gary until she cleared her throat and looked at the bottle he was mangling. He seemed slightly startled to see her and quickly set the bottle down.

  Susie said, “You're gonna give yourself a headache, thinkin’ that hard."

  She grinned at him and he grinned back, but he said nothing, so Susie left. She glanced back at him once as she rang up the sale, but he was again contemplating matters as he gazed at his beer bottle. Susie looked at me and shrugged, then went back to tidying up behind the bar.

  I swiveled the stool so I could rest both elbows on the bar and matched Gary's contemplative position, then said in a low tone, “Susie thinks you're a little odd."

  "What? Why?"

  "Well, for one thing, you didn't eyeball her coming or going. She once told me a man'd have to be hardcore-gay to not watch her walk by."

  Gary looked at Susie, then over at me. “She really said that?"

  "Yup. She knows how good she looks in those little tip-getting outfits."

  Gary looked back at her again and said, “She's right, of course.” He then turned back to me and asked, “Are you saying you think I'm gay?"

  "I wouldn't care if you are, Gary. After all, you weren't looking at me, either. You were just staring hard at that bottle. I just figured you had a lot on your mind."

  Gary put the bottle down and asked, “If you don't care, why did you mention it at all?"

  I put my beer down, too. “To see how you'd handle it."

  Gary sighed. “Look, I'm not interested in fighting..."

  I interrupted him. “Neither am I. I do want to ask you something, though, and it could seem a little strange."

  Gary's eyes narrowed a bit. “What do you want to ask me?"

  I told him to put a hand on the bar, then I put a finger on the top of his wrist. He looked at my finger dubiously, but sat still.

  I waited until his eyes shifted back to mine and quietly asked, “Gary, are you in the U.S. Navy?"

  He said nothing for a moment, then asked, “Do you expect me to believe that you can tell if someone's lying by touching them?"

  I nodded slightly and said, “Sure do. You didn't answer the question, Gary. Are you in the Navy?"

  "You were right,” he said. “This is pretty strange. What if I say 'no' and you choose not to believe me?"

  "Then I don't believe you, that's all. Same if you say 'yes' and I don't believe you. Same if I do believe you. I'm just curious, that's all."

  "And if I just pull my hand away without answering your question?"

  I grinned at him. “Then you get to buy the next round for chickening out."

  Gary wasn't grinning. He looked at my finger on his wrist, then back at my face. “That's it? Nothing else?"

  "That's it. Nothing else. I'm just curious, Gary, and you still haven't answered my question."

  Gary looked at me a moment longer and said, “Yes. I'm in the Navy."

  I'd taken the stool on the left because I'd wanted the lights from the bar behind him. His eyes never shifted or left mine, but his pupils contracted noticeably as he spoke, then returned to their former size.

  I silently removed my finger from his wrist and picked up my beer to take a sip. He watched me closely, but just as silently, as he rubbed his wrist.

  After some moments of that silence he asked, “Well? What now?"

  I didn't look at him as I said, “Now I finish my beer and leave."

  Gary looked confused, then irritated. “Leave? Why? What's the matter? You didn't seem in a hurry to leave a few minutes ago."

  "That was before you finally answered my question, Gary."

  I drained the last of the beer and rapped the bottle on the bar to get Susie's attention. I waved goodbye and she waved back, then I turned to go.

  I headed for the door, watching his reflection in the glass just in case. He made no move to stop me, but his right hand covered his left wrist. He seemed to be squeezing his wristwatch as I opened the door. A nervous habit?

  I was halfway to my car when a dark green Chevy sedan pulled in and tucked itself into a nearby parking slot. I kept an eye on the driver's door as I walked. The door opened and first one leg, then the other, appeared. They were pretty good legs, from what I could see of them. Then the rest of the woman emerged, then emerged some more. She must have been six feet tall.

  I stopped to take a longer look at her as she took a look around the parking lot. She saw me and leaned back into the car for a moment, then straightened again. When she saw I was still looking at her, she slung the
purse she'd retrieved on her shoulder in a businesslike manner and shut the car door, then began walking toward the front door of the bar in what was almost a march step.

  She was wearing a matching dark-emerald-green skirt and jacket that went well with her lighter-green blouse and fit her very well, indeed. Not too tight, not too loose, just well tailored to her form. Her height was natural, not the result of high heels. Her light blonde hair was about collar-length in a pageboy sort of cut.

  As she neared me, her eyes seemed to travel the length of me in an appraising fashion before she stopped near me and asked, “Did you just come out of there?"

  She spoke softly in a rich contralto voice and had a faint, unplaceable accent much like Gary's.

  "Sure did. There's nothing else open on the whole block to come out of. Excuse me for staring, ma'am. I haven't seen a woman quite like you in the flesh for a long time. You can take that as a heartfelt compliment."

  She looked at the bar door and back at me. Her small smile seemed forced.

  "Thank you. Do you happen to know if there's a man named Gary in there?"

  Why wasn't I at all surprised that she knew Gary?

  I stepped back a pace as I said, “Maybe he's sitting at the bar, but I've been in the poolroom for the last hour or so. It's been nice seeing you, miLady, and I truly mean that.” I started onward toward my car.

  "Wait, please,” said the blonde. I was about six feet away from her when I turned to see her gripping her wristwatch as Gary had.

  Why didn't that surprise me, either?

  "Sorry, ma'am. Gotta go.” I turned away to continue walking to my car, but the blonde's hand locked around my left wrist in a split second. The bar's door opened and Gary walked out and headed our way.

  I tried a couple of quick moves to break her grip that didn't work, then tried pressing a knuckle into a spot that should have caused her hand to go numb, but her fingers remained locked around my wrist and her face remained impassive.

  I doubted that I could get free without breaking her arm or punching her out, and I wasn't quite ready to resort to such measures.

  "Please don't do that again,” she said. “It was very painful. We only want to talk with you."

  Gary strode up to us and said something to her quickly that made absolutely no sense to me. The blonde looked at her hand on my wrist as if having second thoughts about being in contact with me.

  Heh. Guess he bought the “Finger of Truth” trick at the bar.

  Gary turned to me. “We need to talk, Ed. We won't hurt you. This is my friend Ellen. Will you please not try to run away?"

  I noted that he'd said ‘try to run'. For some reason it didn't seem likely to me that I'd get far. I looked at the blonde's hand on my wrist and shrugged.

  "Will this gorgeous blonde continue to hold my hand if I stay?"

  In an absolutely serious tone, she said, “I will if that is required."

  I shook my head slightly in disbelief and said, “Jesus, ol’ buddy, please send this woman a sense of humor ... Sorry, Ellen. Just kidding. One suggestion, though; let's take this discussion back inside the bar where we won't be feeding mosquitoes. We can take a table in the back of the poolroom."

  ...And Susie can call the cops if necessary...

  Ellen looked at Gary. He nodded. As we turned to return to the bar, I lifted my left wrist and tapped the back of her hand. She glanced again at Gary, who nodded, before she released my arm.

  I rubbed my wrist and looked into her dispassionate gaze for a moment. Her eyes held mine until Gary cleared his throat to get us moving again. I'd seen nothing more in her eyes than a quiet, calm intelligence.

  While I felt they might have been prepared to do something to prevent my escape, they seemed to have no qualms about going back into the bar with me.

  Chapter Two

  Susie seemed startled to see me coming back in, especially with Gary and a strange, beautiful woman. She gave me a questioning look with an eyebrow and I returned a slight shrug and a 'damned if I know' expression as the three of us headed into the poolroom. I caught Ellen glancing curiously at the tables.

  'So she's never seen a pool table before, either?' I thought.

  I grinned as I held her chair for her. She looked at me, seeming not to know what I was doing. I gestured for her to sit. She did so.

  "Manners,” I said. “The man holds the chair for the lady. Is this your first field assignment, Ellen?"

  Ellen cast her dispassionate gaze my direction briefly but said nothing as she sat down. Susie was coming into the poolroom.

  "Gary, if you'll get the drinks, I'll rack the balls. We can talk while we play. Hell, we could even play while we talk, if you want. Anything is possible."

  Gary nodded and ordered three Ice House beers as Ellen looked up at me oddly. Susie looked at me again as Gary gave her two bucks for some more quarters.

  "They say they want to talk,” I told her softly. “That's all I know for now."

  Ellen heard me. Her eyes followed Susie as she left for the bar.

  As I fed three quarters into the pool table I said, “She's curious. If she gets concerned, she'll call the cops. If she gets really worried, she calls someone else first. You'd probably prefer the cops, if it came to that."

  Ellen said, “We only wish to speak with you."

  "Great,” I said. “You could start by telling me a little about yourselves and why you didn't want me to leave tonight."

  Ellen gave me a steady, piercing look. “Who do you think we are?"

  I looked back at her and said, “Well, let's see ... Gary lied to me about being in the Navy and he learned the game of pool unbelievably quickly, but I don't really think he was lying about being new at the game and neither of you seems ever to have seen a pool table before tonight."

  I sipped my beer thoughtfully and continued, “You both have the same habit of squeezing your watch at times and you, Ellen, showed up right on cue to prevent me from leaving. That knuckle trick has worked on some big, mean men in the past, but it didn't work on you."

  I began pulling balls out of the table and putting them in the rack, continuing as I did so. “When Gary talks about anything, he sounds as if he's reciting facts from memory and you both have odd accents. Oh, and whatever Gary said to you in the parking lot was in a language I've never heard and I've heard most of them. Beyond all that, you could both be somewhere else having a good laugh about my suspicious nature, but you're here."

  I finished arranging the balls and put the wooden rack back in the table.

  "Adding it all up in a conservative way, I could assume you're from another country, here because of the space ship, but there's the matter of you being tall white people. I've heard all the tall, white languages. Yours isn't one of them."

  Gary laughed softly and asked, “You don't think that you might possibly be mistaken about that?"

  I repeated a bit of what I'd heard him say to Ellen in the parking lot and added, “Nope. No mistake. That one isn't on the list."

  Ellen was staring at me until Susie came in and set our beers down. I let her know with another shrug that the situation hadn't changed and she left again.

  I flipped a quarter, caught it, and slapped it down on the table. They both stared at my hand as I stared at them.

  "Heads or tails?” I asked. They both looked blankly at me.

  "See? You people just don't really know enough to function as spies. Gary, just say either heads or tails."

  "Uh ... heads, then. Why?"

  I lifted my hand from the quarter and lined up for the break. “Take a look. Eagle side up, also known as 'tails'. Most coins have two sides,"—I paused to grin at them—"One of which has someone's head on it. People all over this world decide some things by chance by flipping a coin and calling which side they think will face up when it lands."

  "We didn't do this before,” said Gary.

  "I bought the first game and didn't bother with it."

  I slammed the cue ball into
the rack and watched two balls, a solid and a stripe, dive into pockets. Five stripes later I missed a long green shot and walked over to take a sip of beer.

  Gary examined the layout on the table as Ellen watched him and I watched her. Damn, she was a gorgeous woman! I wondered if they only worked together or if they had more going on between them.

  Gary's fourth shot, the seven, rolled slowly to within a quarter-inch of the pocket and stopped. He'd been trying to shoot softly to set up his next shot.

  I grinned at him and tapped in my last stripe, then the eight.

  Gary reached for his quarters and fed the table, but as he started to rack the balls Ellen stood up and walked over to the table.

  "I'd like to try this game,” she said, carefully placing a stack of three quarters on the table edge as Gary had done. She looked at me and added, “Unless women are not allowed to participate?"

  "Oh, please,” I said. “This isn't Afghanistan."

  She looked at me blankly, so I added, “That's a country where women aren't allowed to do much of anything. It was intended as a humorous comparison."

  Her tone and delivery were absolutely droll as she said, “I've heard of Afghanistan. May I take that to mean I may also play?"

  After a moment I glanced at Gary. He gave me a sidelong look and a shrug that said, 'It's just the way she is.'

  I said to Ellen, “Yes'm. Exactly. No reason not to. No sweat."

  Ellen nodded curtly and started back to her chair.

  "Wait one,” I said. “Gary, you've already played me six times tonight. Want to let Ellen try her hand this game?"

  Gary stepped aside with surprising alacrity and laid his stick on the table. Ellen was apparently no less fast a learner than Gary. Without question or comment she quickly and carefully arranged the balls in the rack, then just as carefully placed the rack back in the table and stepped back with the cue stick, examining it thoroughly. After hefting it a few times, she placed the butt of it on the floor.