THE MOTHER LODE BY ABRAXIS
Chapter 4 - ALAS, FREDDIE G.
Riddick saw the screen flash to life and the woman punch a key on the board attached to it. Then he saw shock on her face and her hand shoot toward the directional shifter. It gave him a split second's warning before the skimmer shot straight up like a rocket. He clawed at the safety harness and managed to get it fastened around himself before what he knew was coming next did. Jamming on the brake, she made a quick entry on the navigation console, slammed the shifter into forward and stomped the accelerator again. The skimmer side-slipped sickeningly then did an exceptional imitation of a bullet. An invisible bullet. She hadn't engaged the running lights.
Jeeter hadn't been as lucky. Riddick heard him hit the floor, the roof, a side wall and finally the back wall of the storage compartment.
"Jeeeeesssssuuuuuuussss, Laaaaaaadyyyyyyyy."
Riddick had to agree. He was probably going to have bruises from the badly adjusted harness. Jeeter was going to look like he had been tie-dyed. Who had taught her to fly? Some hyped up supply shuttle jockey? From the instructions she tossed over her shoulder to Jeeter, he decided that was it.
"Secure yourself with the cargo net, Mr. Jeeter. We are descending in the same manner."
Riddick gritted his teeth when, within seconds, she jammed the brake again, slapped the shift and the skimmer side-slipped again and dropped like a rock. She braked and the skimmer ended up hovering perfectly at ground car level. Images of what would have happened if the braking signal failed to connect or picked the wrong retros to connect to flashed through Riddick's mind. He shrugged. Hell, they would have been dead before they could have felt the impact.
Then he turned his head. They were in the mouth of an alley. The steel and cement walls of the buildings stood barely three feet away on either side of the skimmer. He rubbed his hands over his head, just to keep them busy; to keep them off of her soft throat. It didn't help much. It just wasn't the same with all that hair. A groaned comment from the storage area helped more.
"I think I'm gonna puke."
Ignoring Jeeter, Riddick turned to look at the woman. She was focused on the same display screen, her fingers dancing over its keyboard. He breathed deeply, calming himself. The screen occupying her wasn't standard equipment. Checking the rest of the control console, he saw that most of it wasn't standard. Even the information data link had been modified, having a full keyboard instead of the usual idiot pad. When she turned to it and started making inquiries, it was apparent that it had been significantly modified internally as well.
He waited patiently until she gently dropped the skimmer to the pavement, locked down the drive and relaxed back into her seat.
"You want to explain?"
With the need for concentration gone, her facial muscles relaxed. Her face took on an expression of pure joy and satisfaction. Riddick had seen the same face on fighter pilots just down out of a dog fight. As she turned to look at him, her movements were slow, languid; a reverse reaction to the adrenalin high she had just experienced. And, she was pumping pheromones again. He had seen that reaction, too, in many of those pilots: face of death = need to breed. Damn, that was an interesting way for a woman to be hard wired.
"Surely. Move closer so you can see the displays."
Riddick moved closer, real close. At that moment he was more interested in her than in any display. Then there were sounds of Jeeter clambering forward and Riddick found himself staring into his sharp face across the bridge of the woman's nose. The man gave him a smart-assed smirk and then spoke.
"Which screen, Lady?"
Riddick made a mental note to have an extremely serious conversation with Jeeter later as he turned to look at the display she indicated. It was the one that had lit up just before she kicked the skimmer in the ass. She hit the 'back' button several times.
"This was us" She pointed to a white blip in the middle of the screen then pointed at a collection of red blips and continued. "These are ground vehicles broadcasting government tracer codes. We are completely shielded from electronic detection but not visual. Thus, the hop."
Jeeter reacted first.
"Nine cars ah clubbers?! Holy mother have mercy."
She nodded in agreement.
"Once we landed, I hacked their command computer."
She indicated the second display, the one that should have been a simple link to TIS, Traveler's Information System.
"It is an operation against this location."
She punched up a local map with a bright red blip at a position identified as '2006 E. Sperry Blvd'. Riddick relaxed and moved back to his own seat. It wasn't the bar where he and the woman had met, his loft nor Freddie G's. Jeeter supplied the identification of what it was.
"It's Tio's. He musta smuggled in something that really pissed 'em off."
Riddick tensed again. One of the things Tio had smuggled onto Derius 4 had been him. That had been over three years ago and he wouldn't have given it a second thought if Jeeter hadn't just told them that Freddie G was talking bounty. It was time to see just how much the two-faced fucker had done about that.
"How's the clubber traffic near us?"
She turned back to the first display and tapped a few keys.
"It is still clear. All activity is well to the east and heading south toward the reported target."
"Then we better hop for Freddie G's, get our business done and get out of this area completely."
As Riddick reached for the safety harness, Jeeter chortled and pointed out the windshield of the skimmer.
"Hell, Barrol. That's G's alley right in fronta you. Lady's a Hot Stick."
That was the flat truth; a Hot Stick with a skimmer that had a hack system instead of an information link, a security package and surveillance shield that any smuggler would kill for and that had been stripped of its proximity safeties so it could be flown like a Special Forces infiltrator. It solved a big problem for him when she climbed out of the skimmer at the same time he did. There was no way he wanted to let her out of his sight.
Jeeter, following quickly on her heels, didn't see it that way.
"Oh, no, Lady. You don't wanta be part of this."
In the time Riddick had been taking contracts from Freddie G, he had never seen Jeeter have a thought of his own. Now, not only had he turned G, not that Riddick trusted that very much, he was playing protector to the woman. That "Lady" was capitalized; like it was a title not just a simple noun.
"But I must, Mr. Jeeter. I will not send you and Mr. Barrol to do something in which I am not willing to participate."
Riddick wasn't buying that.
"More like she wants to know who Freddie has been talking to at that fancy estate you mentioned, Jeeter."
He was a little unnerved when she stepped in front of him, staring into his shades. Her expression was as serious as death.
"No. Mr. Barrol. There is nothing, no one, at that location that can be connected even indirectly to me by Mr. G. It is a very exclusive art gallery and auction house, very exclusive and very discrete. If you need a baser explanation for my accompanying you, I need to know how his actions may have complicated the process of supplying your new identity. Then again, you may consider this the beginning of the education I require." She turned away from him. "Mr. Jeeter, please lead the way. I will follow Mr. Barrol."
And that's the way it went. Jeeter pointed out the locations of G's cameras and then scampered down the alley and began pounding on a signal pad beside a heavy steel door. Riddick picked a good deep shadow as close as possible to it and kept the woman safely behind him. As they waited, Riddick wondered if Jeeter was as smart as he seemed or if he would be stupid enough to turn them to G as soon as he got behind that door. He might think that the woman was an easy take but he had to know Riddick's, or rather Barrol's, reputation for getting to his target no matter what the security.
There was a loud buzz and Jeeter jerked the door open and entered. Then, the flood lights over the door went out. Riddick gave the woman last minute instructions, "Stay close and quiet. Don't touch anything.", pulled off his shades and rushed the door. He arrived just in time to hear Jeeter explaining the lights.
"It's those cheap bulbs, boss. You shoulda got the long lifers."
G's oily voice answered over the intercom.
"Shut up, you useless shit. Fix it. If you dawdle at it, I'll dock your pay. I'm in the office."
Riddick smelled the little man's anger. His turning G so easily suddenly made a lot more sense. When G wasn't putting on his act for the public, he was a vicious bastard. Riddick was surprised when the woman reached past him. He hadn't thought that she would be able to follow him that easily. She placed her hand on Jeeter's shoulder, squeezed it gently and then pulled her hand back. Though the man didn't appear to notice, it seemed to Riddick that he stood taller as he walked across the large storage room and led them into the rest of G's home. Damn, she sure knew how to push buttons. Riddick suddenly questioned just how real that sexually naive face she had given him was.
They walked into G's office. He was standing at the open door of a large walk-in vault with his back to them. Riddick had him, slammed him to the floor and knelt with a knee on his spine before G could make a sound. He did try to fight back and there was more strength in his tall slim body than Riddick had thought. But not enough. Keeping his knee firmly in place, Riddick grabbed a handful of G's lanky, long black hair and pulled his head back. He put his shiv against the artery in the exposed throat.
"We need to talk Freddie. Your choice. Talk now or bleed and then talk."
G laughed.
Now, what the fuck was that. Riddick used his best snarl.
"What's so funny, Freddie?"
G's long, pale face was twisted in glee. He looked like those pictures of Satan that one of Riddick's foster mothers had used to frighten them all into behaving like she want them to. The pictures hadn't worked on him.
"It doesn't work that way, you Neanderthal. I'm a bleeder, a hemophiliac, if you can understand that many syllables. If you start cutting, I'll be dead long before you get any answers. You can't even beat anything out of me. Internal bleeds are just as quick."
Jeeter confirmed this.
"That's right. He get's a paper cut, it's ER time."
Riddick was trying to figure out where to go from here when the woman spoke.
"I believe I have a solution to this dilemma."
G reacted immediately.
"Thank god, a voice of reason. Now, let me up so we can discuss credits."
Riddick grinned. Was he the only one who could hear what was going on underneath that deep, sweet voice of her's?
"Mr. Jeeter, if you will assist Mr. Barrol, please. I need Mr. G held down exactly as he is. I suggest you restrain his hands and legs, keeping his body stretched between you."
Riddick felt Jeeter land on G's legs, sitting across his ankles. Sheathing his shiv, he grabbed G's wrists and dragged them with him as he took a position kneeling on the floor beyond the man's head. G hadn't struggled. He didn't seem to have understood what was happening until it was too late. Now, he was twisting his head at odd angles trying to get a look at the woman's face while he worked very hard to convince her that paying him off was the only reasonable way to handle this.
Riddick watched as the woman went to G's desk and selected an unsharpened pencil and a hand sized paper weight from the items on top of it. He noticed that she was very careful not to touch anything else. Maybe that was because of his advice but maybe she was already experienced at not leaving finger prints. Leaving the desk, she walked behind him. He felt her hand slide inside his belt. Oh, damn! He struggled to keep is mind on the business at hand. Then he felt his shiv being lifted from the sheath.
She knelt beside G. Her face was impassive, emotionless. She used the shiv to slit his shirt from tail to collar and laid it to each side, baring his back.
"You were quite accurate, Mr. G, concerning the effects of cutting and heavy blows. However, you didn't mention minimal tissue bleeds, small amounts of bruising. There are some very effective ways to create a great deal of pain with only that level of physical damage. I will offer you the same choice Mr. Barrol gave you. You may answer my questions now or suffer a great deal and then answer them."
G laughed again but it lacked the confident tone of the one he had thrown at the 'Neanderthal'.
"That's a bad bluff. It's going to cost you even more credits than I had planned on, bitch."
There was fear under his bravado.
Riddick locked his hold on G and focused his full attention on the woman. She ran a finger down the shoulder blade nearest her. Having located the spot she was searching for, she replaced the finger with the eraser end of the pencil then struck the other end sharply with the paper weight. It didn't seem to Riddick that she had put much force behind it at all.
G screamed. A long high pitched scream of agony. Riddick felt the arm attached to that shoulder jerk and go limp while the other almost wrenched itself out of his grasp. Jeeter was lifted completely off of the floor but managed to keep control of G's legs. The woman added her strength to the effort, pressing down on G's back until he stopped bucking.
"Next will be the other shoulder. Then the sciatic clusters in your hips. Then I will begin working my way up your spine. Do I continue with this distasteful task or will you agree to cooperate?"
G cooperated. Riddick and Jeeter flipped him over on his back and he answered every question the woman put to him without hesitation. The fancy estate had been just the dead end that the woman had told Riddick it would be. More to his interest, G had been waiting for the outcome of the contract meet before making any moves to identify Barrol. G was still trying desperately to make some kind of deal to be paid for his silence as Riddick reached for his shiv, his eyes already focused on the vulnerable neck. G screeched.
"Oh, God! No! In the name of heaven, no!"
The touch of the woman's hand on his restrained Riddick. When he looked at her, she gave him a quick shake of her head. Shit! She looked sick, all pale and clammy. He opened his mouth to tell her to get her ass back to the skimmer while he did what had to be done. Then, he saw the cold determination in her eyes. He watched as she removed one of her earrings, taking the spool shaped dangle between her middle and index fingers and her thumb, like a hype would hold a syringe. Turning G's head toward her, she placed her fingers against the end of his nose with the bottom of the spool centered in his left nostril.
They stared at each other for a brief moment. G's expression totally confused and pleading for mercy; her's, sadly compassionate. She compressed the cylinder of the spool to half its length then quickly stood up.
"Barrol, Jeeter; release him."
G sat up and made an attempt to stand. About half way there, his face contorted with pain and he clutched at his head with his still functioning hand. He collapsed, convulsing violently for a few seconds before his body relaxed in death. His empty eyes stared at the ceiling. A small stream of blood began running out of his nose.
"It will appear as .... as nothing but a natural death ..... a cerebral hemorrhage. The effect was .... much faster than ..... than I had been told to expect. His hemophilia ...... it must have had some effect on the mechanism of the drug. It should have been painless."
Riddick knew she was talking, forcing her thoughts into a logical pattern, to keep her own control rather than for his and Jeeter's benefit. But whatever was going on inside her head wasn't showing on her face. She looked thoughtful, troubled but calm. He retrieved his shiv and stepped close to her. Taking the earring from her hand, he expanded the spool and rolled it between his fingers.
"Was this for me?"
"No!"
Her voice was sharp. She seemed insulted. Her eyes matched her voice but that proved nothing.
"Tell the truth, sweet thing. You weren't expecting trouble with G. What would it have taken for you to shove this thing up my nose? Would you have used it just because I didn't take the contract or only if I had tried to make you pay up on all that skin you're showing?"
She took the spool from his hand.
"Neither. I have not told you enough for you to be a threat to me even now. If you had not taken the contract I would simply have bid you goodnight and Godspeed. If you had tried to rape me I would have used the other earring. It contains a strong, but non-lethal, sedative."
"Then why did you have that one?"
She clipped the earring back onto her earlobe as she spoke.
"To put up my own nose if I were betrayed. Since I no longer have that option, I would like to leave for somewhere safer as soon as possible. Are we finished here?"
Riddick was hit hard by the cold certainty in her voice as she spoke of suicide. The image of her laying there like G formed in his mind. He didn't like it. Thrusting it aside he concentrated on her question. At least one problem had been solved by the confrontation. He was certain that the woman was in control of herself to the point he would trust her at the controls of that skimmer. If it had been a standard model he would have flown it himself. As much as it was obviously modified, he didn't want to take that chance. He turned and picked up the pencil and paper weight, intending to wipe them clean of finger prints Then something else caught his attention. Or rather, the lack of something else.
Jeeter, the little weasel, had disappeared.
Chapter 4 - ALAS, FREDDIE G.
Riddick saw the screen flash to life and the woman punch a key on the board attached to it. Then he saw shock on her face and her hand shoot toward the directional shifter. It gave him a split second's warning before the skimmer shot straight up like a rocket. He clawed at the safety harness and managed to get it fastened around himself before what he knew was coming next did. Jamming on the brake, she made a quick entry on the navigation console, slammed the shifter into forward and stomped the accelerator again. The skimmer side-slipped sickeningly then did an exceptional imitation of a bullet. An invisible bullet. She hadn't engaged the running lights.
Jeeter hadn't been as lucky. Riddick heard him hit the floor, the roof, a side wall and finally the back wall of the storage compartment.
"Jeeeeesssssuuuuuuussss, Laaaaaaadyyyyyyyy."
Riddick had to agree. He was probably going to have bruises from the badly adjusted harness. Jeeter was going to look like he had been tie-dyed. Who had taught her to fly? Some hyped up supply shuttle jockey? From the instructions she tossed over her shoulder to Jeeter, he decided that was it.
"Secure yourself with the cargo net, Mr. Jeeter. We are descending in the same manner."
Riddick gritted his teeth when, within seconds, she jammed the brake again, slapped the shift and the skimmer side-slipped again and dropped like a rock. She braked and the skimmer ended up hovering perfectly at ground car level. Images of what would have happened if the braking signal failed to connect or picked the wrong retros to connect to flashed through Riddick's mind. He shrugged. Hell, they would have been dead before they could have felt the impact.
Then he turned his head. They were in the mouth of an alley. The steel and cement walls of the buildings stood barely three feet away on either side of the skimmer. He rubbed his hands over his head, just to keep them busy; to keep them off of her soft throat. It didn't help much. It just wasn't the same with all that hair. A groaned comment from the storage area helped more.
"I think I'm gonna puke."
Ignoring Jeeter, Riddick turned to look at the woman. She was focused on the same display screen, her fingers dancing over its keyboard. He breathed deeply, calming himself. The screen occupying her wasn't standard equipment. Checking the rest of the control console, he saw that most of it wasn't standard. Even the information data link had been modified, having a full keyboard instead of the usual idiot pad. When she turned to it and started making inquiries, it was apparent that it had been significantly modified internally as well.
He waited patiently until she gently dropped the skimmer to the pavement, locked down the drive and relaxed back into her seat.
"You want to explain?"
With the need for concentration gone, her facial muscles relaxed. Her face took on an expression of pure joy and satisfaction. Riddick had seen the same face on fighter pilots just down out of a dog fight. As she turned to look at him, her movements were slow, languid; a reverse reaction to the adrenalin high she had just experienced. And, she was pumping pheromones again. He had seen that reaction, too, in many of those pilots: face of death = need to breed. Damn, that was an interesting way for a woman to be hard wired.
"Surely. Move closer so you can see the displays."
Riddick moved closer, real close. At that moment he was more interested in her than in any display. Then there were sounds of Jeeter clambering forward and Riddick found himself staring into his sharp face across the bridge of the woman's nose. The man gave him a smart-assed smirk and then spoke.
"Which screen, Lady?"
Riddick made a mental note to have an extremely serious conversation with Jeeter later as he turned to look at the display she indicated. It was the one that had lit up just before she kicked the skimmer in the ass. She hit the 'back' button several times.
"This was us" She pointed to a white blip in the middle of the screen then pointed at a collection of red blips and continued. "These are ground vehicles broadcasting government tracer codes. We are completely shielded from electronic detection but not visual. Thus, the hop."
Jeeter reacted first.
"Nine cars ah clubbers?! Holy mother have mercy."
She nodded in agreement.
"Once we landed, I hacked their command computer."
She indicated the second display, the one that should have been a simple link to TIS, Traveler's Information System.
"It is an operation against this location."
She punched up a local map with a bright red blip at a position identified as '2006 E. Sperry Blvd'. Riddick relaxed and moved back to his own seat. It wasn't the bar where he and the woman had met, his loft nor Freddie G's. Jeeter supplied the identification of what it was.
"It's Tio's. He musta smuggled in something that really pissed 'em off."
Riddick tensed again. One of the things Tio had smuggled onto Derius 4 had been him. That had been over three years ago and he wouldn't have given it a second thought if Jeeter hadn't just told them that Freddie G was talking bounty. It was time to see just how much the two-faced fucker had done about that.
"How's the clubber traffic near us?"
She turned back to the first display and tapped a few keys.
"It is still clear. All activity is well to the east and heading south toward the reported target."
"Then we better hop for Freddie G's, get our business done and get out of this area completely."
As Riddick reached for the safety harness, Jeeter chortled and pointed out the windshield of the skimmer.
"Hell, Barrol. That's G's alley right in fronta you. Lady's a Hot Stick."
That was the flat truth; a Hot Stick with a skimmer that had a hack system instead of an information link, a security package and surveillance shield that any smuggler would kill for and that had been stripped of its proximity safeties so it could be flown like a Special Forces infiltrator. It solved a big problem for him when she climbed out of the skimmer at the same time he did. There was no way he wanted to let her out of his sight.
Jeeter, following quickly on her heels, didn't see it that way.
"Oh, no, Lady. You don't wanta be part of this."
In the time Riddick had been taking contracts from Freddie G, he had never seen Jeeter have a thought of his own. Now, not only had he turned G, not that Riddick trusted that very much, he was playing protector to the woman. That "Lady" was capitalized; like it was a title not just a simple noun.
"But I must, Mr. Jeeter. I will not send you and Mr. Barrol to do something in which I am not willing to participate."
Riddick wasn't buying that.
"More like she wants to know who Freddie has been talking to at that fancy estate you mentioned, Jeeter."
He was a little unnerved when she stepped in front of him, staring into his shades. Her expression was as serious as death.
"No. Mr. Barrol. There is nothing, no one, at that location that can be connected even indirectly to me by Mr. G. It is a very exclusive art gallery and auction house, very exclusive and very discrete. If you need a baser explanation for my accompanying you, I need to know how his actions may have complicated the process of supplying your new identity. Then again, you may consider this the beginning of the education I require." She turned away from him. "Mr. Jeeter, please lead the way. I will follow Mr. Barrol."
And that's the way it went. Jeeter pointed out the locations of G's cameras and then scampered down the alley and began pounding on a signal pad beside a heavy steel door. Riddick picked a good deep shadow as close as possible to it and kept the woman safely behind him. As they waited, Riddick wondered if Jeeter was as smart as he seemed or if he would be stupid enough to turn them to G as soon as he got behind that door. He might think that the woman was an easy take but he had to know Riddick's, or rather Barrol's, reputation for getting to his target no matter what the security.
There was a loud buzz and Jeeter jerked the door open and entered. Then, the flood lights over the door went out. Riddick gave the woman last minute instructions, "Stay close and quiet. Don't touch anything.", pulled off his shades and rushed the door. He arrived just in time to hear Jeeter explaining the lights.
"It's those cheap bulbs, boss. You shoulda got the long lifers."
G's oily voice answered over the intercom.
"Shut up, you useless shit. Fix it. If you dawdle at it, I'll dock your pay. I'm in the office."
Riddick smelled the little man's anger. His turning G so easily suddenly made a lot more sense. When G wasn't putting on his act for the public, he was a vicious bastard. Riddick was surprised when the woman reached past him. He hadn't thought that she would be able to follow him that easily. She placed her hand on Jeeter's shoulder, squeezed it gently and then pulled her hand back. Though the man didn't appear to notice, it seemed to Riddick that he stood taller as he walked across the large storage room and led them into the rest of G's home. Damn, she sure knew how to push buttons. Riddick suddenly questioned just how real that sexually naive face she had given him was.
They walked into G's office. He was standing at the open door of a large walk-in vault with his back to them. Riddick had him, slammed him to the floor and knelt with a knee on his spine before G could make a sound. He did try to fight back and there was more strength in his tall slim body than Riddick had thought. But not enough. Keeping his knee firmly in place, Riddick grabbed a handful of G's lanky, long black hair and pulled his head back. He put his shiv against the artery in the exposed throat.
"We need to talk Freddie. Your choice. Talk now or bleed and then talk."
G laughed.
Now, what the fuck was that. Riddick used his best snarl.
"What's so funny, Freddie?"
G's long, pale face was twisted in glee. He looked like those pictures of Satan that one of Riddick's foster mothers had used to frighten them all into behaving like she want them to. The pictures hadn't worked on him.
"It doesn't work that way, you Neanderthal. I'm a bleeder, a hemophiliac, if you can understand that many syllables. If you start cutting, I'll be dead long before you get any answers. You can't even beat anything out of me. Internal bleeds are just as quick."
Jeeter confirmed this.
"That's right. He get's a paper cut, it's ER time."
Riddick was trying to figure out where to go from here when the woman spoke.
"I believe I have a solution to this dilemma."
G reacted immediately.
"Thank god, a voice of reason. Now, let me up so we can discuss credits."
Riddick grinned. Was he the only one who could hear what was going on underneath that deep, sweet voice of her's?
"Mr. Jeeter, if you will assist Mr. Barrol, please. I need Mr. G held down exactly as he is. I suggest you restrain his hands and legs, keeping his body stretched between you."
Riddick felt Jeeter land on G's legs, sitting across his ankles. Sheathing his shiv, he grabbed G's wrists and dragged them with him as he took a position kneeling on the floor beyond the man's head. G hadn't struggled. He didn't seem to have understood what was happening until it was too late. Now, he was twisting his head at odd angles trying to get a look at the woman's face while he worked very hard to convince her that paying him off was the only reasonable way to handle this.
Riddick watched as the woman went to G's desk and selected an unsharpened pencil and a hand sized paper weight from the items on top of it. He noticed that she was very careful not to touch anything else. Maybe that was because of his advice but maybe she was already experienced at not leaving finger prints. Leaving the desk, she walked behind him. He felt her hand slide inside his belt. Oh, damn! He struggled to keep is mind on the business at hand. Then he felt his shiv being lifted from the sheath.
She knelt beside G. Her face was impassive, emotionless. She used the shiv to slit his shirt from tail to collar and laid it to each side, baring his back.
"You were quite accurate, Mr. G, concerning the effects of cutting and heavy blows. However, you didn't mention minimal tissue bleeds, small amounts of bruising. There are some very effective ways to create a great deal of pain with only that level of physical damage. I will offer you the same choice Mr. Barrol gave you. You may answer my questions now or suffer a great deal and then answer them."
G laughed again but it lacked the confident tone of the one he had thrown at the 'Neanderthal'.
"That's a bad bluff. It's going to cost you even more credits than I had planned on, bitch."
There was fear under his bravado.
Riddick locked his hold on G and focused his full attention on the woman. She ran a finger down the shoulder blade nearest her. Having located the spot she was searching for, she replaced the finger with the eraser end of the pencil then struck the other end sharply with the paper weight. It didn't seem to Riddick that she had put much force behind it at all.
G screamed. A long high pitched scream of agony. Riddick felt the arm attached to that shoulder jerk and go limp while the other almost wrenched itself out of his grasp. Jeeter was lifted completely off of the floor but managed to keep control of G's legs. The woman added her strength to the effort, pressing down on G's back until he stopped bucking.
"Next will be the other shoulder. Then the sciatic clusters in your hips. Then I will begin working my way up your spine. Do I continue with this distasteful task or will you agree to cooperate?"
G cooperated. Riddick and Jeeter flipped him over on his back and he answered every question the woman put to him without hesitation. The fancy estate had been just the dead end that the woman had told Riddick it would be. More to his interest, G had been waiting for the outcome of the contract meet before making any moves to identify Barrol. G was still trying desperately to make some kind of deal to be paid for his silence as Riddick reached for his shiv, his eyes already focused on the vulnerable neck. G screeched.
"Oh, God! No! In the name of heaven, no!"
The touch of the woman's hand on his restrained Riddick. When he looked at her, she gave him a quick shake of her head. Shit! She looked sick, all pale and clammy. He opened his mouth to tell her to get her ass back to the skimmer while he did what had to be done. Then, he saw the cold determination in her eyes. He watched as she removed one of her earrings, taking the spool shaped dangle between her middle and index fingers and her thumb, like a hype would hold a syringe. Turning G's head toward her, she placed her fingers against the end of his nose with the bottom of the spool centered in his left nostril.
They stared at each other for a brief moment. G's expression totally confused and pleading for mercy; her's, sadly compassionate. She compressed the cylinder of the spool to half its length then quickly stood up.
"Barrol, Jeeter; release him."
G sat up and made an attempt to stand. About half way there, his face contorted with pain and he clutched at his head with his still functioning hand. He collapsed, convulsing violently for a few seconds before his body relaxed in death. His empty eyes stared at the ceiling. A small stream of blood began running out of his nose.
"It will appear as .... as nothing but a natural death ..... a cerebral hemorrhage. The effect was .... much faster than ..... than I had been told to expect. His hemophilia ...... it must have had some effect on the mechanism of the drug. It should have been painless."
Riddick knew she was talking, forcing her thoughts into a logical pattern, to keep her own control rather than for his and Jeeter's benefit. But whatever was going on inside her head wasn't showing on her face. She looked thoughtful, troubled but calm. He retrieved his shiv and stepped close to her. Taking the earring from her hand, he expanded the spool and rolled it between his fingers.
"Was this for me?"
"No!"
Her voice was sharp. She seemed insulted. Her eyes matched her voice but that proved nothing.
"Tell the truth, sweet thing. You weren't expecting trouble with G. What would it have taken for you to shove this thing up my nose? Would you have used it just because I didn't take the contract or only if I had tried to make you pay up on all that skin you're showing?"
She took the spool from his hand.
"Neither. I have not told you enough for you to be a threat to me even now. If you had not taken the contract I would simply have bid you goodnight and Godspeed. If you had tried to rape me I would have used the other earring. It contains a strong, but non-lethal, sedative."
"Then why did you have that one?"
She clipped the earring back onto her earlobe as she spoke.
"To put up my own nose if I were betrayed. Since I no longer have that option, I would like to leave for somewhere safer as soon as possible. Are we finished here?"
Riddick was hit hard by the cold certainty in her voice as she spoke of suicide. The image of her laying there like G formed in his mind. He didn't like it. Thrusting it aside he concentrated on her question. At least one problem had been solved by the confrontation. He was certain that the woman was in control of herself to the point he would trust her at the controls of that skimmer. If it had been a standard model he would have flown it himself. As much as it was obviously modified, he didn't want to take that chance. He turned and picked up the pencil and paper weight, intending to wipe them clean of finger prints Then something else caught his attention. Or rather, the lack of something else.
Jeeter, the little weasel, had disappeared.
