Rick's Place was just as darksome and uninviting at high noon as midnight, windowless walls excluding any hint of daylight. Mal, Zoe and Jayne sat at one of the larger tables facing Williams, his right hand man and a pretty little redhead in a tight chartreuse dress that showed a lot of toned olive skin.
"My medic, Ramona Cortez," Williams introduced.
She flashed a gamin smile. "Call me Devil."
"And a right little devil she is," her Captain agreed. "I thought you and I might start by having words with the proprietor."
Sounded good. "Right. Jayne, you're with us. Zoe you chat up the help, see if you can find anything out."
"Why don't you back her up, Rawhide?" Williams shot Zoe a grin. "Not that Ms. Washburn ain't fully capable of getting answers by her ownself."
That got him a flicker of a smile in response as she rose. "Never hurts to have back-up, sir." she led Rawhide off towards the bar and its tender.
"Cortez, you work the customers," Williams told the redhead. She nodded, slid out of her seat and undulated away, gathering eyes.
Three big men had no particular trouble buffaloing their way through what passed for security in this place. But that meant the proprietor, who was pretty big and burly in his own right, was plenty annoyed when they finally ran him to ground in a surprisingly nice office lit by a big picture window with a view of the docks. Obviously a shift in tactics was in order.
"We're not out to make any trouble for you and yours, Mister," Maxx said, pouring the soothing oils. "Thing is Captain Reynolds and I were engaged in a bit of quiet trade through a go-between who worked out of your place."
"Deal blew up in our face and now our middle-man is dead and our money and goods gone," Mal chimed in. "All we want is our own back."
"Yeah!" said Jayne from his stance by the door.
Rick - assuming that was his name - relaxed just a trifle. "What makes you think I know anything 'bout it?" he growled.
"We don't think any such thing," Maxx answered promptly. "But a smart business man ain't gonna let just anybody work out of his place."
"It's information on our go-between we're looking for, nothing else," Mal assured him.
The proprietor relaxed some more. Seemed he wasn't adverse to being helpful in that way. "You got a name?"
Maxx shook his head. "Naught but a contact number."
"Little weasely reuben with nasty taste in tweeds," Mal added.
Rick's face changed. "Louie? You say Louie's dead?"
"'Fraid so," Mal's gaze sharpened. "Friend of yours?"
The man shook his head. "Naw, but he was a pitiful little chump. Totally harmless."
"So - no killin' type enemies?" Maxx probed.
"Louie? Hell no! Never did well enough to earn any. And he was honest enough in his way. Nobody had anything against Louie. Harmless like I said."
Mal and Maxx exchanged baffled looks.
Rick seemed to be thinking deep thoughts, his face twitched as if he were having trouble making up his mind - then he did. "We got ourselves a dung heap king with delusions of grandeur, angling for 'Ser Toh' (Syndicate Boss) status. He's meeting with some resistance in low quarters and might have made an example of Louie."
"Him being so harmless and helpless," Maxx said with visible distaste.
"Yeah," Rick clearly shared his opinion. "Yellow clear through - that's our aspiring gang lord. Syndicate'd eat him alive."
"Got a name?" Mal asked.
...
The bar-girl sniffled and dabbed her eyes with the hanky Rawhide'd given her, trying to save her make-up.
"Sorry to bring you bad news," Zoe said quite gently.
"It's not that I was carrying a torch for Louie," the girl explained. "Not even a feebly winking lil' candle. But he was such a harmless chump. Pitiful really."
"That was my impression," Zoe agreed. "So, not likely to have enemies?"
"Louie?" the girl almost laughed. "Never! Most folk liked him 'bout as much as they despised him."
"What about the locale he picked?" Rawhide asked suddenly. "Cross alley between Landfall and Bloodmont streets. Maybe we violated somebody's territory?"
But the girl shook her head. "No. Nobody's laid claim to that stretch far as I've heard. That's a respectable neighborhood."
"Not a likely place for a robber-gang to set up quarters then?" asked Zoe.
Another head shake. "I wouldn't think so," the bar girl frowned. "Suppose somebody might just have moved in though."
...
The men playing holo-billiards actually seemed a might depressed over the tweedy crook's death.
"Louie never did have any luck," one said gloomily.
"Barely scraped up a living," another agreed. "Harmless little guy."
There seemed general agreement on that point.
Devil perched on the corner of the play table swinging her long legs and wrinkling her nose fetchingly. "Must have been the job then. Guess he got in over his head."
That roused group disbelief. "Louie? Impossible!"
"Nobody'd trust him with a big deal," a player explained kindly. "Picayune all the way, that was our Louie."
She swung her legs again. "According to you all nobody'd want to kill Louie. But somebody did."
A man shrugged helplessly. "I know. I just can't figure it." and murmurs from all assembled showed they shared in his opinion.
...
"I admit to being baffled." Zoe confessed to the two strange crew after they'd forgathered at a corner table to compare notes. "The little man was too picayune for killin' competition. And too harmless to have personal enemies."
"I'm leaning towards an opportune bit of robbery," Rawhide said. Both women looked dubious.
"Awful lot of folk pretty heavily armed to just be wandering by," Devil pointed out.
"And in a respectable neighborhood at that," Zoe added.
Rawhide shrugged. "I know. You got a better explanation?"
A moment of silent thought. "He's right." Devil said at last. "We don't have any enemies on this rock. You say you don't neither. And if our go-between didn't either then all that leaves is thieves getting lucky."
Rawhide cracked a smile. "And us getting unlucky - which is no uncommon happening."
Zoe sighed. "Nor for us."
At that moment the two captains appeared on a branching stair trailed by Jayne, all three looking grim and purposeful.
"Looks like they've had better luck." Devil observed.
...
Sue woke slowly and luxuriantly, finally pulling herself out of bed and into a comfy robe to pad bare faced and uncombed to the galley saloon. Judging by the bright sunshine falling through the skylights it was well after noon. The walnut paneling glowed with red and golden highlights. Sue's cat, Calico Queen, slept peacefully on one of the well cushioned benches lining the walls beneath twin rows of hardwood storage cabinets. A pair of big comfortable chairs faced a huge cortex screen at the bow end.
Hwa Ling was sitting at one end of the long oak refectory table dressed in her usual shipboard garb of t-shirt and baggy military fatigues, frowning over a padd with a protein drink at her elbow. Joe Henderson sat at the other end - as far from her as he could get - still fussing over the Captain's best arm, wire-rims sliding down his nose and an array of tiny tools laid out in neat rows around him.
Sue got herself a roll, a glass of milk and an orange from the food locker next to the door then sat down opposite the mechanic. "'Morning, Joe." He didn't look up but the tools quivered in his hands. "Still working on the arm I see." she continued sympathetically. "Captain bashed it bad this time?"
He mumbled something and stuck a probe in at random. Wires sparked and he withdrew it hastily.
Sue controlled a sigh. She'd been trying to get friendly with the mechanic ever since she came aboard - he was awfully cute in his reserved, button down way - and gotten exactly nowhere. The boy wasn't just shy he was positively paralyzed around women, talking to their feet rather than their faces - that is when he managed to get out any coherent words at all.
"See I'm the last up as usual."
This time Joe managed to scrape up an answer, never raising his eyes from his work. "Uh yeah. Captain's gone out with Rawhide and Devil." - which was what her crewmates called Ramona. "Mr. Leland's upstairs in the exercise room I think, and Miss Penda's in her loft."
"Got another party tonight gorramit," Sue chatted on.
And that - wonder of wonders - got him to look up. Not only that his eyes stayed up gazing at her with a kind of astonishment.
"Look different without my warpaint on don't I?" she grinned.
He blushed brightly, eyes shifting down again. "Uh yeah - I mean no! I mean -"
"S'okay," she assured him. "This is the real me, not the painted doll that goes about on Jack's arm. And sometimes playing her gets right tedious."
That got her another look accompanied by an adorably puzzled frown. "You don't like going out with Mr. Leland?"
"Jack's the nicest, kindest man I've ever met - much less worked for." she replied promptly. "And I like pretty clothes and jewels as well as the next girl," she flashed Joe a smile. "but I don't drink and I don't gamble which makes card parties downright boring." she let out a sigh. "At least tonight there'll be dancing. I love to dance. Do you dance, Joe?"
Red flooded his face to the ears. "No!"
"Bet you'd be good," she said matter-of-factly, "light footed as you are."
That surprised him so much he forgot to be embarrassed. "Me?"
"You mean nobody's ever told you?" she asked with pretended astonishment. Men don't say such things to each other and what woman had ever had the chance to?
"Uh, no," he stuttered.
"Well you're right graceful, as anybody with eyes can plainly see," she assured him.
"I - uh - thank you." he got to his feet. "'Scuse me, got to get something." and escaped.
Sue drank her milk with a feeling of triumph.
Hwa Ling's voice floated down the long board. "Nicely done. But don't push to hard. Joe's going to need gentle coaxing."
"I know," Sue looked at the padd in front of the other woman. "Checking security for tonight?"
The bodyguard snorted disgustedly. "This Sir Winstone's arrangements are scarcely worthy of the name. No screening devices, no guards apart from a few fancy dress footmen -!"
"Not everybody's got deadly enemies gunning for them," Sue observed.
"But some do," Hwa Ling answered grimly, meaning Jack and herself.
"Not on this planet," Sue pointed out.
"That we know of," Hwa Ling rejoined gloomily.