“I don’t intend to.” A lone tear rolled down her cheek. “If you ever lay hands on me again, I swear, I’m going to tell Tiger everything. Then you can deal with him.”
Cutter’s face changed, ever so slightly, as if a shadow had flitted across it for just a nanosecond. “Now why would you wanna go and do that? You know Tiger and me… we’ve known each other for a long time … we were Spacers long before you ever came along. Now you wanna go and try to mess up our friendship? Ain’t that just like a fuckin’ whore?”
“If he were here, he’d kill you just for calling me that.”
Cutter sighed. “Yeah.” He looked toward the ceiling and then back to her. “He probably would. That’s what love does to someone like him. Stupid fool!”
“Is that what it is?” she asked, the gun feeling heavy now in her hands. She just wanted him gone. “Jealousy? You’re jealous … cuz he loved me?”
“Y’know, when you grow up the way I did, across the river … and your house is nothing more than an abandoned shipping container, your whole life is spent being jealous of everything other people have that you don’t.” He looked her in the eye and swallowed hard a couple of times, and for a moment, she swore he was going to get emotional. “I always believed if I hadn’t been out on a run the night you and your friends came down to the Cockpit, that you’d have ended up with me. If I’d been there, you’d never given Tiger a second glance.”
“Well,” she laughed dryly, “you’re nothing if not confident in your charms. I’ll give you that.” She would never, ever, tell him that the same thought had crossed her mind dozens of times before. What if he had been there? The young, dashing Odell Hawkins. He had been pretty in his day! What if he, as well as Tiger, had asked her to dance? What if she’d had to make a choice? She’d played that scenario over and over in her mind. What would have happened if she’d chosen Cutter? Would he have turned out differently? Would she have made him a better man? Or would he have made her, years earlier, what he now wanted to make her? Could she have ever pulled him out of Rocket Town in his heart and mind? Or would he have eventually brought her down to his level?
And what of Tiger? What would’ve happened to him? She had a feeling he’d be the same bachelor spacer he was now.
She didn’t know what scenario depressed her more.
For the first time since she’d ever known him, Cutter looked like a beaten man. “Tiger doesn’t need to know about this.”
“Piece of shit!” Lulah spat at him. “Goddamned bully! It’s different when you think you might have to deal with someone equal to you!”
“No, it’s not that!” He shook his head sadly. “I’d just hate to have to kill a good friend, that’s all.”
Those words stabbed Lulah in the heart like a spear. It had never dawned on her until now, but yes, Cutter was the kind of man who would kill a friend. It might give him a sleepless night or two, but he’d do what he had to do. He was a survivor. Survivors didn’t survive by shying away from tough decisions. He was also the kind of man who could simply have it done. It might be millions of miles away. Maybe on some remote service stop ‘roid out in the Belt, or more likely, Mars.
Oh God! If something happens to Tiger because of me! Still, she had called his bluff. What could she do? She had to think fast. Fast!
“I kinda figured you’d say something stupid like that.” She set her jaw firmly, hoping he wouldn’t see through her bullshit act or her trembling hands. “That’s why I have it set up so that if something happens to Tiger or me … if a hovercar accidentally falls out of the sky and crushes me … or he does an Odder Schmidt and goes AWOL from the solar system … or dies of rough sex with a rogue Andi … a quickstick will be delivered to Cap’n Reb. On it will be everything about us. About … this! I doubt he’d be none too pleased with you … Odell.”
“You think quite highly of yourself. Thinkin’ the Cap’n’s gonna come after me on your account.” He looked at her with a touch of disdain, but there was uncertainty in his eyes, and she aimed to exploit it.
“No, but I do know he thinks of Tiger as the son he never had. And you know it, too. Don’t you?”
Cutter said nothing, as he seemed to fume over it all, pondering his options. Apparently, when it came to this situation, none of them seemed too appealing.
“Hell, I ain’t gonna kill Tiger over a piece of pussy. I love the guy, for Chrissakes! We spaced together. That’s a bond you’ll never understand.”
“Then, let’s just go our separate ways and let bygones be bygones,” she tried to sound conciliatory, giving him some room to save face. “Things just got out of hand.”
“No, things were just getting good. We could’ve had something hot!” Not thinking, he reached into his coat pocket, and Lulah aimed. “Whoa, now!” He pulled it back out, just as she was about to pull the trigger. “I’m just getting my PDC, OK?”
“Do it slowly,” she instructed. “If you so much as sneeze doing it, I’m gonna redecorate my walls with your brains, I swear!”
He reached back in it, ever so slowly. Then, even slower, he pulled his hand back out, holding his PDC by his fingertips. “Chill out there, Danielle Boone! I done told you! I’m fixing to leave!” He opened the PDC to video mode, then set it on the counter and slid it toward
