Coffee House

[esmeralda]

Esmeralda tapped her fingers on the table, loudly and so everyone knew how irritated she was; as though her fierce expression and swearing wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t. Not really. She was on her seventh coffee and impatient because he was late. Again. Because he was a royal bastard who specialised in keeping a girl waiting. And she just knew there would be no satisfaction waiting at the end of it. Not for her anyway. Bastard.

Connor, Connor, Connor: what could he possibly want this time? Ez (for short) had known he was on the planet, more or less—alright she’d suspected. The suspicious, some might say ‘shifty’ message confirmed it. He wanted her to meet him. Here. In the coffee house. Three pm. Don’t be late. The nerve of that arse!

Well, it was now six pm, and she had a headache because she’d had too much coffee. Her fingernails hurt from so much tapping. And her knuckles were bruised because somewhere between the fourth and fifth cup of coffee a man had bumped her so she’d dragged him outside and punched him in the mouth until he said sorry. Gurgled it, more like, with broken teeth sounds.

She wasn’t going to wait much longer; there were things she had to do. Okay, that was a bold lie. Not only bold, but underlined, which just isn’t done, and at least seventy-two point size. And probably italicised. She had nothing to do at all, or she’d not have been waiting in the first place.

[connorbeckett]

Connor Beckett hugged the wall of the alley like a lover. A cold, dirty, graffiti-covered lover dressed in haphazard piles of broken boxes.

And smelling faintly of urine.

The gunman hunkered down as best he could behind any bit of cover the narrow, waste-strewn corridor offered, creeping cautiously through the cramped passage, and repeatedly peering back in the direction he'd come from, hoping he wouldn't see any sign of pursuit but fearing to miss it. The late afternoon sun still shone brightly, but only a dim haze lit the alley. Still, he felt like a spotlight traced his every move.

Unconsciously, he occasionally rubbed the bloody chafings on his wrists. Meanwhile other, more serious, wounds were ignored ... except for the parched earth which drank the frequent drops of blood like they held salvation.

Finally, he reached the far end of the alley, unnoticed as far as he could tell. Edging as close to the corner as he dared, he knelt down, one bare foot smearing something ominously moist. He prayed that it was mud despite the dry weather, but refused to look. Instead, he peered surreptitiously into the street, his breath catching at his good fortune. The street was empty except for a lone mule hitched and standing three-legged in front of a general store. Hoping his luck stayed with him, he tore into the street as if he could outrun his shadow. Little puffs of dust cheered him on with each fevered stride as he sprinted.

In the distance behind him, he suddenly heard the thundering sound of galloping horses. He didn't slow to look back, but ducked his shoulder and dove into the coffee shop, hoping he'd not been spotted. Breathing hard from the exertion and the awkward landing, he sat up and rubbed his now-sore shoulder.

"Evenin', Ez," he said with a lopsided grin to the stern-faced woman who was glaring at him over the top of a mug of coffee. "Sorry I'm late."

Esmeralda and the shopkeeper were staring with their mouths wide open. Connor began laughing, sitting there on the coffee house floor. It was a fitting reaction because the situation certainly was odd ...

Aside from his hat and the tattoos that decorated his body, he was naked as the day he was born.

[esmeralda]

“Well, bugger me rightly,” proclaimed Esmeralda, sitting her coffee onto the table. “I don’t suppose you want to explain that?”

She was pointedly ignoring his nakedness and her expression was that of a person who, uncertain whether or not to be humoured, has decided yes and is trying very hard at it.

Connor was rubbing his wrists and there was blood all over him. Connor was always one to get into trouble. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the coffee shop door’s sudden flight inwards.

Two men entered; they had guns.

Esmeralda rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee. Oh the quiet existence but for the Connor’s of the world.

The men fired their guns to get attention, and that they certainly did. A stray bullet passed through Esmeralda’s cup and stuck itself in the wall behind her. Coffee poured out onto the table.

Esmeralda sat the cup down carefully.

“Very robust cups,” she admired.

The guns stopped waving and their barrels were aimed squarely at Connor.

Esmeralda imagined they were actually waving around their genitals. This was probably funnier in her head than on paper.

“You’re coming with us!” the bigger man said to Connor.

I would describe the two men for you, but it’s irrelevant; Esmeralda has already made up her mind to murder them.
She shrugged, “Take him away, boys! He’s spoiling my view.”

Connor grinned and stood up.

The two men focused exclusively on their dangerous prisoner, and it only took a moment for Esmeralda to draw a small pistol and shoot them both in the head. Her brief expression of satisfaction was probably the last thing they saw . . . that or a panning shot of Connor’s naked body. Poor blighters.

Esmeralda placed the pistol on the tabletop and patted it.

“Come, sit!” she said to Connor, “tell me all about it.” She rotated at the hips looking for some kind of waiter, “and we need some more coffee!”

[connorbeckett]

He smiled slyly as he stood, blocking the two gunmen's view as Ez drew a pistol. Unlike those gunhands in all the old stories from Earth-That-Was, she wasn't particularly quick on the draw, but rather, smoothly deliberate in her motions. She didn't mess around on the important part of the job, though; with the right set-up, she could hit a man in the eye from 500 yards. She was dead-on with a short gun, too, if the occasion warranted it.

He turned slowly, and watched the two men die.

"I see ya've still got yer way with folks, Ez," Connor Beckett deadpanned as he walked over to the two meat piles spilling their blood on the floor, a crimson testament to their unfulfilled dreams. He unbuckled their gun belts, yanking them off before also retrieving their two pistols. "Quite th' smooth talker, ya are. I've always said that, jes ask anybody," he quipped with a wry chuckle.

He took a quick peak out the door, then eased it shut with a bare foot before making his way over to Esmeralda's table and dropping the scavenged goods on its top. As he began giving the guns a cursory look-over, he reflected on the woman in front of him. She didn't look like one of the best shots of any world spinnin.' In fact, she looked about as plain as a bowl of oatmeal. "Angry oatmeal," a small voice in his head added. She had a distinctly pleased look on her face at the moment, though. Killing was about the only thing she enjoyed ... besides toffee, anyway.

Esmeralda was about as mean as a hooker with three kids and no teeth, but you wouldn't notice her in a crowd of three. Unless, of course, you had a thing for tiny, plain-faced women who looked like they could out-stubborn a billy goat.

"You look like a jackass eatin' saw-briars," Connor commented, as he cast a skeptical eye at the vacant chair at her table. "Wipe that smile off yer face. We still got a mite o' work to do out yonder 'fore it's time t' celebrate."

A voice bellowed from outside as if on command, making demands regarding the throwing down of guns and coming out all peaceable-like and such, but neither Esmeralda nor Connor paid it any mind. Both knew that their only chance at survival lay in not only keeping their guns, but also in using them more effectively than the folks outside.

"You can still git out o' this, Ez," Connor added. "Ya ain't heard my job offer yet, an' ya sure ain't said yes." The look of utter disdain that bloomed on her face like some sullen, miserable flower gave him all the answer he knew he'd be getting. "Fair enough. I got a job fer ya iffn we get out o' this mess, an' I think ya'll like it. I'll explain all this stuff in a few, too," he gestured toward the window. "Iffn the a-fore-mentioned developments work out. Deal?" A silent glower signaled agreement, like a pit bull willing to kill to keep her favorite bone.

"Waiter!" he yelled over his shoulder. "Where's that coffee?!"

Finally, he reluctantly eased his naked backside down onto the chair, his skin pressing painfully into the seat as he gasped.

"I hate whicker!"

[esmeralda]

No coffee was forthcoming.

Esmeralda said, “Right. That’s that then. I’m going to check.”

She placed her hand on her pistol, but Connor slammed his hand on top of hers, rather aggressively, she thought; his hand was as warm as his displeasure.

“I’ll go,” he said in a flat, decisive manner.

She rolled her eyes, “Fine.”

He had not forgotten why they had last parted company.

To insult her further, when leaving the table, he took her pistol with him.

She made fun of his privates while he was gone. Secretly. In her head.

Connor returned bloodier than when he’d left. There was still no coffee.

“Couldn’t work out how to use the machine?” she asked lightly.

“It’s not mine,” he didn’t seem very happy.

“Ooooh!” cooed Ez, “Did you not like his tone?”

He grinned at her joke, but more the sort you make when obliged, not when actually humoured. Had he not forgiven her?

She would have asked directly, but the side of the coffee house blowing inwards was a mite distracting. Whatever Connor had done to piss these guys off, they were really pissed off.

Both Connor and Esmeralda automatically dropped to the ground. So did the patrons who’d been against the side, but they landed in pieces. Wood and dust puffed inwards like the exhalation from a cigarette. It smelt like wood smoke and barbecue.

“Back door?” asked Ez, ears and thoughts cloudy.

Connor grabbed her forearm, dragged her out from under her table and through the kitchen; she waved to the corpse of owner on their way past.

Cleaner (mildly) air swept her up after Connor successfully kicked the back door open. They were running through an alley way, actually, she felt as though she were flying. She was the ship’s sail, flapping off the edge of the yardarm. Was she in shock? Bugger it!

They stopped running and she leant against dirty brick, breathing heavily and trying to steady herself.

“You alright?” asked Connor.

“Will be. Can I have my pistol?”

“May you and no.”

“Qu huo li si!”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

A shotgun muzzle nosed around the corner and fired; the bricks beside Esmeralda’s body spat with irritation; meanwhile, Connor’s hands had already broken those of the shotgun’s owner. A face made contact with the brick, accompanied by a squirt of red and the sound a dried biscuit would make if you stood on it.

They were moving again. Ez was this time unassisted. She kicked the crumpled body on her way past because shut up!

A huge black shadow bolted from an adjacent alley and thumped Connor against the side of a building. It might have been a woman but was hopefully a man.

The man did not have ham fists, but his forearms were definitely piggish; his fingers could have passed for thick, veiny sausages . . . or some other thick, veiny things which would make this a story of a very different sort.

Connor struggled to gain some sort of leverage, which isn’t surprising when his opposition was soft like half-cooked chocolate cake and was squashing against him like a sex offender. Esmeralda took the opportunity to retrieve her pistol from Connor—with her eyes closed!

She then shot the assailant through the belly, almost sad when no candy fell out.

The man flopped and deflated like a water bed with a hole in it.

“Ew,” said Esmeralda. “Oh, Connor, you take me to the most wonderful places!”

[connorbeckett]

Short, painful gasps escaped as he struggled.

Weak and winded, Connor squirmed from underneath the fat dead man who lay on him. His bloody, naked body eerily resembling a turtle ripping itself free from its shell. Finally, he tore free, struggling feebly to his knees. Then, with the help of a wall he heaved himself to his feet, the suddenly overwhelming weight of his slender body making the task nigh impossible.

Years of experience told him that his body and his mind were shutting down from blood loss and fatigue, but he had no choice but to press on. The men who wanted him dead wouldn't hesitate to hurry him along to where he was already going. A calm, detached voice in his head coolly explained the situation as his brain slogged through the thick fog that clouded it.

"You're in bad shape, Connor, ol' boy," the voice stated matter-of-factly. "If you don't find a place to hide and stop the bleeding, you're a dead man walking. You just ain't found the hole to die in yet.

"There's help on the ship, of course. All you have to do is get there," the voice continued. Groggily, the badly injured gunhand looked in the general direction of his ship, the Lenore. It was only a short distance outside of town. "Yes, it's in THAT direction," the voice continued, "Of course, they aren't ready for the kind of trouble you'd be bringing down on their heads. So you might be bringing their deaths with you." After a slight pause, the voice smugly added, "Also, of course."

Irked at the voice's condescending, seemingly pleased tone, Connor Beckett forced himself to stand unaided. Well, almost. He was barely leaning against the wall at all. Well, he wasn't leaning that much.

"We have to git out o' here, Ez" he said, too disoriented to notice the pointlessness of such an obvious statement. Looking once more in the direction of his boat, he purposefully turned away and took a step.

His legs buckled and only Esmeralda's quick reaction saved him from getting an up close preview of the dirt nap that seemed so likely in his near future.

Somewhat dreamily, he realized that the small killer was the only thing that could keep him alive, and as she struggled with his weight he clung on her back like some twisted version of a dog humping its mate. Not the sort of dream a man would want to have, of course. The delapidated, broken down backs of the buildings seemed to echo the sentiment. They themselves were a poor, brutally sad reflection of the overly optimistic false fronts that greeted customers in the front.

"There's a bath house up that away," he tried to say as he tried to point the way. But the gravelly whipser came out more like, "Beth ows datway," as his hand flopped impotently.

Struggling to move his feet, he tried to walk as best he could. But the detached part of him knew that his life rested in the very deadly hands of the little woman on whom he was leaning.

[esmeralda]

Imagine a grape plummeting ten clicks downwards. It whizzes through clouds and between birds; small, icy vapours curl from its back. People stop to watch and marvel and go, “There is a good little grape” while pointing.

It’s moving so fast now and quite excited about the next stage of life.

But that is not to be. Someone takes it upon themselves to hit this grape with a baseball bat before it reaches its final destination. Can you imagine the sudden shock? The ripples of energy splitting the grapes outer skin and splattering its insides all over the place like spaghetti?

Multiply the above picture by two and you have what the inside of the man’s trousers probably looked like. He was taking the repetitive knee strikes to his crotch rather well; he was being very manly and stoic about them. And when Esmeralda let him go and he folded up like a car hitting brick, he did even that quietly.

Remember the spaghetti.

And now we’ve gotten over Esmeralda’s knees, harder than surgical steel and less forgiving than brain surgery, we may continue with the story.

Connor was leaning against her body, far too close to her breasts for her to be comfortable. He was like a giant, sleeping baby whose privates could be used as a weapon.

He was nice enough in his own way, a thoroughgoing soldier and all-around good-guy, but kind of judgmental when it came to whom she could and could not shoot.

Right now she could shoot everybody.

The bathhouse was near, only a few blocks from where they were—ETA five minutes. She could see the sign; bath was written in water-blue, probably meant to be funny. Using its front door would be too obvious; they would find some other entrance.

They moved quickly, well, maybe a cripple would think so—if Connor was going to make a habit of her doing his walking he was going to have to lose some weight.

Esmeralda was disshelved and sweaty by the time they’d circled the bathhouse various times in a ridiculous pattern to throw of pursuit; they were now behind it, directly, with a large, square window laughing at Esmeralda’s short stature. Well. She’d show it.

After dabbing at her forehead with a handkerchief and smoothing her hair, she pistol-whipped the glass right out of the frame.

She grabbed Connor, who had been leaning against the building like a trash bin and helped him to climb through the frame and into the bathhouse. He wasn’t completely unconscious, just enough to be bloody useless. She pushed him most of the way through which was icky because he was naked.

He likely landed on glass fragments, but it was worth it!

She came through after him. He was a little cut up but nothing he’d lose any blood over . . . not that he had any to lose.

Startled! Esmeralda aimed her pistol at the two old men playing checkers on the other side of the room. Men who . . . were paying absolutely no attention to her, or Connor, or the fact she’d smashed their window.

She eyed them a long time before realising they just weren’t interested.

She hauled Connor to his feet and dragged him towards a door beside them.

“Mwoney pwease,” said one of the two men the moment her hand reached the door latch.

“What?” she asked.

“Mwoney pwease.” His hand was held out and his watery eyes were suspiciously too low to be looking at her face, but white and likely blind.

She would have shot him if her purse weren’t nearer than her pistol.