Motherlode Read Online Free Page B

woman turned her attention to Ryan.
    “You look interesting,” she said, leaning a hip against the door and kind of slouching into it. “Who might you be?”
    “Ryan Cawdor,” he replied.
    He quickly introduced the others, finishing with Jak, who stood a little apart from the others, in part watching out for the approach of possible danger, in part watching the shenanigans with obvious amusement.
    As he did, Krysty became aware of a muted bubble of conversation coming out the open door past the woman, and the sound of a piano being played. It wasn’t the usual off-key clinking you heard from a gaudy. It was smooth and well-modulated. Classical music, she thought in surprise.
    “And you’re the one they call the Dark Lady?” Ryan asked.
    “Indeed they do,” she said.
    “We heard tell you might be looking to hire a crew of blasters,” Ryan said.
    She smiled. She had high cheekbones, a thin nose, and big black eyes outlined in kohl. Her right eye was accentuated even more by looking out of a painted-on black Eye of Horus. She was quite a strikingly lovely young woman, Krysty saw. Though she seemed to be careful to smile with her black-painted lips pressed firmly together.
    “I am,” she said.
    “Come into my parlor.”

Chapter Three
    “So,” Dark Lady said. She sat back in her gilded-armed chair with its velvet cushions and crossed one slim leg over the other. “What exactly is it that you and your friends do, Mr. Cawdor?”
    “Lot of things,” J.B. said. “But mostly they come down to trouble.”
    The office was small enough to feel crowded with Ryan and his companions inside, even with the giant bulk of Mikey-Bob looming in the hall outside the open door.
    The room’s most remarkable feature was the floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, mostly hardbacks with age-cracked backs, as well as vases holding sprays of fresh lilac that crowded the room additionally with their fragrance. But they came as no surprise to Ryan at this point, given that the main barroom of the gaudy likewise featured cases filled with hundreds of volumes. That had surprised him, as well as Doc, who had earned a genuine smile from the Dark Lady upon his exclamation of pleasure at seeing all the books.
    As they had made their way to the office, the companions had seen perhaps a dozen customers sitting around talking or flirting with the gaudy sluts. These were of both sexes, though predominantly female; they were on the whole younger, fitter, and brisker somehow than the type Ryan was acquainted with. It was almost as if they wanted to be here doing this. Or at least were okay with it, whether ace or not.
    They had made their way through the main saloon. The bartender, a long, narrow-faced man with long lank light-brown hair, had glanced up from polishing a mug with an amazingly clean-looking rag.
    “Think I see what’s going on here,” J.B. had said softly at Ryan’s back. “The whole shabby look of everything outside’s mostly a front. Folks here don’t want outlanders knowing just how well they’re doing.”
    “They seem to draw in a power of trade from somewhere, though,” Ryan muttered back.
    * * *
    D ARK L ADY RETURNED to the business at hand, leaning back in her gold-armed chair, dragging in smoke.
    “So,” she said, letting blue smoke slide out and up in front of her pale face. “Do you mean, get into trouble, Mr. Dix? Or do you mean, make trouble for other people?”
    J.B. shrugged. For an answer, he took off his glasses and began to polish them with a handkerchief.
    “Both,” Ryan said, taking up the slack for his friend. “Emphasis on the latter. At least, given our preference.”
    Dark Lady smiled. Again, she seemed to take care to keep her black-painted lips covering her teeth.
    “I quite understand,” she said. “You do seem to show a degree of erudition unlooked for in—let’s say, a man of your appearance, Mr. Cawdor, in all candor.”
    Ryan grinned even broader. Their hostess’s already-pale