Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [3]
“Listen,” said Macarde to Frey. “Let’s be businessmen about this. We go back, you and I. Worked together several times, haven’t we? And even though I came to expect a certain sloppiness from you over the years—late delivery, cargo that wasn’t quite what you promised, that sort of thing—you never flat-out screwed me. Not ’til now.”
“What do you want me to say, Macarde? It wasn’t meant to end up this way.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Frey,” said Macarde in a tone that suggested the opposite. “I don’t even want to kill that milksop little pansy over there. I just want what’s mine. You owe me an aircraft. I’ll take the Ketty Jay.”
“The Ketty Jay’s worth five of yours.”
“Well, consider the difference as the price of me not cutting off your balls and stuffing them in your ears.”
“That’s fair,” conceded Frey.
“That aerium you sold me was bad stuff. Admit it.”
“What did you expect for that price?”
“You told me it came straight from the refinery. What you sold me was so degraded it wouldn’t have lifted a biscuit, let alone twenty tons of aircraft.”
“Sales patter. You know how it is.”
“It must have been through the engines of every freebooter from here to the coast!” Macarde growled. “I’d have gotten better quality stuff siphoning it off the wrecks in a junkyard!”
Crake gave Frey a fleeting look of guilt. “Actually,” grinned Frey, “it’d have been about the same.”
Macarde’s punch came blindingly fast, snapping Frey’s head back so it cracked against the wall. Frey groaned and put his hands to his face. His fingertips came away bloody from a split lip.
“Little less attitude will make this all go a lot smoother,”
Macarde advised.
“Right,” said Frey. “Now you listen. If there’s some way I can make this up to you, some job I can do, something I can steal, whatever you want … well, that’s one thing. But you will never get my craft, you hear? You can stuff whatever you like in my ears. The Ketty Jay is mine.”
“I don’t think you’re in much of a position to negotiate,” Macarde said.
“Really? ’Cause the way I see it, the Ketty Jay is useless without the ignition code, and the only one who knows it is me. That puts me in a pretty strong position as long as I don’t tell you.”
Macarde made a terse gesture toward Droop-Eye. “Cut off his thumbs.”
Droop-Eye left his shotgun atop the barrel he’d been leaning on and drew a dagger.
“Whoa, wait!” said Frey quickly. “I’m talking compensation. I’m talking giving you more than the value of your craft. You cut off my thumbs and I can’t fly. Believe me, you do that and I take the code to my grave.”
“I had five men on that craft,” said Macarde, as Droop-Eye came over. “They were pulling up out of a canyon. I saw it. The pilot tried to get the lift and suddenly it just wasn’t there. Bad aerium, see? Couldn’t clear the lip of the canyon. Tore the belly off, and the rest of it went up in flames. Five men dead. You going to compensate me for them too?”
“Listen, there’s got to be something you want.” He motioned suddenly at Crake. “Here, I know! He’s got a gold tooth. Solid gold. Show them, Crake.”
Crake stared at the captain in disbelief.
“I don’t want a gold tooth, Frey,” said Macarde patiently. “Give me your thumbs.”
“It’s a start!” Frey cried. He glared hard and meaningfully at Crake. “Crake, why don’t you show them your gold tooth?”
“Here, let us have a look,” Rat said, leaning closer to Crake. “Show us a smile, you little nancy.”
Crake took a deep, steadying breath and gave Rat his most dazzling grin. It was a picture pose he’d perfected in response to a mortifying ferrotype taken by the family photographer. After that, he vowed he’d never be embarrassed by a picture again.
“Hey! That’s not half bad,” Rat commented, peering at his reflection in the shiny tooth. And Crake grinned, harder than he’d ever grinned in his life.
Droop-Eye pulled Frey away from the wall, over to a set of cobwebbed shelves. He swept away a few empty jars with his arm, and then forced Frey’s bound hands down onto the shelf. Frey had balled his fists and was refusing