Splintered Reality - part twelve

The news his dock foreman brought Rick Sirelli preceded him. The second Jacque rounded the corner of Sirelli’s office, a well aimed beer stein came flying at the center of his forehead like a well aimed cruise missile. Jacque dodged to one side, and the mug impacted on the steel doorframe, large chunks of glass flying into the hallway, as yellow fluid, which had been well contained by the stein until a moment ago, began to flow down the wall in thin rivulets.

“I tell you to have someone killed, and instead you bring her to my doorstep!” Sirelli bellowed.

Jacque tensed, preparing to duck another makeshift missile, as his much loathed boss shifted his enormous girth in his office chair.

“I wanted her dead body and that garbage scow she calls a ship, not to have you bring her around for lunch. Now the ship is gone, and the woman is still intact – again. Doesn’t that bitch ever stay dead?’

“Apparently not” replied Jacque, barely hiding his contempt.

“What am I supposed to do now?” asked Sirelli rhetorically, shifting uncomfortably in the desk chair which barely contained him.

“I don’t know, snapped the foreman suddenly, shoot her out an airlock, stuff her in her a thruster, strap her to a missile. I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s not my fault if the mercs’ you told me to hire couldn’t get the job done.”

A silent moment passed as Jacque realized he had perhaps gone a bit too far this time. Unabashed he continued…

“If you could ever manage to pry that fat ass of yours out of your chair and do a little of your own legwork, maybe things would get done. As it is, I doubt the shop has enough grease to get your ass out of that chair you are stuffed in, and I doubt think those stubby legs of yours would hold all that weight if you could.”

Richard Sirelli’s glare held his foreman’s eyes for a moment. His enormous strength, which belied the foreman’s idea that his boss was some foul tempered oaf with too much money, showed no external signs. Instead he spoke quietly, which, for all that, was far more threatening than if he had reacted to his foreman’s outburst in kind.

In an even, calculated tone, Sirelli spoke to his foreman, “You are…”

“…what fired?” interjected the foreman nervously.

“…no, I was going to say dead,” replied Sirelli matter-of-factly, “But I think I have something even better in mind.

“Better?” asked Jacque nervously, the roles now reversed to where they usually were.

“Well,” replied his boss, “Better for me perhaps…”

Sirelli left off the rest, realizing that anything his foreman could imagine in the ensuing moments, while he met with the woman, would be far worse than any threat actually made.

“Bring her in,” he said firmly.