Twelve: My Rusty Cage

Here's the next direct follow-up installment to the Mr. Spears saga. I don't get paid for this, so my only gratification is your comments. Thanks!

My Rusty Cage

“You wired me awake
And hit me with a hand of broken nails
You tied my lead and pulled my chain
To watch my blood begin to boil
But I’m gonna break
I’m gonna break my
I’m gonna break my rusty cage and run”

--From “Rusty Cage” by Soundgarden

I couldn’t follow up on the Mustang or its occupants right away. I let work take me away from it, which gave me time to absorb Tommy’s death. This was both a good and bad thing. I needed the time just to try to wrap my head around the sheer brutality of it. Unfortunately, my pensive mood made me sloppy on the job.

College Kid’s last name was Kassel, as in Conrad Kassel a guy with deep roots, and deeper pockets, in the Buffalo area. Conrad kept a full beard and a high forehead, both neatly trimmed. His blue eyes weren’t charming or sparkling, just cold. The suits he wore were slightly out of fashion, but perfectly tailored, like he was his own living ancestor. The arch of his eyebrows, flare of his nostrils and turned-up chin made him look like he was either thinking of some grand scheme or perpetually smelling something bad. Hell, it was Buffalo so it could have been both.

I rarely saw the man himself. Most of the executives I protected worked for other companies. Kessel & Koch Executive Services was just one arm of the Kessel Group, LLC. Also, most of the executives I protected didn’t really need protection. They just liked feeling like they did, a sort of paranoia that fed their egos. I mean, what do you get the man who has everything? Why, a strapping young lad with a gun, a vest and an earpiece. Oh, and sunglasses. Most of these corporate types had it drilled into their foreheads that bodyguards have to have the earpiece and sunglasses. I didn’t mind the earpiece, though I generally only had it hooked up to a transistor radio in my pocket. The glasses were annoying—how was I supposed to see anything in a dark environment? One of these suits actually told me to put the glasses back on even though we were at a dimly lit cocktail party. If a knife wielding maniac came after him, I’d never seen him coming in time.

Not that I’d take a knife or a bullet for these clowns. Rough up some drunken slob? Sure. Eat a left hook? No problem. Stop a bullet? Doubtful. But I saw my role as being more proactive and preemptive, to use boardroom speak, in that I preferred to ply my trade by roughing up potential trouble makers. Generally I listened to hockey games on the earpiece.

One night that changed. Mr. Kassel summoned me into his office, a room as old world as he was. All leather and dark wood with fine cigar smoke resting every where. When I reported in, he was ranting at someone on the phone. He was as red-faced and loud as I’d ever seen him, yelling in German into the handset. I had to resist the urge to click my heels together and stand at attention. I studied my feet until he was done, making sure they weren’t jackbooted.

“Schweinehund!” he cursed when he hung up. He dabbed his head with a folded handkerchief. “Sorry, young man. Family is man’s greatest joy and gravest pain. With mine, I sometimes feel only the latter.”

I nodded as noncommittally as I could, one of those “what ever you say, boss” moments.

Kassel looked me up and down.

“You’re not very intimidating for a bodyguard. Why did I hire you?”

“I saved Connie Jr. from an ass…unpleasant encounter with a three rednecks, sir.”

“Yes, I remember now.” His cold eyes continued to study me. Despite my stoic inner core, I felt a little shiver up my spine. Not for the first time I wondered what other businesses Kassel had his hand in.

“Well, I suppose you’ll do. You have your vest and gun?”

I tapped my chest and left side to signal in the affirmative.

“Good. You’ll be escorting me tonight.”

“Yes, sir,” I said outwardly. Inwardly, my stomach lurched. I knew I wouldn’t hear the blow-by-blow if the Sabre’s Rob Ray tangled with Toronto’s Tie Domi. But more than that, a little clarion of warning went off in my head. I attributed it to Kassel’s ill mood.

I should have listened to that voice.

In the Mercedes on the way over, Kassel and I sat in the back while his driver navigated the rain-slicked streets. The Mercedes had a large backseat, but Kassel still occupied enough of it that our knees touched. It also seemed unusually humid inside, and somebody in the car sweated garlic and nicotine out his pores. Kassel sat as coolly as the sphinx, so the odor came from either me or the driver. I was pretty sure it wasn’t me. But the longer we sat in the car, knees touching, sucking in the air, driving deeper into a city I had only a passing familiarity with, I may have added my own aroma to the air.

When Kassel finally spoke, he asked,

“You seem detached somehow, Mr. Spears. Are you feeling all right?”

“Yes sir. Just thinking about a friend of mine. Someone hurt him very badly.”

“That’s terrible. What are you going to do about it?”

The question rocked me back. Who asks something like that? Most people would ask if the police were involved, or if I was OK. Not a man like Kassel.

I shrugged in response. He nodded. He knew what he’d do, and he assumed that I’d do the same thing. He was right.

“Are you any good with that?” He nodded at my left arm.

“The gun? Yeah, I’m all right.”

“Weren’t you a police officer?”

“Sort of.”

“Aren’t the police required to be proficient with their side arms?”

“I qualified with it, no problem, but I’m no Buffalo Bill. You might think cops are gun nuts, but to some, it’s just another appliance they use at work.”

“‘They’?”

“What?”

“You said ‘they’, not ‘we’. Most police officers I’ve met, even retired ones, will say ‘we’.”

I nodded. What else was I going to say? I doubted this man cared overmuch about my personal life, and I didn’t like sharing that info anyway.

“Are you not a fan of the police, Mr. Spears?”

“They’re OK.”

“And yet you decided not to become one of them.”

“True.”

Kassel cracked a smile. “I usually like to know a bit about my employees, Mr. Spears. We will take that up at another time. The only relevant information is that you have, in fact, trained with and fired a pistol before. Stephan, my usual man, is quite good with a gun. He’s ill tonight. That is why you’re here.”

I kept my face as rigid as I could. My quick glance at the door handle probably betrayed my thoughts. Thoughts like could I survive jumping from a moving car in downtown traffic?

Kassel laughed. I think. The noise that came out of him sounded very dry and cough-like, but since he was smiling, I figured it for a laugh.

“Easy, young man. I do not expect anything more dangerous tonight than an extra dry martini or three.”

“I’ll make sure that the bartender doesn’t use those plastic swords on the olives, sir.”

Kassel cough-laughed for a few seconds before continuing quietly.

“A man named Butcher will be at the bar tonight. He is a competitor of mine in business. Recently, I out maneuvered him in a deal. Normally, this would be of little consequence, but his personal life is also a shambles. He is reacting with unexpected emotion. Please make sure he does nothing stupid.”

The temperature in the Mercedes dropped a few degrees as the blood retracted from my extremities. I’d have to be alert for more than liquor garnish after all.

Things went sideways in a private club downtown. Looking back now, I am struck by the fearful symmetry with the night I killed Colón all these years later. Leather couches, heavy glass ashtrays, low lights and top shelf liquor, but this place wasn’t imitating the look the way Colón’s joint was. This was the real deal where old money came to do backroom deals.

A bird cage sat at the end of the bar. It was real old-fashion one that had enough years on it to prove it had actual birds and wasn’t just some prop. Someone had cleaned it, but the worn patina made it look dirty. Now, it sat vacant and decaying, its shabbiness incongruous in the leathery luxury of the place.

Kassel sat down at a table in the back and lit a large cigar. A waitress materialized and slipped a scotch on the rocks into his hand so smoothly, you’d have thought he walked in with the drink. He said something to her I couldn’t hear and she nodded so obsequiously, she almost bowed.

I realized I was too far away from Kassel if I couldn’t hear his order, so I strode forward. He waved me to a side table. It was good position with clear sight lines from the restrooms at the back to the front door. I unbuttoned my borrowed blazer and leaned forward with my elbows on the table. The drape of the jacket hid the pistol and vest. I wasn’t comfortable in the body armor, but company policy dictated we wear it when on the job.

If I could have gotten away with it, I would have downed one of those scotches myself. What the hell was I doing wearing a gun and body armor? It was the first time I felt in over my head and I swore after that night I wouldn’t let myself get into that situation again. So much for that oath.

I gradually relaxed. The time of night had thinned the dinner crowd and after work drinkers, so I had an easy time keeping an eye on things. The bar held two yuppies, one of each gender, allegedly dining together. Really, they put their lips on each other more than the food. A middle aged guy slumped at the bar, tie undone but not off, cigarette burning behind a long ash. I had scoped him when we entered, but Kassel had indicated he wasn’t our man.

No, our man banged open the men’s room door and stomped by Kassel just as his steak arrived. Butcher took two steps away, realized who he’d seen, and turned on his heel. Gaping, his face turned beet red. He was a bull of a man, barrel-chested to the point where he’d never quite look good in his off-the-rack suits. I eased out of my seat and on to the balls of my feet.

“You’ve got a hell of a nerve coming here, Conrad,” Butcher said.

“Why is that, Francis?”

“You son of a bitch. You know why.”

“Francis, that was business…”

Banter built between them. Kassel kept his cool, but I could sense that he was baiting Butcher—something about the way he said Francis. Butcher probably went by Frank and found his proper name annoying.

Butcher took another step closer and leaned in. Kassel shot me a glance, but I was moving before that.

“Sir, you are going to step away now,” I said, moving between them. I put a hand out in a halt motion, not touching him.

“What’s this, Conrad?” Butcher said from around my hand. “You bring a goddamn thug with you? You come here to rub it in my face and don’t even have the balls to do it without your meat shield?”

“Sir, please step away.” I lowered my arm and took one step forward. “Let me get your coat for you.” I stepped as if to go by him then swung my full weight behind my shoulder and into his chest. It’s a subtle move, but one that jars beer muscles out of most hotheads. Butcher was no different. He stumbled back, eyebrows raised in shock.

“How clumsy of me, sir. Allow me to get you set up with a drink while your cab comes.”

“Cab? All right.”

I guided Butcher firmly by the elbow to the seat where I saw a raincoat and a half eaten chicken breast. I had missed it coming in as it was right next to the bird cage that had so transfixed me.

I could tell he was agitated. He sat ramrod straight, seething silently but unwilling to look at me. I signaled to the bartender to call a cab. I stood behind him until the cab came.

When it did, he stood up and looked me in the eye.

“I could have took you, boy. What are you, about a buck eighty? I could snap you like a twig.”

“I’m sure you could, sir. Happily, we won’t know. Here’s your cab now.”

He pfft air though his lips and bent down to fetch his raincoat. I saw the move coming, but he still managed to punch me in the balls. Deceptively quick for a big man. He kneed me in the face as I doubled over and I couldn’t tell if my balls or my head hurt more.

He went past me as I slumped down, but I managed to hook my foot around his and trip him. Butcher landed softly on a nearby couch, bounced up, and stomped down at me. Man-pain be damned, I rolled away and to my feet. He glanced a left jab off the top of my head which hurt his hand more than my head. I stepped inside his right hook and knifed an elbow at his jaw.

He didn’t go down, but he wanted to. Only the bar kept him vertical. I rushed in to escort him to the floor, but I underestimated his fortitude. He smashed the birdcage into the left side of my head. I guess the thing was some sort of brass wire, heavy as hell. I could feel it embed in my skin as I stumbled to the ground. Wire broke on the cage and stuck to my face. I couldn’t quite pull it off without ripping flesh. I struggled with it. Butcher stalked toward Kassel. My bloody fingers struggled pulled one bar free.

Butcher’s numb fingers fumbled with something in his pocket.

I pulled another bar free.

Butcher pulled a small snub-nosed revolver free.

I leapt to my feet.

Butcher pointed the gun toward Kassel.

The cage fell away from my cheek, taking some flesh.

He fumbled for the trigger.

My own gun was in my hand.

Butcher looked down the sights at Kassel.

“Don’t…” I said, moving forward.

His finger tensed on the trigger.

“…shoot!” Kassel yelled.

I clubbed Butcher in the temple with the butt of my pistol. His shaky fingers slipped off his revolver and it tumbled clear. I pistol whipped Butcher a couple more times to make sure he was out.

Kassel headed for the door and I jumped to follow him. I guessed we weren’t staying to talk to the cops. Kassel’s car pulled up and I loaded him in.

If the events inside bothered him, he didn’t show it. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to me. I press it to my bleeding face.

He sat for a long time, looking at me.

“Guns are for shooting, Mr. Spears.”

“I…yes, sir.”

“In the future, don’t weigh the life you protect against some inhibition. Inhibitions get people killed in our lifestyle.”

I nod, but I wasn’t really sure.

Silence. Then finally, as we pulled up to his building,

“I think you could do quite well in this line of work, Mr. Spears, but you’re not there yet. See my secretary tomorrow for your severance package.”

Ouch. I nodded glumly.

#

Looking back, Kassel was wrong. It wasn’t my inhibitions that killed Luís Colón.

#

The next day, I saw the secretary like I was told. The check inside was generous, but of more interest was the note.

Mr. Spears,

As I said last night, you may have a career in this line of work. You need to make some hard choices first. Perhaps clearing up this business about your friend will help. I suspect it will. When you are done and if you are ready, you may see me about a job again.

Good luck,

C.M Kassel

P.S. The man responsible for hurting your friend is named Blake.

Eleven: Buffalo

So, I finally got around to cranking out some new fiction. I'm pretty excited about the next three story arc, as I'm planning on a crossover with A.G. Devitt. This first piece sets the stage while picking up from the previous installment. Astute readers might recognize the setting here as I've borrowed it to work the crossover with Devitt. If you want to see his original piece, check out "A Season in Hell".

Oh, the comments about Buffalo are the character's, not mine.

Thanks for reading and please leave a comment.

Buffalo

“…I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.”

--From “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” by W.B. Yeats

Bulldog can wait. The girl’s face plays in the theater of my mind. One minute, she’s pretty—angry and scared, sure. But pretty. Then next it’s a mess. I did it to her. Did it matter that she had a gun on me? Didn’t I start all this when I walked into Luís Colón’s backroom?

My gut reaction had been to blame Bulldog, but that’s just so much bullshit. I started on this path a long time ago but only now do I realize it.

I spent some time in Buffalo after I left the police academy. I’ve generally left this period of my life unexamined. Short and brutal, this time both proved and disproved my claim to tough guy status. If that sounds needlessly contradictory, it probably is. But let me explain.

The last thing I had wanted to do after leaving the blue brotherhood was, well, anything requiring significant thought or responsibility. Nothing had any value anymore—such was my disillusionment. I suppose you could call it my blue period. At any rate, I still liked to eat, so I got a job bouncing at a roadhouse. Alas, no Patrick Swayze. In fact, the roadhouse could more accurately be described as house along a road that served beer. It could further be described as a shithole, if one was likely to observe such details. At the time, I wasn’t. To supplement the meager wage, they let me sleep in the back room and eat all the pickled eggs I wanted. Which wasn’t many.

So, tired, cramped and hungry, I broke up a fight one night. Three rednecks had pissed off a white college boy and his black girlfriend, and the college boy had grown beer muscles. To the college kid’s surprise, his McDojo karate classes proved inefficient. Two of the rednecks were working him over while the third had his hand up the girlfriend’s skirt.

Like I said, I was already in bad mood. Shithole though it was, I didn’t want this in my bar. It pissed me off on a couple of levels. I saw a sort of red mist for a while. When I came out of it, two rednecks lay unconscious and the third cried in the corner, nursing his broken hand. Though a satisfying fit of pique, I was fired on the spot. Luckily, the college boy turned out to have a little more to him than just daddy’s credit card. He got me a job as a bodyguard at his dad’s firm. Hilarity, and violence, ensued.

During this time a friend of mine went off the grid, and I went looking for him. Tommy liked to bet on football games. But, as he would always tell me, he had it under control. Just football games. The pros. Well, an occasional college game. Ok, and hockey games. And horses. Also, baseball. And whether or not you could eat a loaf of white bread in ten minutes. So, pretty much anything that had a questionable outcome.

I was justifiably worried, then, when his sister contacted me and told me he had tried to borrow a lot of money from her before dropping off the face of the earth. Guilt lines creased Natalie’s forehead when she told me; she hadn’t had the money, she had said, and besides, she was sick of Tommy bleeding her dry. I comforted Natalie with the only way I knew how to relate to women back then. After I got dressed, she gave me the address to a place where Tommy sometimes stayed with his baby’s momma.

Bookies love a loser, as long as the loser pays up. So, they will cut said loser some slack before getting rough. Once the well runs dry, though, they won’t hesitate to make an example of a deadbeat.

The snow was really coming down that day, but it didn’t do much to hide the grime outside the apartment building. Boarded up shops and circling refuse didn’t help. As I stepped out of my borrowed car, a mean-eyed Latino in a Ford Mustang nearly side-swiped me as he peeled out in the slush. His passenger held his head in his hands. Lover’s quarrel? I didn’t look after them long. The snow mixed with rain and I hate getting wet. I sought shelter.

Cheap apartment buildings universally smell like piss and mildew. When you get used to it, you don’t mind. Besides, the League of Nations in such places covers the smell with curry, patchouli oil, burned garlic, and stale beer. All the usual scents that belch “home” to the underclass.

The staircase occupied the center of the building. It was wide and wound around in a tight square, with a landing at each half-floor. It was littered with beer cans and shoes. The steps were old and too close or short or something—I had to walk up them consciously and wonder when stairs had been universalized.

Tommy lived in apartment 3, which didn’t help me find the right door. Turns out he was at the top of the stairs, on the left. Down the hall, pot smoke and Smashing Pumpkins spilled out from under a warped front door. Despite all my rage, indeed.

The door to #3 stood slightly ajar, because the wall it was bolted to had been torn away. The air smelled coppery. I had been in enough fights to know why. Hand shaking, I pushed the door open.

Tommy lay in a pool of his own blood. Someone had just wadded him up and tossed him away. He lay in a heap, slumped the wrong way against bones and tendons. His face crushed, I couldn’t really tell it was him. But I knew. He was as beaten as a man could be. I could hardly stand to look at him.

Standing over him was his little girl.

As it turned out, Tommy was into a lot more than making bad bets. Tommy did some horse as well as bet on them. The monkey on his back was the size of silverback ape, and that had lead him to make some pretty bad choices, choices where people got hurt, robbed and scared. Apparently, somebody had had enough.

I don’t think that mattered to his little girl. She just stood there with his blood all over her dress, dried tears on her face. Catatonic, she let me drag her into the kitchen. I dialed 911. I stayed until I head the sirens, searching the place for a clue as to who had done this. My mind kept going back to the Mustang.

The passenger had been holding his head. He had blood on his hands.

I had been just too late.

"Ten+++": Unabsolved

Writer's note: This one just sort of came to me. I originally intended to make the conclusion of this chapter much bloodier/graphic, but it might work understated like this. Let me know what you think.

This takes place near the end of the story, I think, where Spears has finally figured out who is behind the drug cartel now and has worked to provoke a confrontation. --C.A.

My pulse is in my ears. That and my ragged breathing are all I can hear. Bulldog is still up ahead. He must be part Kenyan, because I don’t know how else he can run this far, this fast. Maybe stimulants. I strain to keep up and the stitches from my gunshot wound open.

He cuts into an alley and I follow. But, he’s gone. A rusty side door slams shut but I’m there with all my weight behind it. Someone cries out as the door rips open their hand as they are trying to latch it. Someone small and not Muerto. I don’t care. Punch. Elbow. Grab the head and drive it to my knee.

My eyes adjust. My victim appears to be a teenage girl. I’m a daisy if she tips in at over a buck-ten. Her face looks like a bag of smashed assholes now. Shit.

I stop thinking about Bulldog. I want to say something to this girl, but I’m still sucking air. Besides, what should I say? “Sorry”? “Your nose probably isn’t that broken”? I try to reach for her but of course, she recoils. I put my hands up. She’s not crying, at least.

Bulldog's voice comes from up above.

“Bitch! Kill him!”

I look up to Bulldog, then back at the girl. The blood’s still flowing from her nose, but she’s not holding it. No, her grip is firmly around a pistol that is absurdly big in her tiny hand. I doubt her second shot will hit. Too much recoil from the first. But at this range, she’ll only need one.

The gun’s retort deafens me, but I still hear her scream. I snap her trigger finger as I pry the gun barrel back toward her. Now, nothing but pain. My pain.

She’s smart. She kicks me in the balls instead of resisting me. The butt of the pistol connects with my temple, but there’s not a lot behind it, considering I just broke that manicured, petite hand. The pistol falls away, and she gropes for it with her left, trying to reorient her aim. She’s less experienced with a gun than I am. Which is why I have mine aimed first, right at her center of mass.

A man screams, but I don’t think it’s Bulldog. As soon as she falls, I’m on her, trying to stop the blood that’s pumping on to her white, tied-up belly shirt. A cheap gold necklace reads “Bebe”. My bloody hands try to dial my cell phone. Her dark eyes are wide. Pretty eyes, usually. They look at me, at the stairs where Bulldog isn’t, back at me, at the ceiling. I tell her no, not to let go. Help is on the way. I hold her until the sirens scream near us. All she wants right now is for me to hold her, to keep her warm for a few seconds more, but I’m gone before the medics arrive.

I’ll kill Bulldog for this, and for other things, too. But it’s not him I really want to punish now. Of all the things I’ve done since killing Colón, this is the only one I can’t forgive.

"Ten": Attracting Attention

I'm not entirely sure where this one will go, but it takes place sometime after the previous scene. I need to build up to it, I think. I don't know, though--let me know if you think it could work right after Spears' leaves Salamanca's office or not.

Violence is sometimes an answer. Maybe not the answer, but an answer. I intended to employ this particular answer on Lenny, but I’ve been ducking the gym since they had tripped my Spearsy-sense. That’s a little like a spider-sense, only with less unmasking.

I want to go after Lenny as the trigger-man on Jerry Gold, but Salamanca’s warning seemed sincere. I need time to think about how to get at him. Also, what the hell was Kelly’s connection to Luis Colón?

Walking into a firehouse is easy. When it’s warm, we open the engine bay doors to cut the persistent smell of grease that radiates off the trucks. On a nice day, the boys take turns using the bay to wash their personal vehicles. Even if it’s a cold day and the garage is closed, we only lock the front doors at night. Anyone entering has to go past the window of the dispatcher in her office, who usually greets them/alerts us to a visitor.

Most modern firehouses are outfitted for more than the mere housing of firefighters and their gear. Ours is no different. The upstairs provides Spartan beds for the overnight guys, but the basement has a full disco and lounge area that we rent out for wedding receptions and parties. Real dance floor, motorized colored lights, surround sound, big screen, oak accents, leather easy chairs—the place is probably as classy at the Hotel Utica, one of the fancier joints in the city.

Bas Brannigan is on duty with me, but left a few minutes earlier to get subs for dinner. In the basement, I’m trying to get the HD to work for the baseball game, when I hear the banging and crashing of overturned furniture. Bas is a big oaf of a guy, but even he can’t make that much noise. I think about my pistol, locked in my truck and know I can’t get to it. Not before whoever is upstairs gets bored of trashing nothing and decides to try the stairs down.

Up the stairs I creep, sidling along the pump truck, and to the emergency entrance device in a lock box on the side. I don't see Gayle Duggan in the dispatch office. Something is very wrong. Controlling my breath, I take position alongside the doorway to the stairwell. I think about my pistol again, but I hear heavy feet pounding the steps down to me.

When I see Lenny, I know I should just swing the emergency entrance device at him, but that would be fatal, as the device is strikingly similarity to an ax. I hesitate, then butt him in the back of the head. He pitches forward hard to the floor. Tank Daddy leaps up a stair or two when I swing the ax back around his way. He put his hands up.

“Easy man, we just came to talk,” he said. I am unconvinced.

“That why you tossed the barracks?” I say, raising the ax.

Tank Daddy stammers and takes another step up.

“You move one more time, and I’ll…” I leave the sentence unfinished, as something hard jabs the back of my head. Though I can’t see him, I am sure it is Lenny and his gun.

“No, motherfucker. You move and I redecorate the stairwell with fucking gray matter, unnerstand?” I start to nod, think better of it, and agree. “Good, now lose the ax.”

I drop it and put both my hands up, near my face. “Don’t hurt me,” I say in my best impression of a docile victim. Perhaps it isn’t completely an impression.

“Hear that, Tank? ‘Don’t hurt me’. Where’s Mr. Hard-ass, Mr. Kickboxer now?”

“I hear that, Len. Maybe I take some revenge now for that beat-down in the ring, now we not in a ring.” Tank Daddy moves down the stairs and gets in my face. Not smart. “Yeah, fucker, let’s see how you do when there ain’t no rules.” Tank Daddy’s spittle smacks my face.

“Don’t hurt me,” I repeat. He laughs. Lenny laughs. I move.

I bend at the knees, below the gun barrel, and spin. I grab the gun barrel with my right hand, Lenny’s skinny forearm with the left, and wrench the pistol from his hand. His finger breaks in the trigger guard, but not before it squeezes of a shot. My ears ring. Eyes burn and tear from the discharge of gas and powder. Plaster falls from the ceiling in a dusty clump. But I clutch the pistol. Only it matters.

Suddenly the gun is free, and I smash it across Lenny's face with every muscle fiber I can manage. Something breaks and explodes in Lenny’s face, but I don’t focus on it. I try to reverse my shaking grip on the gun so I can use it as intended, but Tank Daddy’s bull rush smears me against the wall. The impact jars the pistol from me.

My kidneys cry out in agony as Tank Daddy lays into them. I elbow and stomp, turning to face him. Still, the wall is too close to my back. The gunshot continues to Buddy Rich my ear drums, and my kidneys announce that I’ll be pissing blood. I cover up as best I can, but Tank Daddy’s hands sledge their way through, big meaty hammers.

Elbows are the answer. One, two, into his temple, until he staggers back. Need more room. Front kick to his gut, not trying to hurt, just drive him back. I launch from the wall, fists together and rocketing upward, the homerun swing to the jaw. Tank Daddy goes stiff and topples, his arms locked in place.

Then, a bee sting and a clap on my ass make me stagger forward. Bees? I look around for the nest. No nest. Just Lenny and the pistol in his left hand. His mangled right holds closed his unhinged jaw, and he moves like a baby deer on ice. The pistol meanders vaguely in my direction, but I don’t wait to see if he’ll get lucky with another shot.

Like many smart martial artists before me, I run. More precisely, through the doorway I dive into a forward roll until my feet come back under me, then run, zigzagging my way to the dispatch office. Inside, the steel door slams and locks behind me, and I dive under the desk, toward the phone. Gayle’s unconscious body is there, her breathing shallow and her coffee-colored skin swelling and bloody. The window is Lexan, which I think is bullet proof, but I’m not sure, so I cuddle up next to Gayle. Better to be under the desk, dialing nine-one-one. Time to think about sexual harassment at the work place later.

Lenny and Tank Daddy don’t bother to pound on the door to get in. I am distantly aware of their clumsy footsteps slapping the concrete through the garage and out the front door. The operator asks my emergency and I tell her. When she sees where, the police are here before the blood loss from my ass cheek causes me to pass out. But not by much.

"Nine": Recruiting

Writer's Note: This actually does directly follow-up the previous post. --C.A.

I ignore Salamanca’s question.

“You hear about Kelly?”

“Yeah, man. Sucks. Sorry to hear it.”

I nod.

“Also heard about a dead drug dealer named Luis Colón. Fucker got killed with a five grand bond on him. You know anything about that?”

“I don’t know anything about five grand.”

Salamanca smirks at my dodge. “You know anything about a big time hitter from out of town who’s poking around about it?”

“Hitter?”

“Yes, Spears. As in, hitman. As in, Colón’s mob wants to know why their Utica distributor has more holes in him than normal.”

I feel the need to sit down, so I do in the client chair. It’s slated wood and stiff, which helps keep me upright.

“How do you know this?” I ask.

Shrug. “I knows what I knows.” Salamanca’s stare never leaves me.

“What makes you think this concerns me?”

“Maybe cause you went as pale as the Martha Stewart fan club when I mentioned the hitman? Maybe because I checked around and Colón didn’t have beef with anyone, ‘cept maybe an angry boyfriend?”

My eyes drift away from Salamanca’s, and I shift against the twisting in my guts. A gross miscalculation; I had assumed that someone like Colón would have plenty of enemies around.

I find some air. “The hitman know this?”

Head shake. “If he did, you’d be dead, I’m sure.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Confidence, shit. You can’t karate chop a bullet. You’re over you head and you know it, or you wouldn’t be here, darkening my doorstep.”

“I knew that. Didn’t realize how deep. I came here for help with Jerry Gold.”

“Shame about Jerry. Cops know who aced him?”

I tell him what I overheard, including the description of the shooter.

“A white guy with a fucking Zorro mask and a gold grill?”

I nod and explain my suspicions about the skinny guy and Tank Daddy.

“Sounds about right. I posted bond on both them guys. Sounds like you know Tank Daddy. Gold-grill’s name is Lenny Krastewski…” He trails off and for the first time looks away, out his window.

“What?”

“Lenny and Tank take turns shaking down the smaller businesses in the area for protection money. Cops don’t pay much attention, cause it’s been pretty small time. But lately, they been getting greedy. Could be that they were shaking down Jerry and when he don’t pay up, they used him as an example.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“That aint’ all. Guess who Lenny and Tank worked for, the operative word there being worked.”

“Colón?” I feel the flush of anger and something else—guilt?—on my cheeks. Did killing Colón somehow get Jerry killed?

Salamanca looks back at me, sees my train of thought and shakes his head. “I don’t think Colón’s and Jerry’s death are related any more than that. One didn’t lead to the other, exactly. Guy in charge of the crew now is a ‘roid freak named Bulldog, real rageaholic. Maybe without Colón’s cooler head around, he and Lenny got greedier.”

“Thanks, Tony. I almost felt better for a second.”

Shrug. “You did whatcha did. Lenny did what he did. You can’t control that.”

“I might be able to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Deep sigh. “Christ, Spears, you listening to me? There’s a hitman in town that will put a fucking hole in your head if he finds out you killed Colón.”

“I thought you said he didn’t know.”

“Not yet, no. I forget how innocent you are, Spearsy. I’m used to dealing with an element that knows the score, even if they ain’t as smart as you.” Big sigh again, and he’s looking out the window at the rain splashing against the pane. “There’s more to this than you know, Spears. It’s not easy to hear.”

My shoulders tense. I nod at him to go on.

“I did some checking around after I heard about Kelly. Figured I owed ya something for pulling Tina and me out of that fire.” He pauses and looks for something. The right words, I figure. “It was no accident that Kelly got that laced joint.”

I’m silent, holding vigil against the truth.

“Kelly was shaking Colón down. Why, I haven’t figured out yet. She wanted money for something, or she was going to testify against Colón as a drug dealer.”

Kelly into extortion and drugs? My Kelly? I want to walk right out of the office. But I don’t. The weight of the truth holds me in my chair and I slump against its weight.

“Again, I’m sorry, man. I know that shit ain’t easy to hear.”

Head shake. Still clinging to the last bit of resistance in me. “Doesn’t make sense. Kelly didn’t need the money. She didn’t want things, just the basic necessities and a few dollars left over for books.”

“Are you sure you knew her that well?”

I fight against my anger. “Yes. She had her Masters of Fine Arts and published poetry books. She didn’t have to be at a community college, making small change, when she could have been at a big school, making big money. She stayed here because she loved to teach these kids, whose only shot at an education was getting prepped at the CC.”

“I don’t know about all that, Spears, but maybe you’re right.”

Salamanca is quiet while he thinks about it, rubbing his scarred hand across two-days growth on his neck. I concentrate on breathing and sanity. I want to hit someone repeatedly.

“There someone she’d want to help? She have a kid or a relative in trouble?”

“No, no kid of her own, anyway. Maybe…” I rub my mouth as I consider it. Anger recedes. A seed of an idea sprouts and it feels good to be thinking again.

Salamanca waits for me, his gaze down from stern to curious. “Who would she give help to?”

“Whom,” I correct. “Mother taught school. Good grammar, always.”

“Never though of you having a mother, but all right, wise-ass, to fucking whom would she give help?”

“A student. She was always trying to save those kids, especially the hard cases who got into the college by the skin of their teeth.”

“That of course leads to the next question…”

“Yeah, which student. Guess I’ll have to figure that out.”

I stand, shake Salamanca’s hand, and leave.

“You need help on this, Spears, you let me know. But even I can’t help you against a Columbian hitman. Watch your six.”

“I’ll see what I can do about that five grand,” I say, walking out the door.