"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.