Romeo's Hammer Page 17

  “I love the way you talk,” Claude said.

  “Get on with it,” the other guy said. “I want some steak.”

  The voice sounded familiar.

  He appeared out of the shadows, behind Claude’s right shoulder.

  Kalolo the bartender.

  “Hurry up,” Kalolo said.

  “What’s your rush?” Claude said.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Yeah you are.”

  “Let’s all go grab a burger,” I said. “Talk this out.”

  “You love to talk,” Claude said.

  “Communication’s a beautiful thing,” I said.

  “Who do you work for?”

  “UPS,” I said.

  Claude gave me four knuckles to my face. Fireworks exploded behind my eyes.

  “Don’t tell me,” Claude said. “I like doing this.”

  When one is secured to a chair and is outnumbered by a two-thug ratio, there are only a couple of options. First option is to figure out a way to do the movie thing and take down said thugs with a one-in-a-thousand move. That move usually includes whatever the good guy is connected to.

  It would help if one of the too-stupid-to-live bad guys walked out, leaving only one thug to finish the job. Then by way of head butt or groin kick, good guy disables his one adversary and goes after the other one.

  The second option is find a vulnerability in the thug’s ego. The odds of this working are only slightly better than the first. But having two bad choices, you go with the least bad, just like in politics.

  I had an advantage. I’d dealt with both these boys before.

  Kalolo was not going to be interested in my proposals. I’d already shamed him, but privately. He just wanted me dead.

  Claude, on the other hand, I’d controlled in front of his boss, or his lover, or whoever Jon-Scott Morrow was to him. He’d almost cried.

  He was the one to concentrate on.

  “You only like hitting somebody who can’t move,” I said. “There’s a name for somebody like that.”

  “I’d love to take you apart,” Claude said.

  “You couldn’t do it if I was out of this chair.”

  “Forget that,” Kalolo said. “Let me cut him up, will you?”

  “Hold on,” Claude said. “This guy wants a piece of me.”

  “Fair fight,” I said. “You can even have your girlfriend hold a gun on me. Just as long as we make it fair.”

  “You got no bargaining power,” Claude said.

  “You’re dying to know if you can take me,” I said. To Kalolo I said, “You got a piece on you?”

  He said nothing.

  Claude said, “Where’s your piece?”

  “Come on!” Kalolo said.

  “Where is it?”

  “I got it. Here.” Kalolo pulled a gun from the back of his pants.

  “Hold it on him,” Claude said. “If he takes me out, shoot him.”

  “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go down,” Kalolo said.

  “Shut up!” Claude said. “Do what I tell you.”

  “You got nothing to lose,” I said to the bartender. “After I take care of Onion Breath there, you and I can dance again.”

  “I got onion breath?” Claude said.

  SO HE UNTIED me. Kalolo stood about ten yards away, gun at the ready.

  “So where is this place?” I said, rubbing my wrists.

  “Hell,” Claude said.

  “That’s really bad dialogue,” I said. “You’ve been hanging out with the wrong people.”

  “You know you’re not getting out of here alive, right? No matter what happens.”

  “Hell would be an eternity having to listen to you,” I said. “So are you going to make it a fair fight?”

  “Sure,” Claude said. “Anytime you’re ready.”

  “Let me loosen up a little.”

  Claude answered that by executing a roundhouse kick. A pretty good one. I ducked it.

  “Hold it,” I said. “I’m not ready.”

  Back he came, a rush job, fists flying. I parried each blow then pushed him over my leg. Down he went.

  “Time out!” I said.

  “Ain’t no time out!” Kalolo said.

  “I just called it,” I said. “Don’t you guys know how to play?”

  “Let me shoot this—” and he finished off with four-syllable word that is both unoriginal and the mark of the unintelligent.

  “You don’t do nothin’,” Claude said.

  I said, “I’m just trying to get the rules straight.”

  “Ain’t gonna be no rules,” Claude said.

  “Then I may just as well go home,” I said.

  It was the look of consternation and confusion that the two thugs exchanged that almost made this whole thing worthwhile. You have to pick your moment, and this was mine. I open palmed the lightbulb and everything went dark.

  A shot fired. I felt it whiz by my left ear.

  In the darkness Claude shouted, “Don’t shoot!”

  His voice gave me a reading. I gave the left-heel jab to chest level and got a satisfactory thud. Claude was going down again. I followed my foot and led with my knees. They pile-drived into his body. I found his face with my hand and thumbed his right eye. He screamed. I broke his nose with my right elbow.

  I immediately went into a roll and found my chair. Now it was a weapon. I grabbed the back and held it in front of me like a bull’s horns.

  And listened.

  Instead of being quiet, like he should’ve been, Kalolo made all sorts of desperate puffing noises. I rushed at the noises with the chair.

  The next sound he issued was the kind you make when you’re impaled. I pulled the chair back and brought it down on where I guessed his head was. The chair did not break like in the old cowboy movies. But his head probably did.

  I sensed him falling to the ground. I jumped on him. He didn’t resist. He was out. I felt along his arm and found his hand and gun. I removed the gun, a revolver, and stood.

  It wasn’t hard to get a bead on Claude in the dark. He was snuffling and groaning.

  I patted Kalolo’s pockets. Took out his phone. Found an On key.

  The room filled with dim, dark-blue light.

  The screen said Swipe screen to unlock.

  I swiped.

  More light. No password necessary. Lazy bartenders make the best informants.

  I turned the screen toward Claude.

  Who was lying on the ground, touching his face.

  “How do I get out, Claude?” I said.

  He didn’t say anything.

  I pressed the gun to his head.

  “Don’t shoot, come on!” he said.

  “Are we alone in this place?” I said.

  “Yes!”

  “If you lie to me, Claude, I’ll have to use this.”

  “I’m bleeding here!”

  “Where are we, Claude? And remember not to lie to me. I don’t like that.”

  Silence.

  I fired a shot into the wall.

  Claude yelped.

  “A place we use!” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Nearby. On the side of the hill.”

  “Anybody outside?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Claude.”

  “I’m not! I swear!”

  “Just you and your girlfriend?”

  “Stop calling him that.”

  “Save your indignation, Claude.”

  “My what?”

  “You depress me, Claude. And you’ve made me really mad. So I’m going to ask you once, who told you to bring me here and what were you supposed to do to me?”

  “You’re gonna kill me, so why should I say anything?”

  “I don’t murder people, Claude. Unless it’s a Friday. Is it Friday?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Talk to me, Claude.”

  “I don’t think I want to.”

  In the light of the phone
he looked like a petulant child.

  I fired a shot at Claude’s feet.

  He yipped and said, “We were supposed to find out who you’re working for, that’s all.”

  “Then kill me?”

  Claude said nothing.

  “Because you and your platonic friend here murder any day of the week, yes?”

  Silence.

  An arm the size of a log wrapped around my throat.

  THERE ARE CERTAIN things you can do only if you’ve been trained in both body and mind. And there are other things you can do only if your mind is wired a certain way. That’s the wild card.

  I’ve been in the cage with fighters that had the goods, physically and mentally. But their native brains lacked the spark that was, for some reason, given to me. A spark that lets me see things instantly and react to them.

  I knew that the other arm behind me was going to pull my gun hand in less than a quarter second. That’s the time it took me to fire a round into Claude’s gut before it happened.

  Kalolo hit it hard, my arm, enough to dislodge the gun.

  Now all I had to do was get a giant Pacific Islander arm off my throat before I passed out.

  I dropped the phone and used both hands to pull down on his arm, getting a little flow of air.

  Then I pushed with my legs like I was a soccer goalie reaching for a high shot. We fell backwards. I was on top of him now, my back on his front. A couple of spoons, an image which to this day I long to delete.

  The only things I had were my elbows.

  Nobody knows for sure when elbow fighting became a disciplined art. It has probably been around for three millennia. I’m sure it didn’t take the smartest Sumerian to figure out that crushing somebody’s face with the sharp bone in the middle of their arm was an effective maneuver.

  But it was probably the Cambodians who took it to the next level and made an art out of it. Bokator they called it. To strike a lion.

  This was part of my own training. I like elbows a lot.

  Getting the strikes to affect the bartender was difficult because of his layer of fat. I concentrated on his right side, giving ten strikes in about five seconds.

  The arm around my throat weakened. I busted out of it and reversed on top of him.

  I was about to hammer his head bokator style when another of those instant messages hit my brain.

  I grabbed as much of Kalolo as I could and rolled, pulling him on top of me just as the gun fired twice.

  MATH HAS ALWAYS come easily to me. I have no problem subtracting four from six. Kalolo had fired one shot. I’d done three. If the revolver was a six-shooter, which was likely, there were two slugs in the mighty bulk of Kalolo the bartender, one inside Claude, and nothing left in the cylinder.

  But there was a ton of Samoan on top of me.

  I heard scuffling. And moaning. I used a submission-defense move to squirm out from under the thankfully motionless body.

  In the dim I saw Claude holding the gun like a hammer, about to use my head as the nail.

  I banked right but he got my shoulder.

  Steel hurts.

  Claude fell on me.

  He screamed and spit at my face.

  With the heel of my palm I jammed his chin and felt his jaw unhinge.

  I followed that with the hammer, my rock, my right fist, aimed at the silhouette of Claude’s head.

  He went night-night.

  And with the bullet hole in him, he was not going to be waking up.

  It sure felt like Friday. Dark-night-of-the-soul Friday. Killing does that. This darkness sticks to your ribs and squeezes your heart and your lungs.

  It keeps you up at night.

  THE PLACE WAS dark again. I felt around for the phone, found it. Lit the place up once more.

  Kalolo was dead.

  Claude, too.

  He’d been the last one to fire the gun. It was lying next to him.

  I picked it up by the trigger guard, then used Claude’s shirt to give the butt and trigger a rubdown. Then I put it Claude’s hand and wrapped his fingers around the butt and put his index finger on the trigger. He had plenty of residue on him.

  I looked around for my clothes. Not there. I had to kick open the door of this hobbit room. There was a small passage with light coming in at the end. I saw a crude, wooden set of steps leading up to a flat door.

  I stepped up and pushed the door open a crack and looked out.

  I was on hill covered with cornstalk-colored weeds. I clambered out of the chamber and into the sun.

  I was alone on a hill that was itself alone. Which was good, considering there were two dead bodies below me and I was clad only in briefs.

  Life’s embarrassing situations.

  The only other sign of human imprint were two small solar panels next to the door. Somebody had gone to a great deal of trouble to create this place, with solar power and a generator for light and air.

  I figured I was not far from the camp. My car was still parked out there, probably being watched. I hated to do it, but I decided to leave Spinoza for now.

  Using Kalolo’s phone, I called Ira.

  “I’m in my underwear on a hill,” I said.

  “I always knew you’d end up that way,” he said.

  “It’s going to get cold soon. And I may not be alone for long.”

  “Wait a second, you’re serious?”

  “I need some backup,” I said. “I’m going to work my way around to where I can’t be seen.”

  “Probably a good thing.”

  “If I leave the phone on, can you triangulate and find out where I am?”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “Probably being watched. Or worked over.”

  “By whom?”

  “Tell you when you get here.”

  IN TEN MINUTES Ira called me back and told me I was near a fire road, and he could be there in an hour.

  Traffic permitting, of course.

  The air was taking a definite turn toward chill. Dark clouds, something Southern Cal hadn’t seen a lot of lately, gathered on the horizon. There was a hint of salt in the air, not surprising since I was in a canyon that funneled to the ocean. That mix of sun and cool air makes these hills ideal for vineyards. There’s a bunch of them up here. Only not near me. Too bad. I could’ve used a nice glass of Cabernet.

  I sat behind some brush just in case a deer should happen by. Nothing like a guy in his underwear to spook the local fauna.

  And started checking the contents of Kalolo’s phone. There was a list of contacts that Ira could check later, cross referencing them with some database or other. I’m sure we’d get a list of felons that might prove to be a haystack with maybe one needle in it.

  His call history had a good list that we could check, too.

  What interested me most were his photos and videos.

  There’s nothing visually worse than a thug’s selfie. His gallery was stuffed with them. A lot of them with customers, some of them with girls who frankly looked like just the kind who would love punks like this guy. The old bad boy syndrome that never works out.

  I went through about a hundred photos until I got tired of seeing this guy’s face.

  There was a folder marked Vids and I tried to get in. It asked for a password. The content was enough for even a lazy bartender to protect. It would take some of Ira’s magic to gain access.

  It was going on twenty minutes since Ira had called.

  Sitting there like early man on the plains of the Serengeti, I almost laughed. There’s all this technology in the palm of my hand. And over here is me, in my loin cloth, facing the elements with nothing but attitude.

  And then I found myself thinking of my old buddy C Dog again. Why did he keep popping up in my thoughts?

  Because you want to save him. Because maybe in saving him you are staking out a claim that there is really a meaningful existence for you, for him, for anybody. Maybe that’s the way you deal with having blood on your hands. It doesn’t wash o
ff with water, metaphorical or otherwise. You can only cover it up. So that’s why you do these things for other people.

  And what’s wrong with that? If it gets you going and keeps you from slicing your wrists, that’s a plus.

  A rustling in the scrub got my attention. I look toward the sound. The sound stopped. I kept my eyes on the spot, but otherwise didn’t move.

  And then I saw it, looking at me through the brush. A rabbit. Its black eyes set in gray fur was giving me the once over.

  Take a good look, Bunny. You’re probably happier right where you are. Stay away from hunters and hawks, and you’ll be all right.

  I remembered then the only time I ever went hunting.

  My mom had shipped me off to spend a few days with her father, my grandfather. I had not seen him much growing up and I was excited to go. He had a place in northern Indiana that sounded like something out of one of my adventure stories.

  It turned out I was not far wrong. He lived in a small house with a lot of property around it, close to a wood.

  Harold Broxton was a big man. I remember he had enormous hands that felt like dry leather when we shook. He’d been in the Navy in World War II, grew up in the Depression when hunting for his family was not an option but a necessity. I always sensed there was some tight wire of tension between him and his daughter. But that was covered by her obvious love for him. My grandfather, on the other hand, was not one to show emotion.

  I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be big and I didn’t want to be the emotional basket case I usually was. So when he said he was going to take me hunting, I was excited. We were going to go out like Daniel Boone and I could prove my manhood, which I hoped was lurking inside me somewhere.

  He got me up while it was still dark. I remember the breakfast, bacon and eggs. In the cold of the house and sleep still in my eyes, the bacon and eggs tasted like the best thing in the world. As we ate, he talked to me man to man.

  “We’re going to spend a couple of hours with the rifle. I’m going to teach you how to shoot a .22. Then you’ll practice with it. I have set targets for you. Tomorrow, we will have another morning like this and will go out and hunt some rabbits. How does that sound?”

  It sounded like H. Rider Haggard to me. The fat kid was going to get some training in the fine art of manliness.

  The training with the rifle was exhilarating. Grandpa showed me how to load a bullet into the bolt-action, single-shot chamber. He showed me how to use the sight. And finally let me shoot it.