But Jim didn’t back off. Instead, he pushed Ari’s shoulder. “You stepped over the line, boss. You took risks that could get us all killed. It was bad enough to strike out like Indiana Jones, worrying the Soviets would steal the treasure. But killing one of the Diablos and burying the body?!”
Ari stood and threw his glass across the room, but Jim stood his ground. “That’s just inviting them to line us up and assassinate us. I might as well put a bullseye on your chest!”
Ari gave Jim a two-handed shove to the chest. “I didn’t see you doing anything to protect our investment, Wade. You’ve been too busy moping around, caught up in your own little world for months now to be the least bit effective.”
Jim stood chest to chest and nose to nose with Ari. “I’ve done more to protect the investment and the club in the last twenty-four hours than you’ve done in the last five years!”
Ari took one step back and threw a right hook, but Jim caught his wrist and head-butted Ari in the face. Ari’s head snapped back, but he didn’t go down. He wrenched his arm from Jim’s grasp and went for Jim’s stomach with his left hand. Jim took the punch, which was weak from Ari’s dizziness, and countered by rushing Ari. He knocked him into a barstool that collapsed and landed on top of him on the floor.
Ari fought dirty. He grabbed Jim’s hair and yanked his head back so he could swing at Jim’s nose. Jim turned his head, taking the blow to the back of his jaw instead, and grabbed Ari by his jacket, lifted his torso, and slammed his head against the floor. Ari raised a knee, getting Jim right where the road burn still stung and ached, and Jim grunted in pain.
But he wasn’t done, and with a growl, he sat up to straddle Ari, pounding on his face. Ari took several punches before he managed to get his legs up and his feet locked over Jim’s shoulders. He rolled so Jim’s back hit the floor, his legs bent and out of commission momentarily. It knocked the wind out of Jim and gave Ari a chance to get up, but as soon as Ari was on his feet, Jim straightened out his legs and threw a kick that landed on Ari’s knee. He hit hard enough to take Ari down again.
Jim rolled to his hands and knees with a growl and dove at Ari, but unseen hands on his arms pulled him back. “Let go of me!” he screamed. He lunged and kicked, but he was held too tightly to get away.
“Enough, Wade.” Boxer’s voice in his ear brought Jim back to reality and cleared his vision. As he gazed down at Ari, he saw the damage he’d done. The man’s nose was broken and bleeding, and he would have a shiner the next day; his lip was swollen and cut, and as he sat up, he grabbed his head in pain and nearly fell over again.
Boxer had one of Jim’s arms, and he turned to see Donnie holding the other. He shook them both off. “I’m fine. I’m done.” They let go but stayed close, and Jim brushed off his jacket. His adrenaline ebbed and sensation came back to his body. He hadn’t exactly come out smelling like roses. His jaw hurt and would bruise badly, and his leg injury throbbed so hard that it made him want to collapse. He took a seat on a still-standing barstool to save some dignity.
Taking the weight off his leg made other parts of his body scream, and he stared at his hands in disgust. They were a mess of blood, and from the looks of his knuckles, it wasn’t all Ari’s blood. Tipper pushed a shot of something foul at him, and Jim took it. He felt the burn all the way down through his chest.
Tipper laughed and hiccupped. “You feel better now?”
Jim smiled, and it pulled at his sore jaw. He rubbed it and nodded. “Surprisingly, I feel much better.”
There was a stir, and Jim saw three guys holding Ari, who apparently thought he was going to get a few more chances to smash Jim on the ground. “We’ve got to get your head checked, bro,” he heard Weasel tell him. Jim hadn’t even noticed the man come in.
He motioned to Tipper for one more shot. This one didn’t go down any easier, but he certainly felt a little calmer as he reached for a cigarette in his pocket. He lit up and offered one to Boxer, who stared at him in amusement and took it. Jim scowled. “What?”
Shaking his head, Boxer lit his smoke and grinned. “I’ve never had so much trouble pulling a guy your size off someone else. I can’t believe I had to get help. But I tried three times, and you weren’t going anywhere.”
Everything was foggy in Jim’s mind, and he didn’t remember anyone touching him until he actually came off Ari. “It doesn’t take a genius to know the Diablos won’t stop hunting us until we pay a two-for-one price on Cortez. I have half a mind to point to Weasel as the gunman and hand him over.”
“I wish it was that easy.” Boxer sat down on the empty stool beside him. “Maybe we should all split up and get out of town for a while.”
“I’d be surprised if Cortez didn’t crawl up out of that grave and already get to Rechoncho and Sauza,” Jim scoffed. “It’s hard to kill that kind of evil. We’d never get out of town in time. I’m surprised they aren’t here yet.”
Kentucky must have overheard them as he stepped up beside them. “I went to try to contain things. I was closing up the truck when Weasel went after Cortez, and I couldn’t catch up in time. I almost killed him in the back of the truck on the way home.”
“Are you sure he’s the only one that saw you?” Jim asked.
Kentucky nodded grimly. “Ari wanted to deliver the body with trumpets and flair. I told him we couldn’t do that if we wanted to make it home with the money and keep breathing. I’m sorry things went this way.”
Jim shrugged. “Too late now. At least we shouldn’t expect the Devils here tonight. They won’t go asking questions until tomorrow when Cortez doesn’t check in. Right now, they’ll just think he’s shacked up with some whore he paid to stay the night.”
But it was going to come down, and when it did, Jim had to make sure he didn’t have any connection to Susan that the Devils could find. They’d use her against him, and he didn’t know how he’d handle it if anything happened to her.