CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EIZO
As soon as the blackout hit, we knew this was our chance. The AC contact was a lucky break, almost divine intervention, but they had to run, didn’t they? It would have been nice if it was just the girl. The football kid hasn’t done anything wrong, though he did put my favorite team out of contention last week, so I guess a bullet between the eyes won’t hurt. Collateral damage. The Don will understand.
We’ve both got our pistols raised, working our way through the back corridors of the stadium. It’s dark, not much to go on, but over the years my eyes have tuned well to the shadows. The darkness is where we live, where we thrive.
Michael and I don’t talk. We’ve been working together long enough now that we’ve developed a kind of sixth sense, a natural intuition. I can tell by a simple shift of his head, a lift of his shoulders, what he’s thinking.
We come down a narrow hallway and I can almost smell her, that sweet scent of young pussy, the fear. It’s the best fucking smell in the world.
I’d hoped the security guard in the box up front would have put up more of a fight, but he’ll live in any case. That was a clean shot through the shoulder. One of my best.
Michael looks back and motions me towards a kitchen running off the corridor.
I take the lead and move in.
SAM
I’m trying to keep it together, but I can’t stop shaking and I can’t stop thinking that this is real, that the men hired to kill me are here, right now. I might be dead in less than a minute—nothing. No Chance, no life, no future, no family. I will cease to exist.
Please let it be quick.
I hear footsteps. I know Chance hears them too because of the way he tenses up in front of me, hand holding me behind him protectively. He’s got a chef’s knife tucked down the back of his jeans, but I don’t know what good that will be against a gun.
The footsteps grow louder and I fight the urge to scream, to call for help. Chance turns around, finger to his lips, his eyes steely and collected.
With a sudden horror I realize they’re here, in the kitchen.
I see a shadow loom on the wall, growing and growing as the hitman gets closer.
I want to run, to take my chances, but I’m being held back.
Chance takes out of knife. He’s coiled up, ready to strike.
I watch as Chance scans the darkness for a way out.
We both notice it at the same time. A door maybe six feet away. It has to lead out to the main thoroughfare running around the stadium.
Chance turns and whispers. “Wait here. I’m going to check the door.”
“No,” I whisper back, but he squeezes my hand.
“I’ll be fine.”
He stands and slowly pads to the door. I watch as he turns the knob, the door starting to open. All the while he keeps his eyes on the kitchen.
Please, please, God, let him be okay.
He opens the door a little wider and waves me over.
I’m halfway to him when one of the men calls out. “Here!”
I make it through the door under Chance’s arm. He swings in behind me, closing the door and locking it. “Run!” he yells.
I start running down the main walkway inside the stadium. It’s wide and open.
I look back and see Chance right on my tail.
I almost trip at the sound of gunfire, the door we just came from kicked wide and the two men bursting through into the open. But we’ve got distance on them now.
“Left!” calls Chance.
I swing down a series of steps into the lower walkway, my legs burning, begging to give in, but not now. I can’t.
Pounding footsteps above us, echoes and sounds all around.
Oh no.
I come to a dead end, a solid wall, and start to turn around. The entrance onto the field is only twenty or so feet back, but the men are too close.
Chance points to a small alcove to the right of the wall. “Get down!”
I tuck into the alcove, Chance crushing me against the wall, knife by his side and his head poking around the corner. He pulls in.
I don’t need to see out to know what’s going on.
They’re here.
We’re screwed.
“What now?” I whisper, hoping he has a plan. “The entry to the field. We just ran past it.”
He nods and reaches down to the floor, picking up a half-full Coke bottle. He takes it in his hand. “This is going to have to be the best god-damn throw of my life. When I say ‘go’, you run for that entry. Don’t stop for anything. Got it?”
I nod, but truthfully I don’t know if I’ll be able to move.
Without warning, he steps out into the open and brings his arm back, heaving the Coke bottle down the hallway. “Now,” he whispers.
I run out into the open and see the two hitmen with their backs turned looking for the source of the sound; they don’t know it was only a bottle. He must have thrown it over their heads, made them look away for a distraction.
It’s terrifying running straight towards them, but I make it and dive into a tunnel leading out onto the field. It’s not until I hit the turf I look back for Chance.
Come on. Come on.
He finally appears, running for me.
“Go!” he yells.
I run, but this is the field. You can’t get any more in the open than this.
I don’t know what to do, so I run for the middle, stopping when I reach the halfway line, looking to the moon above, the heat and stress and fear and everything bearing down on me.
Chance runs up and presses me behind him once again as the hitmen emerge from the end of the tunnel. Once they see us, they stop running.
We’re done.
“I’m sorry,” says Chance.
He holds the knife high, standing in front of me and shouting, “Come on, motherfuckers!”
I press against Chance’s back trembling.
This is it. This is finally it.
The men are close enough now to make them out in full. The tall one wears a dark, shiny suit, his hair greying and cropped close to his head. The other is short with a prizefighter’s build, a similar buzzcut and eyes so dark they’re black even out here under a full moon. In his track-pants and T-shirt, he looks ready for a marathon, not about to kill someone in cold blood.
The tall one speaks with measured syllables. “Put the knife down, kid. You’re only going to hurt yourself.” He keeps the gun trained on Chance’s chest.
“You’ll have to kill me to get to her.”
The sporty one laughs. “That’s precisely what we’re going to do if you don’t stop being a little cunt. Now move aside and let us do our job.”
Chance drops the knife. It spears into the turf, the handle wagging back and forth. “Okay, tough guy,” he says, addressing the sporty one. “You’re an Ali fan, are you?”
The sporty one looks down at the T-shirt he’s wearing, some kind of Muhammad Ali anniversary text and picture on it, the greatest boxer of all time with his gloves raised. “What’s it to you, sunshine?”
“If you’re such a boxing fan, such a big, bad boxer boy, why don’t we handle this like men?”
The sporty one looks to his friend. “You hear that shit, Mikey?”
It doesn’t look like they’re trying to conceal their identities. That’s how confident they are. Still, I’m surprised they haven’t started shooting already. There’s something about the tall one, the way he’s watching us. Maybe he’s having doubts, second thoughts?
“Bare-knuckle. You and me,” Chance continues. “You win, she’s all yours. I win and you hear her out.”
The sporty one lowers his gun and takes a step forward. “You think you can take me?”
Chance nods in the affirmative. “I’ve taken guys down twice your size. You know, men… not boys.”
The sporty one laughs. “You fucking little punk. You getting this, Mikey?”
“Eizo…” cautions the tall one, but boxer boy is sold.
“Okay, you want your little punch-on?” he tosses his gun to the tall one, who takes it shaking his head and slips it down the back of his trousers. “You got it”.
He steps back and raises his fists, jumping from foot to foot. I don’t know much about boxing, but this guy looks dangerous. This is something he’s done before, something he’s good at.
It’s at this moment I see a guard over by the far tunnel. He’s keeping to the shadows. I can see the glow of a cell phone raised to his ear. He’s calling for help.
It starts to click into place. Chance has seen him too. He’s buying us time.
Chance steps away from me and raises his fists, tilting his head from side to side, limbering up for the fight.
I hope to hell he knows what he’s doing.