CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHANCE
I’ve dealt with guys like this before. You’ve got to attack their ego, make them an offer they can’t refuse, a way to beat their chest and prove they’re the alpha male. Tall Guy, Mikey? He wouldn’t have a bit of it. No, he’s a stone-cold killer, a thinker, but his brother here, I’m guessing? He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. He’s all muscle and no brains, all show. He can dance, but I’m betting he doesn’t have the hitting power to back it up.
Normally, I’d go in hard from the outset, but I don’t want to pummel this guy too soon. I want to drag this out as long as possible, give the guard I’ve spotted time to get the call out.
Eizo eggs me on, waving me in with his fingers. “Come on, superstar. Show me what you got.”
I feint forward and he dodges right, an easy tell. What mini Ali here doesn’t know is that we boxed every day in the Corps. I was squad-fucking-champion. I may not be Muhammad, even Sugar Ray, but I can sure swing with a street punk like this.
I get close enough for him to jab me in the side of the face. It barely registers, but I make a show of it, reeling back and bringing my hand to my cheek.
He laughs, looking to his brother. “How’s that, pretty boy? How about I break that pretty nose, too?”
He jabs forward again, weak, but a broken nose I do not need. I dodge right, slow, and pull back, dancing around in a wide circle to keep us moving, always in front of Sam so the tall brother doesn’t get any ideas and decide to shoot her prematurely. He’s still got his gun up, after all.
“What are you waiting for? Come get some.”
Almost without thinking I rush forward and deliver a series of sharp blows to Eizo’s ribs.
It’s clearly unexpected by the look of shock on his face when I pull back. He winces but brings his fists up again, continuing to float and dance. “Okay. Okay. So maybe you do have a little razzle-dazzle, but do you have this?” He jumps forwards and swings with a heavy right.
I skip back and it brushes past my chest. The muscle memory kicks in automatically, my own right following and collecting his jaw with enough force to separate it from his face.
He goes down on the turf hard.
Fuck. I’ve knocked him out.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Get up,” I call, and thank fuck he does, slowly climbing back to his feet. His expression has changed now. There’s no more playing around. He’s in it for the kill now.
He comes at me full steam. That’s the problem. An amateur boxer seeing red? That’s unpredictable and a fuck-load more dangerous than someone who knows what they’re doing.
A knee drives up into my chest, but I manage to deflect and bounce left.
“Fucker!” he screams. “I’ll have your fucking balls!”
“Eizo,” cautions his brother again, but he’s no longer listening.
He swings with a heavy left. It connects, but it’s pathetic. I brush it off and continue to dodge, but I’m running out of room. Keep moving, I tell myself. Keep moving.
He jumps at me again and by instinct I smack him hard in the nose. He bounces back, blood pouring from his face.
I look down at my fists. It’s been a while since I’ve fought bare-knuckle like this. My skin’s broken, the top of my knuckles smeared red, with whose blood I can’t tell.
I see Sam with her hands over her mouth watching on. The second brother, Michael, keeps his gun trained on her, but he’s watching us, watching his brother get the shit beat out of him.
The Ali pretender kneels down next to the spot where I dropped the knife in the ground and picks it up, tossing it from hand to hand, but his grip’s wrong, flimsy.
I point to the knife. “Hope you know what you’re doing with that thing.”
He spits out a wad of blood, the red stream from his nose drying into a crusty river. “Boy, I was slitting throats before you were even a speck in your daddy’s balls. I’m going to enjoy this.”
I shake my head and change my stance, bracing for the attack. “If you say so.”
He might not know what he’s doing, but you can’t fuck around when a blade’s involved. So, when he comes at me, I immediately put him down. He thrusts forward for my chest and I glance to the side, taking his arm and snapping his wrist. His hand releases and the knife falls to the ground.
I go to work, pummeling his ribs, driving him to the ground in a frenzy of calculated blows.
His hands try to swat me away at first, but they soon grow limp as defeat settles in and he becomes nothing more than a punching bag.
I straddle him and raise my fist. Lights out, motherfucker.
“Enough,” says the other brother. “You’ve proved your point. I’m a fair man. I’ll hear what the girl has to say.”
I let go of Eizo and he slumps into the turf moaning, his face a bloody mess. I can’t believe I just did this. The horrors of war come streaming back, the kids torn apart, the women, the surprise attacks… I push it away. It’s not the time.
I quietly pick up the knife and slip it back down my pants again. This guy might look a little more reasonable, but I don’t trust him for one fucking second to keep his word.
He looks down at his brother. “You still alive, brother?”
A groan suggests he is.
The brother tilts his gun at Sam. “Better start talking, sweetheart.”
Sam’s shaking her head. “I—ah. I—”
I take her by the shoulders. “Slow down. Tell him what happened.”
She looks to the guy in the suit. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t call the cops.”
He doesn’t seem convinced. “No?”
“My customer, my first customer… He wanted me to…” she trails off.
“Keep going,” I whisper. We need as much time as we can get.
I can still see the security guard in the distance. The phone’s gone, but he’s watching carefully, hand on his revolver. Still, he’d have to be Superman to make a shot from there.
“I refused,” continues Sam. “He got angry. I had no idea it was that kind of massage parlor.”
The hitman looks to the moon above and shakes his head. “The place has ‘open nine ’til late’ on a billboard outside with a picture of a woman with her tits out. What did you think this guy was coming in for? Shiatzu?”
Sam shakes her head at the ground. “I was naïve, stupid, I know, but I was desperate for the money.”
The hitman chews it over. “Okay. So your customer was pissed off. You think he went to the cops?”
“I do.”
“How do I know? Where’s the proof?”
“Where’s the proof she did?” I interject.
The gun turns to my direction. “You shut the fuck up. Fun as it was to watch, I should blow your brains out for what you did to my baby brother.”
I put my hands up.
“So,” he says, “where’s your proof?”
Sam speaks. “I left, simple as that, and I shut up. I never wanted to think about that place again. I never talked to the cops. The client? He said he was going to call the police, make the place pay.”
“He did, did he?”
The boxer brother sits up and slowly gets to his feet, wiping blood from his face. He spits again to the ground, asking for his gun. His brother tosses it to him. “Easy now, Eizo. I’ve got this.”
The gun lifts towards Sam. “Do you, Mikey? Because it looks to me like you’re losing your nerve. Why the fuck are you even listening to this shit? The Don wants her dead. When have we ever asked questions?”
“Now’s not the time, brother.”
They’re arguing. This is good. What’s not good is the way boxer boy is feathering that trigger.
“Now is the time. You’re getting soft, Mikey. Old.”
“I’m not the one who just got beat into a pulp by a kid.”
Eizo holds his jaw. “The kid didn’t tell me he was Evander-fucking-Holyfield, so I ask again, why shouldn’t we cap these two right now and go have a beer?”
Michael is getting frustrated. “I want to hear what the girl has to say. I told you before. It doesn’t add up.”
Eizo won’t have it. “For ten Gs it doesn’t fucking have to! Come on.” He squeezes the trigger a little more and I start to move in front of Sam.
“Easy now.”
“Shut the fuck up, cocksucker!”
“Eizo!” shouts Michael.
But I see the look in his eye, the malice. I’ve dented his pride. I’ve left him with no choice.
“Say goodbye to your girlfriend, superstar.”