I went to Panera Bread again this week for the local write in. I got another interview for The Accidental Nerd when I get around to putting it together (thanks for being patient with me Liz!), and I got a bunch of writing done. I’m only down by about 400 words now, which I should be able to make up easily tonight.
It helped that the first part of this scene was already in my head before I started, it was just a matter of figuring out how to relate it to a reader. Action is incredably difficult to write, I think the only things that are harder are romance and comedy (which is why this isn’t a romance or a comedy). Even if I rewrite it completely though, at least it’s down now.
I especially like that I got Derrick in on things, he’s been fairly passive up until now. I also ended up introducing a real femme fatale after I tried to pass Carolyn off as one. I guess my subconscious didn’t buy it and stepped in to correct the situation. Oh well, it probably knows better than I do.
For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 17
Andre and Stephen were big boys, as they say, built like brick shit houses and probably just as smart. My shoulder still ached and I knew my left arm would give out quick in a scuffle. On any other day I could probably handle one of them without trouble. I was pretty sure I could take both of them on a good day, though I wouldn’t be too pretty afterwards. Today? I was in serious trouble here. Running away, something I’d never been terribly adverse to if the circumstances warranted it, wasn’t going to be easy as they stood between myself and the door.
I had me piece on me, of course, but I still didn’t have any bullets for it. And, of course, I had the kid to worry about. I’d known it was a bad idea to let him tag along, damn it.
Andre, his bald head and single gold earring shining the the florescent lights, lunged forwards first. He made to grab my shoulder, but I easily side stepped it and kicked him in the ribs, steadying myself against the bar with my left hand so I wouldn’t fall on my ass if I missed. Andre crashed into the bar, holding his side.
Stephen, his long strait brown hair flying around his head, tried to scoop his arm around my neck from behind to get me into a headlock. Still holding onto the bar, I crouched down, letting his arm pass over me, and elbowed him in the stomach, hard as I could manage. He slumped into the bar then fell to one knee.
I tried to spring to my feet and push myself away from the bar at the same time, propelling myself towards the door. Half way through this maneuver my left arm, my pushing off arm, spasmed and I botched it. I tripped and flew head long over one of the small tables, toppling it as I crashed to the floor in a heap. Wheezing, I propped myself up on one elbow, but I couldn’t gather the strength to stand. It was only going to take Stephen another second or two to recover, and Andre was probably coming after me already.
Or Derrick. Oh shit, Derrick. He was a smart kid, scrawny but energetic, if he’d kept his wits about him he should already be running for the door, and he could probably make it.
I elbow crawled around the downed table and stopped dead at what I saw. He hadn’t run, but he wasn’t taking a beating either. He was standing his ground. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself, but it looked like he was holding his own, maybe even winning. It looked as though he’d nailed Stephen just after I’d executed my graceful exit, since he was leaning against a bar stool, gasping for breath. Andre had recovered from my kick and rushed at Derrick.
Andre made a vicious jab at Derrick’s head. Derrick didn’t exactly side step, he just shifted his weight to the outside and let Andre’s arm slide over his right shoulder. Derrick swung his left arm up and slapped Andre in the face. Actually slapped him, that takes balls. Andre flinched and jerked slightly, Derrick continued the motion, hooking his arm over Andre’s, he grasped his left wrist with his right hand and dropped to his knees.
Andre screamed like a little girl. His arm below the elbow was resting on Derrick’s shoulder, and the slap had caused it to shift so his elbow pointed up. When Derrick threw all of his weight on the wrong side of Andre’s shoulder, it bent a little too far the wrong way, and Andre instinctively threw himself to the ground to stop it. Derrick threw his knee onto Andre’s shoulder and leaned against his straightened arm. There was a loud pop as his shoulder dislocated. Derrick sprang to his feet and stomped on Andre’s side, easily breaking a couple ribs.
He wound up for another kick, but Stephen had recovered and grabbed him from behind in an iron strong bear hug, pinning his arms to his side and lifting him off the ground. Derrick tried to smash his head backwards into Stephen’s nose, but he saw it coming and puffed his chest up and held his head back. Derrick couldn’t hope to reach him so he started kicking backwards with his heels, trying to connect with Stephen’s groin but again the angle was bad, apparently Stephen had been here before.
Derrick swung both of his legs straight of in front of himself and held them, forcing Stephen to adjust his stance or fall over. Then Derrick swung his legs back, between Stephen’s legs. The weight shift caught Stephen by surprise and he stumbled forward a few steps, then yanked Derrick back up hard. As he did, Derrick spread his legs and hooked his feet, catching the back of Stephen’s knees. Stephen’s knees buckled and he landed on them hard. Derrick pulled his legs up to his chest, then pushing off the floor brought the top of his head up into Stephen’s nose. There was a sickening crack and his head snapped back, spraying blood from his broken nose across the bar. He let go of Derrick then and pushed him away. Derrick caught his footing and whipped around, catching Stephen in the face with his knee and sending him sprawling into Andre, who was trying to stumble to his feet. Together they crashed to the ground, both screaming bloody murder.
It was all over in about eight seconds. I stumbled to my feet, sucking in air and trying to regain some sense of up and down. The metallic click of a revolver’s hammer being pulled back, and the cold metal ring of a barrel pressed against my temple, brought reality crashing back in around me.
“Tell the kid to back off my boys,” Charlie Dyer’s gravely voice said beside me, “or I fog you and call it self defense. With the damage you done, that might just stick.”
“Derrick,” I yelled, he was kicking Stephen in the ribs, “fade back.”
He looked up at me, then at Dyer, then held up his hands and backed up. Lili, who had watched the whole thing indifferently from behind the bar, hefted a sawed off shotgun and pointed it at him. Dyer took a step back and lowered the gun, a shiny S&W .38 Special, to his side, though he still pointed it in my direction.
“Good,” he said, “now that I have your attention, and you,” he nodded at Derrick, “have stopped roughing the help, I’m going to ask you again to leave.”
“I just want to talk, Charlie, I just want to ask you a few questions about Yadira Cheevers. I don’t care what happened between you two, if you didn’t have anything to do with her murder I don’t care, I just want to know how she died.”
He looked at me for a long moment, his scarred and misshapen face twisted in anger, his jaw muscles set and bulging. Then, he smiled. He let out a soft “harumph” noise, and released the hammer on his revolver.
“Lili,” he called to her, “Mr. Shamus and I are going to have a sit down over here and have a friendly conversation. If it becomes anything less than friendly, plug Mr. Dutch for me, won’t you doll?”
“Sure thing Charlie,” she called back. Then, to Derrick, “sorry Derrick.”
He grabbed a stool, set it upright, and sat down.
“No problem. While I’m here, think you could get me a Miami Vice?”
“Get it yourself,” she shot back, but with a faint smile.
Dyer turned back to me, “the kids seem to be getting along, now isn’t that nice?”
He stalked over to Andre and Stephen, who were starting to pull themselves together. Andre’s arm hung at an awkward angle and Stephen’s nose was definitely cocked at a funny angle and still spurting blood. They both moved as if every motion, every breath, hurt. Broken ribs are a bitch.
“You two get to clean this mess up seeing how that was the most pathetic display I have seen in years. Now one of you go call Dr. Mignon and tell him to get his fat ass over here and fix you morons up.” He turned back to me, “Mignon’s a good hombre, won’t ask too many awkward questions, you know”
“Yeah,” I said, wondering if my questions were going to fall under awkward by Dyer’s twisted sense of things or not.
He picked the table I’d knocked over up and then set two of the chairs upright next to it. He gestured for me to sit. I did, and he took the other chair for himself, obviously straining its structural integrity with his tremendous girth. He rested his gun hand on the table, pointing the uncocked pistol at me.
“Now, what did that sharper Dante tell you about me?"
I related what Dante had told me, careful to use the most flattering words I knew for bookie and dealer, along with enough of what I’d been through and found out that day to put it in the proper context. For his part, Dyer listened impassively, barely reacting at all except for the occasional chuckle.
“That all of it?” he asked when I finished.
“That’s the crop, as much of it as I’m going to tell you in any case.”
“Fair enough,” he mumbled, nodding, “fair enough. I’ll level with you Nick, because I like you, but understand that if you shoot your yap off about this, I will take it as a personal offense, something I never fail to deal with swiftly and definitively, savvy?”
“I’m only interested in finding out who killed Yadira.”
“Fine then, because I didn’t do that, it’s bad for business.”
“Because she was a cop?”
He smirked, “in part, but mostly because she could get stuff for me that I haven’t been able to get myself. Connections in Boston, she said, from the old days when she was a cop there.”
I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth hurt, but I couldn’t react, not while Lili had that shotgun on Derrick. I could probably get to Dyer before he could pull the trigger, and Derrick was more capable than I’d given him credit for, but I wasn’t going to bet his life on it, even after what I’d just witnessed.
“So, you’re a drug dealer?”
He laughed, a harsh joyless sound, “I am a supplier of good times, Mr. Shamus. This club here,” he gestured around, “is only one of many services I offer to those seeking good times.”
“The only legal one, you mean.”
He shrugged, “semantics, Mr. Shamus. The law changes, people don’t. When a certain good time becomes technically illegal, a need is created. I fill that need, within certain limits, of course.”
Of course, the moral drug dealer, how could I think otherwise?
“Yadira wasn’t a dealer.”
“She had quite a history, as I understand it.”
“She did. She was clean.”
“Sometimes we see what we want to see, Mr. Shamus. You see me as a criminal, a low life, I can see it in the way you look at me. I am only filling a societal need. I offer what I offer because people want it. They’re the true criminal element, Mr. Shamus, I’m merely a facilitator. And Yadira, well, she had connections who could get her anything I asked for. Believe what you will, but she was dirty. Even got me out of a few minor troubles, just because she liked me so much.”
He smiled a terrible smile at me, drinking up my anger like it was pure oxygen. It was a natural high for him, and he couldn’t get enough.
“Well then,” I said, standing slowly, “I’ll be going now.”
He stood as well, still training the revolver on me. At the bar, Derrick put down what was left of his Miami Vice and stood to follow me. Lili had laid the shotgun down on the bar, but still had a hand on it.
“You can show yourselves out, I assume?” Dyer said.
I looked towards Derrick and nodded my head towards the door. Lili blew me a kiss as she let one shoulder slip from her coat. I lingered for a moment then tore my gaze away. She was half my age, for Christ’s sake.
Derrick followed me outside into the parking lot, smiling ear to ear. Walking out into the sun was a shock after being in darkness for a time.
“Dude, she is totally into you,” Derrick announced gleefully as we exited. I turned on him, stopping him dead in his tracks.
“What the hell was that?” I bellowed.
“You’re telling me that you wouldn’t hit that if you could?”
“No, well, yes, but…” I took a deep breath to collect myself. “That’s not what I meant. I meant the two goons you gave the Broderick back there. The hell did you learn to do that?”
“Ten years of martial arts, I should hope I could pull something out when I need it. I’ve never had to use it before though. What a rush! Man, we should do that more often.”
I cuffed him on the back of the head, then grabbed his jaw and pulled him back against myself, exposing his neck. I pushed a finger into jugular and he froze.
“If I wanted to kill you right now, I could. If I had a knife or a gun it could have been over before you knew it was happening. As it is I could crush your windpipe or break your neck without much trouble. I’m sure you could get out of this, but no matter how good you are…”
He elbowed me in the gut, then grabbed my hand and twirled, twisting it around painfully. I side kicked him in the hip before he could complete the motion and he stumbled back, letting go of my wrist. As he wheeled around he came eye to eye with the business end of my Glock, my finger resting on the trigger guard.
“Bang,” I said dryly.
We stood there a moment, a stand off that wasn’t. Then I holstered the empty gun and continued towards the car.
“Never bet your life on being the best,” I said as I passed him, “there’s always someone better.”
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