“Pino,” I said, “I’m surprised you didn’t show up as a jester.”
He responded with an elbow nudge to my sore ribs. Then he pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to me.
There were no jesters at Oostende.
“Oh.”
He handed me another card.
Nice armor.
“Thanks,” I said. “Nice sword.”
Pino bonked himself on the head several times with his weapon.
No wonder Oostende fell to the Vikings, I thought.
“Oi! Welcome to da festino!”
Carlo Magnanini and his brothers had lined up next to me.
“Wit choo on our side, we gonna whip ’em good dis year!” he added before turning to his brothers and making some joke with them in Italian. They all looked at me and laughed. I hoped they were laughing with me.
The air horn sounded again from beyond the door of the fortification. Then Wanda spoke in her Sheriff-in-Command voice.
“Thank you all for coming to the twelfth annual battle of Oostende!” she yelled.
Beside me, my fellow Oostenders raised their weapons and shields and let out a yell. I heard the Vikings across the field let out a yell of their own.
“In 856 AD, Gorf the Viking led a mighty battle against the fortification of Oostende and won a resounding victory against a mighty foe!” she continued. No cheering on the Oostende side this time, but another big yell from the Vikings.
“Today we celebrate the rich Viking heritage of many of Kresge’s citizens by reenacting the battle of Oostende and Gorf’s victory. You all know the rules. If a player is down on the ground, they are considered ‘dead’ and are to be left alone. If any player yields, they also are considered ‘dead’ and should be allowed to leave the field. If any player interferes with the duties of the paramedics, the reenactment is over. If I see things getting too rough on the field, the reenactment is over. Anyone who disobeys an order from me, my deputy or the paramedics will be arrested and fined four hundred dollars. There will be one final horn, and then the battle commences! Good luck!”
Carlo nudged me and smiled.
“Stick wit us, we get choo troo dis witout too many bruises, eh?”
“Thanks,” I said. “So what do we do when the horn blares? We wait and defend against the attack?”
“Shit no. We open de doors and run out and start fightin’!”
The final horn blared.
The doors opened.
Ernesto yelled out, “Atacaaaaar!”
I wondered why they’d bothered building the fort in the first place.
Then I was pushed forward and caught in the rush as the Oostenders burst through the doors of the fort.
I found myself running just to keep from getting trampled. Ahead of me was a bear of a man, at least six feet tall and covered from head to toe in dark curly hair. On my left were the Magnanini brothers. On the right, Pino, Ernesto and some dark-haired men I’d seen at Mel’s a time or two.
Without warning, the running stopped. Crunching sounds came from the vanguard of our group smashing into the Vikings. Swords and maces rose and fell on shields accompanied by the crash of metal on metal.
Bear Man went down with one blow, dropping his sword and yelling out, “I yield! I yield.”
Carlo nudged me again and thrust his chin at the fallen warrior. “Tourist!” he said, and spat at the ground. “Eh! Watch it!”
The man who’d felled The Bear was swinging his mace at me. It was one of the youths I’d seen driving by in the Duster earlier. He’d seemed like a jolly college kid ready for a good time, but the look on his face now was pure bloodlust. I raised my shield and took the blow across my forearm. The metal connecting with the wood made a cracking sound and I felt the shock of it travel up through my shoulder, numbing it. Lowering my shield, I angrily returned the blow with Pranzo and caught my attacker on the side of his metal helmet.
It wasn’t really a hard blow, but a knock to the head, even wearing a metal helm, is disorienting. My attacker started mumbling “yield” as he stumbled back. His retreat created disarray in the ranks of the Vikings as they tried to make room both for his retreat and for the paramedics to get in and claim the body of the whimpering tourist.
Pino “beep-beep”ed at the Vikings, whacking at them with his toy sword and attaching “kick me” signs to the back of their armor as they thrust at him and overshot the mark.
I still didn’t really like the clown, but I admired his footwork.
Before moving on to my next combatant I caught a glimpse of Thora. She was staring at me and smiling an evil little grin.
I looked away just in time to see the Colonel coming at me. Unlike my previous adversary, the Colonel looked the part of a hardened Viking warrior and had the will to be one. Pino was between us and tried to intercept “Gorf,” kick-me sign and plastic sword at the ready. The Colonel stepped up his speed, lowered his body and caught Pino on his shield. With a single, short thrust, he sent the stupid clown flying backward. Then the Colonel was on me with a ferocious overhand swing of his mace. I raised the shield over my head and stopped the attack before it had gathered full momentum. Still, the blow drove me to my knee and a stab of pain went through my already aching arm and side.
“Thora told me about your advances on her, Floyd!” he said, backing up a step and readying for another attack.
He swung his mace and parried with Pranzo. The Colonel’s strike drove my sword back against my own shield, forcing me to stumble again. Pressing his advantage, the Colonel yelled and rapidly struck several shallow blows until the fifth or sixth one shattered the wood of my shield and sent me sprawling.
He let out a war cry and came for me.
My left arm was completely numb and useless. The one connection I’d made with the sword felt like it had nearly broken my wrist. I would never win a medieval sword fight. The smart thing to do would have been to yield. I’d tried my best.
That would be the way the mop flopped.
But from the moment I arrived in Kresge I’d been getting my ass kicked. Sure, I’d landed a few lucky blows on Goliath, but overall, it had been a bad few days and I was tired of it.
I got to my feet.
Elvis was an eighth-degree black belt in Karate. He never competed professionally, but he was known to use his skills in brawls and fights. Karate hadn’t been right for me though. Too much machismo. So I’d gone into Judo. Roughly translated, it means “the soft way.” It teaches you to use your opponent’s strength against them, negating their physical advantages. I’d never be a black belt like Elvis, but I’d mastered a few moves. It was time to use them.
“Let’s go, Colonel,” I said.
“Good! Good! You will fight like a kriger!” he said.
The first phase in Judo is tachi-waza, the standing phase. The goal is to obtain a position of dominance by getting your opponent on his back where he can’t move as effectively. It’s easier said than done. Especially when your opponent is charging you with a thirty-pound ball of steel on a stick.
I raised my sword in a pose I’d seen a hundred times on late night TV and said, “En garde!”
And yes, I do realize how stupid that must have sounded, but what else was I supposed to say? Misdirection and feints are an established method of getting into position for a throw. The Colonel was expecting an attack from a sword and I saw no reason to let him think anything else was coming his way.
The Colonel charged. I channeled my best impersonation of Conan, yelled out, raised my sword to parry, then tucked and sidestepped the Colonel’s overhand swing. Barely. I avoided a concussion but I also didn’t get an opening for a throw. The Colonel hurtled past me, his momentum increased by the weight of his weapon, so I whirled behind him and whacked his ass with the flat of the blade. I’d have pr
eferred a takedown but the smacking sound Pranzo made was almost as good.
“Pikslikker!” the Colonel yelled.
“Yield!” I taunted in return, raising Pranzo.
The Colonel swung again. He was expecting another evasion though, so he’d swung right to left in an effort to catch me regardless of how I tried to step.
Elvis once said, “He who hesitates meditates horizontally.” I quickly did the one thing I assume you never do in real medieval combat—I tossed aside my sword and stepped forward, inside his reach.
I grabbed onto the Colonel’s swinging arm with both hands. Using his own movement and the weight of the mace, I threw him heels overhead onto his back.
In competition Judo, if you throw an opponent to the ground with enough force, it is an automatic win. This would have been a rout. But real fighting and tournament fighting are two very different things.
The Colonel landed hard, spread eagle, and grunted from the impact. His mace had bounced out of his hand when he hit, but he was a tough bastard and was already beginning to get his wind back.
Judo’s other phase, ne-waza, the ground attack, is focused on submission. Get your enemy into a hold down position and use punches, knees or head butts to win the bout. But I didn’t really care about winning. I needed information.
I yanked the remains of my shield off my arm as the Colonel coughed and rolled over on his right side, reaching for his mace with his left hand.
It is hard to move quickly in chain mail, but I did. Dropping to my knees, I grabbed his left arm, forced him over onto his face and applied a very painful hold called a spinal lock. It applies pressure to several nerve groups and is almost impossible to break. The move is illegal in competition for a reason.
“Agh! Knep! You wanted to spoil my Thora!” the Colonel bellowed.
“Yield!” I ordered, twisting his arm hard. “I never touched your daughter!”
“Nej!”
I pulled his elbow up a half inch. You wouldn’t think it would make much difference, but The Colonel’s yelp said otherwise.
“Please yield?” I asked nicely.
The Colonel was panting now and his face was white. I realized he may have been trying to speak but couldn’t get it out, so I eased up a bit.
“Yield!” he cried. Then much more quietly, “I yield.”
I let up some more, but I didn’t let him go.
“Good, now tell me about your dear Mamma and Roman.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said through gritted teeth.
I raised his head an inch or so, putting pressure on his spine. “I know the two of them are shacked up somewhere. That’s why you and Thora tried to get me to stop looking for your Mamma. Tell me where. I can do this all day,” I said.
“Fine! Okay! Mamma has been seeing Roman. They’ve gone to Nevada to elope!”
I pulled back his head and twisted his arm at the same time.
“Aaarch! The Bungalows! They’re at the Bungalows! Thora told me last night. That’s all I know.”
I let go of the Colonel, got to my feet and walked over to where I’d dropped Pranzo. I picked up the sword and turned to look at the battlefield. Viking and Oostender alike had stopped mid-conflict and were all starting at me and the Colonel.
Ernesto stepped out from behind a tall blond Viking and slowly but forcefully clapped his hands together. The chewed up cigar in his mouth bobbed between his smiling teeth.
“Hasta la victoria siempré!” he yelled, bringing his hands together a bit faster.
A few of the other Oostenders, and even a few Vikings, joined him in the rhythmic clapping.
The Colonel stayed down on the ground.
Wanda, Gretchen and Morrison ran over. Wanda grabbed onto one arm and squeezed, while Gretchen relieved me of Pranzo.
“I’ll take that, big boy,” she said, as the sword slipped from my fingers.
“We heard,” Morrison said. “The Bungalows. We need to hurry, partner, the council meeting is in forty minutes.”
I looked at Wanda.
“Go, I need to take care of things here,” she said.
I pulled at the chain mail uncomfortably.
“What about my clothes?”
“Already in the car, hunk!” Gretchen said as she picked up the pieces of my splintered shield.
“You can change on the way,” Morrison said.
“Go! Save my town, hero. And be careful!” Wanda said.
Her hand slipped from my arm and I trotted after Morrison.
The Oostenders were still clapping even as Wanda shifted to her sheriff personality.
“The reenactment is officially over! If you need assistance from the paramedics, they have a tent set up by the ambulance!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Morrison and I rushed off the field and past the bleachers. Jun Fan was sitting on the lowest row next to Norma. He was pouring her a drink from an old coffee thermos into a plastic martini glass.
“One of my students!” Jun Fan was telling Norma proudly.
Norma winked at me and sipped her drink as we went by.
“What are the Bungalows?” I asked Morrison.
“Mineral spa just outside of town,” he said. “Only other decent hotel in Kresge.”
We got to the Camaro and I tossed Morrison the keys.
“You drive while I change,” I told him.
“Hey! Wait up!”
Goliath was waddling our way as fast as his little legs would carry him. His hair was mussed and his shirt was on backwards.
Morrison got into the car and fired it up. I pulled the mail over my head, opened the door and pulled the passenger seat forward so Goliath could climb in.
“What happened to giving me some pointers?” I asked.
“You won, didn’t you?” he spat back.
“You can belt yourself in,” I told him, pushing the seat back into place behind him.
Before I could get the pants down past my ankles we were on our way to the Bungalows.
“So what’s the plan?” Morrison asked me as I hiked my hips into the air to get the jumpsuit up over my butt.
“Still have those pictures of Roman and Viking Mamma?”
“Glove box,” he said.
Morrison took a corner going ten miles an hour too fast, and the Camaro fishtailed through the turn, smacking me into the passenger window.
“Ow! Getting there alive is better than getting there fast,” I said as I tried to untangle the arms of the jumpsuit.
“Sorry,” he apologized.
“Pussy,” Goliath added.
“This is the easy part,” I told him, getting one arm into my suit. “We just show the manager or desk clerk the pictures. Unless he’s an Oksvang sympathizer, it shouldn’t be hard to convince him to ring Roman’s room.”
Two turns later and we were on New Main Street headed out of town. It was a straight shot to the Bungalows so Morrison let the Camaro stretch its legs and drove with a heavy pedal.
I finished straightening out the chains on the jumpsuit and looked up in time to see a wild look on Morrison’s face. He saw me staring.
“This is fun!” he said.
Over the years I have been on a lot of cases. You already know most of them were trailing wayward spouses. This was the first time a case had ever taken on, I don’t know how to describe it, a bigger meaning, I guess? Despite the bruises, broken ribs, Goliath’s snarky comments and finding Jon Burrows in a heap of maggots and decay, I was having the time of my life.
“Yeah it is.”
“You two going to kiss now?” Goliath asked.
There was a large grove of trees ahead of us and a big wooden sign that read Welcome to The Bungalows just outside the perime
ter. Below the welcome sign was a second, smaller sign hanging by two small chains. On it, in bold etched letters, the management claimed that the natural hot springs mineral water would cure all that ailed you. To one side of the road was a small parking lot and a little rustic cabin with a neon “Check In Here” sign in the window.
Morrison tore into the parking lot, the back of the car spinning out as we went. It could have been a scene right out of The Rockford Files if we’d been in a Firebird. The car came to a sliding stop outside the weathered doors of the first cabin and Morrison and I got out of the car before the engine had settled. Goliath was still unbuckling the car seat when I shut the door on him.
We walked straight into the lobby and I got a quick look at the bungalows hiding in the miniature forest. Each one was an identical little log cabin set back from a single connecting path. In the center was one enormous pine tree, benches surrounding it on all sides.
The name tag pinned to the desk clerk’s jacket read Doherty. He was a young man who still hadn’t outgrown his post-pubescent acne.
“What can I do ya for?” he asked in cracking voice.
I pulled out the two pictures of Viking Mamma and Roman the councilman and put them on the counter.
“Look at these pictures,” I ordered.
“Okay,” he squeaked, and his eyes dropped from mine to the two pictures I’d placed before him.
“Have you seen these two people before?”
He stammered for a moment, but then managed to get out, “I don’t know if I’m supposed to answer questions like that.” Then he flinched as if I was going to hit him.
“We’re here on official police business, kid,” Morrison said. “Answer the question.”
Doherty crumbled.
“Yes, sir.”
“So, these two people?” I prodded.
Hs eyes rolled up to the back of his head and he let out a long “Uhhhhh...” His eyes rolled back down and the corners of his mouth went up in a nervous smile. “Yeah, I remember, they checked in a few days ago,” he told us.
“What room?”
Elvis Sightings (An Elvis Sightings Mystery) Page 23
