Bluff City Brawler (Fight Card)

by Heath Lowrance

  They both smiled at me, almost pleasantly.

  Kardinsky said, “See what I mean, kid? The best thing you can do, see, is drop the gun and accept the facts. You don’t really have a chance here.”

  Lucy said, “Tom, who are these people? What do they want? They said you’d killed someone, and—“

  Darden shook her roughly by the arm. “I won’t tell you again. Stow it.”

  She went silent, but her eyes pleaded with me. I said, “Let her go. Let her go, and I’ll lose the gun. I’ll do whatever you want. But she has to go free, first.”

  Darden and Schmidt looked at their boss, but Kardinsky only shook his head.

  Darden put the barrel of his gun against Lucy’s temple.

  “Last chance,” Kardinsky said. “Drop the gun, boy.”

  I dropped it.

  The tension went out of the room then, and I saw Kardinsky sigh a little, then pat his pockets. He pulled out another cigar but didn’t light it. Darden steered Lucy into the room, and Schmidt followed him.

  That was it. I’d failed. They would take me to some quiet place, probably torture me for kicks, and then put a bullet in my head. They would dump my body, probably in the Mississippi somewhere, and head back to Detroit.

  And Lucy. What would they do to her? If she was lucky, they’d just kill her quick.

  I said to her, “I’m sorry,” and she looked at me, puzzled.

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. I love you, Tom.”

  “I love you, too.”

  They all laughed, and Schmidt said, “Ain’t that just the sweetest thing? Ah, love. It just plucks at the heartstrings, don’t it?”

  Darden shoved her hard down on the sofa, where she glared up at him.

  Kardinsky said, “This is what’s going to happen, Riley. You’re going to go with the boys. You aren’t going to fight them. They’ll take you to a storage shed I rented, just north of the city limits. I’ve told them they can have a little fun with you, which, when you think about it, is only fair after what you did to them back home. And then I’ll catch up in a couple hours, and we’ll wrap this up.”

  “What about Lucy?”

  He leered at her around the fat cigar in his mouth. “Well,” he said. “A man’s got to take his pound of flesh, yeah?”

  Rage coursed through me, fueled by my helplessness. I looked at Kardinsky and realized I wanted to see him dead. Not just that—I wanted to see him suffer. Any doubts I’d had earlier about my ability to actually kill another human being were alleviated then. I could kill this man easily, if given the chance.

  But I wouldn’t have that chance, it seemed. It was too late.

  “Now,” Kardinsky said. “Boys, you—“

  From her prone position on the sofa, Lucy kicked out hard and her heel connected solidly with Kardinsky’s crotch.

  The cigar in his mouth spit all the way across the room, and he howled in agony. His stubby fingers went to his groin and he dropped to his knees.

  Darden and Schmidt both turned their attention to Lucy, and I moved fast, throwing myself at both of them.

  I slammed my right fist into Schmidt’s jaw, heard a crack of bone as his head snapped to the left and he fell back into the wall. A gun went off, but I wasn’t sure if it was his or Darden’s.

  Darden was suddenly on me from behind, his arm wrapped around my neck in a chokehold. I reached around, tried to get my fingers on his head or his hair or anything, and he tightened his grip, trying to choke me out.

  I could hear Kardinsky sputtering, “You little cow!” and the sounds of a struggle.

  Darden squeezed tighter, and black spots started dancing around the edges of my vision.

  I tried to stamp on his toes, but his legs were spread too far apart. I struggled and thrashed against him, tried to push him back, tried to pry his arm off my throat. He had a solid grip on me, though.

  Schmidt was finally getting to his feet, shaking the dizziness off. Blood poured from his mouth, and his eyes looked dull and unfocused. He’d dropped his gun, but quickly spotted it on the carpet and swiped it up.

  He swung the gun around in my direction. I pushed back hard against Darden, slamming him into the wall, and kicked out with my right leg at Schmidt. My heel caught him on the chin. He stumbled back into an end table and went over it with a crash. His gun went off, and I heard Darden grunt in pain behind me.

  His grip loosened, and I broke free, spun around to face him. Schmidt had shot him in the left shoulder. I punched him hard in the bullet wound, and all the blood ran out of his face. I hit him again, in the solar plexus, and he dropped.

  On the other side of the room, Lucy was off the sofa. Kardinsky was on the floor, holding fast to her leg as she tried to get away. She kicked him in the face over and over, and his nose was all bloody and busted up. “You little cow!” he was saying. “I’ll kill you!” He grabbed her other leg, and she fell.

  I started for them, but Schmidt was just getting up, his gun still in his hand. I aimed a kick at his head, missed, and he grabbed my ankle.

  I rained a couple of blows down on his head but he didn’t seem to feel them, so intent he was on dragging me off my feet. He managed to pull me down to one knee, tried to bring the gun around for another shot. I caught his wrist, twisted it as hard as I could, but he wouldn’t let go of the gun. He pulled the trigger, and another bullet exploded out of the barrel, so close my eardrums rang, and shattered a window.

  I let him pull me all the way down and pinned his arms under my knees. He bucked, trying to get free, but a right fist in his face weakened him. My left was practically useless, but a few more hits with the right and the gun fell from between his limp fingers and he stopped struggling.

  I hit him two more times, just to be sure, then pushed myself up and off him.

  “Stop, Riley,” Kardinsky said.

  I stopped.

  He had one fat hand around Lucy’s neck, holding her in front of him, and in his other hand, the gun I’d taken from Al was pressed against her jaw.

  ROUND 23

  “You take one more step toward me, and your sweetheart goes bye-bye. You understand?”

  I didn’t say anything, only glared at him, and he said again, “Do you understand me, Riley? Just nod.”

  I nodded, my fists clenched.

  He looked pretty rough, and I felt a surge of pride that Lucy could do such a number on him. He may have won, but he hadn’t come out of it unscathed, at least.

  “Nice try,” he said, blood streaming down his face. “I’ll give you credit where credit is due, punk. You and little sister here know how to scrap. But you want to know the truth? Honestly? It really only served to tick me right off.”

  “I’ll do what you want,” I said. “Just let her go.”

  He laughed. “Seems I’ve heard that before. You know, right before all hell broke loose in here.”

  I raised my hands in the air, said, “I won’t fight. I won’t do anything. Just let her go, and I promise you I’ll do whatever you say.”

  “I know you will. I have no doubts about that. But like I say, you’ve really gone and made me mad. And when I’m mad, well, I have to admit I get a little spiteful. A little petty, even.” He spit blood over his shoulder. “You killed my man Wheels Meyer. But I’ll tell you the truth, Riley. I didn’t even like the little punk. He was meshugeneh. A pain in my tush. But to have some no-good punk goy kill him, even if it was an accident, well… that wouldn’t stand.”

  “Kardinsky—“

  “It demands action. And killing you, I think, isn’t quite enough.”

  Lucy said, “Tom…”

  “No, not enough. I think your little sweetie here is going to have to pay.”

  He pushed the barrel hard into her jaw, and I saw his fat finger begin to squeeze the trigger, saw his blood-stained teeth as he smiled, and I dropped my hands and rushed toward him but I knew I would be too late.

  The gunshot rattled the room, t
hundered in my ears, and I screamed, “No!”

  Blood spurted from the hole in Kardinsky’s head, and the smile disappeared.

  His dead fingers dropped the gun, and he fell over backwards.

  Lucy stumbled away from him, and into my arms, sobbing.

  In the open doorway, a man in a tan suit and little wire frame glasses stood in a shooter’s stance, the barrel of his pistol still smoking.

  The man who’d been following me. Jim Coley.

  “I cut that a little close,” he drawled. “Sorry.”

  On the floor, Abe Kardinsky looked up at the ceiling and tried to speak. Blood gurgled and bubbled on his lips, and then his eyes closed and he was gone.

  ***

  We visited Big Earl in the hospital the next day. He was on life support, but the doctor said he thought the big man would pull through.

  “Please,” Lucy said, crying. “Please tell me he’s going to be okay.”

  “I think he will,” the doctor said. “It’s fortunate that he’s pretty healthy. Despite his size, his heart is in good shape. A less fit man probably wouldn’t have made it.”

  Earl was under sedation, but Clarence patted him on the arm and said, “See, boss? That healthy kick of yours is already paying off.”

  We sat with him for a while, and I found I could barely bring myself to look at his still face. My fault. This was all my fault, and I wondered if Earl could ever forgive me, once he came around.

  Lucy and Clarence, too. They both acted like everything was okay with us, but I wondered if, after the shock of it all had worn off, they would still feel that way. But for now, Lucy held my hand as we sat at Big Earl’s bedside, and Clarence made a point of patting me on the shoulder every chance he got.

  We’d all had to spend most of the previous evening and that morning at the Memphis office of the FBI, giving statements and filling out forms. They’d been friendly and helpful the entire time, but I kept waiting to hear that my arrest was imminent, that they’d be shipping me back to Detroit to stand trial for murder.

  Jim Coley had fetched us coffee and sandwiches, listened with his feet up on his desk as I told the whole story. Finally, he told me his:

  He was an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was, of course, already apparent to me. The Detroit branch had alerted Memphis that Abe Kardinsky and some of his crew were in Memphis, and Coley had been assigned to find out why. He had been following the Stavros brothers the day before, tailing them all over town. He followed them to an apartment building on South Manassas, where they parked in front for a while before leaving.

  Lucy’s place, naturally. The Stavros boys had clearly found me by then, had discovered my relationship with Lucy, and were making plans.

  After they left, Coley had decided to investigate the mailbox names in the foyer. He was just coming out when I showed up.

  “I didn’t know who you were,” he said. “But when I got back to the office, I passed your description around to some fellow agents, and found out all about you and what had happened in Detroit. Figured you were the reason they were in town.”

  “So you kept an eye on me.”

  He shrugged. “Not as well as I should have, apparently. After I made sure you were at the gym, I went home, had dinner. Took a nap. By the time I made it back to the gym, I’d missed a lot of the action. Your friend Clarence filled me in on the details. We called the local boys to take Titus and Alkandros into custody, and I got to the Gayoso as fast as I could.”

  “Just in time,” I said. “You saved us both, Agent Coley. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  He shook his head. “You saved yourselves, really. Imagine if I’d busted in there with Kardinsky’s two men still up and able? They would’ve killed me.”

  “Well… I evened the odds a little, maybe. But it still comes down to you.”

  He waved a hand, blowing it off. “I think you and your girl should go home, get some rest. But we’re not really done here. I’d appreciate it if you came by tomorrow morning, just for some follow-up questions.”

  Lucy said, “Are you… are you going to arrest Tom?”

  “He’ll have to go back to Detroit, I’m afraid. Under protective custody of the FBI. But I can assure you, it’ll all be technical stuff. We’ll make sure no charges are filed. And once all that’s done, well… all of you will be able to resume your normal lives.”

  We left the FBI office, arm in arm, and I wondered if it was really true, or if Coley was just blowing smoke to get me to cooperate. No, I decided. I trusted him. He seemed like a good one, and if they’d planned on arresting me, they would have done it by then.

  We visited the hospital after that, stayed with Earl the rest of the afternoon. With evening coming on, we took the bus back to Union Avenue and walked the rest of the way to Lucy’s apartment.

  She hadn’t said much the whole time. But now, walking with her hand on my arm, she said, “Tom. When you go to Detroit… do you mind if I go with you?”

  I said, “If you want to, Lucy. Yeah. Yeah, I’d like it if you did.”

  “Good,” she said, and put her head on my shoulder. “Maybe, after we’re done there, we can go right to Chicago.”

  “Chicago?”

  “Yes. I’d still like you to meet my aunt, remember?”

  I put my arm around her, and we walked. “Yeah,” I said. “I remember. That sounds great, Lucy.”

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