by Ben English
First he’d have a bit of fun with his wife’s honeyboy. Without a word he slipped around the corner into the light.
The Battle of Sarah Circle
The stranger leaned against the wall, a pained and exhausted expression on his face. One hand clutched at his abdomen, the other still held the towel. When he saw Bryce, he blinked hard. Chuckled despite himself.
“Think I’m funny, huh?” Bryce brought the bat down hard, smacking the table between them with all his strength. The glass tumbler chattered a few inches toward the edge.
The intruder made a valiant attempt to sober, choked, and gasped, “Sorry, I’m—” He shook his head. “This looks much worse than it is. I’m just here for the things Dr. Fenn called for.” He still smiled, the corners of his mouth threatening to twitch into another bout of laughter. What a mess, Bryce reflected, choosing silence. He’d long ago noted that the same quiet demeanor that drew women to him also was intimidating to many men. He allowed the newcomer to shrug back into a more respectful position.
“Sorry, but does Mercedes – I mean, do you—”
Bryce had not moved the bat. Now he grated it across the tabletop and swung it to his shoulder. “I know why you’re here. Let’s not make this too cliché, alright? She hates that kind of thing.”
He reached across the table and snatched the towel from the other man’s outstretched hand. It smelled like that damn shampoo she’d been using since whenever.
“What?” His face paled; Bryce had him on the ropes; he was still reeling. “No, I’m afraid you d—”
“Yeah, Merce is quite a piece, isn’t she? She can really go.” Bryce thrilled to see the other man’s mouth twitch again. Fear, he thought. “Bawdy, I think is the politest word for it. But you already know how fun she can be, don’t you, football star?” He began circling the table, slowly, keeping the intruder on the point of his words like an extended blade. “So it’s you. You’re the one who’s been poaching on me. Yeah, you know what makes her squeal. You think you give her what she likes. And isn’t she creative about how she shows her appreciation?”
“She’s married to you?” Thickheaded enough to be astonished.
“Very perceptive, Mr. Bond,” Bryce mocked, leaning into the table. He’d been dying to use that line on someone.
“And the house is registered in your name instead of hers.”
Bryce didn’t exactly follow, but, “That’s right. My name and credit rating on the loan application and all—how perfect for her. She set up her little pig trough here before I can divorce her.” The intruder’s gaze shifted slightly at the word divorce, and Bryce began to sidle around the table again. The other man kept his distance, though if Bryce had wanted to he could have reached out and slapped him.
“Oh, you didn’t think you were the first, did you? She didn’t tell you that either, eh? Oh, yeah, the goddess is damaged goods, buddy, though to be fair, I still have to consider her my wife.” The look of troubled confusion deepened on the intruder’s face. “Like the priest says, ‘That which God has joined, no man can put asunder, blah, blah, blah.’ Ever hear of that? Is somebody like you going to argue with God?”
Bryce smiled deliciously into the other man’s face. “You’re an adulterer, my friend, and you’re in my house.” He casually tipped the glass of water off the table. It rang cleanly against the pine floor but did not break. Damn. That would have been a nice effect. Probably have sent the punk running for the door, had he not pissed himself outright.
The intruder was quiet, his hands open at his sides. Bryce decided to up the pressure. He reversed direction around the table, not quite turning his back on the other man. “I’m sure you’re not the first guy she’s brought here. 'Course not. She must order spare keys by the pound. I’m surprised there’s not a revolving door leading to the bedroom—hell! Why not move the whole boudoir right out here? Table’s sturdy enough.” He slapped the table. “Throw down some black rubber sheets, and get to work, yeah?”
He frowned. Still not much of a rise out of the man he’d caught laughing so hard not a minute ago. Bastard must be fuming inside, ready to explode. Either that, or he was just too thick to know he was being unmanned.
Then the stranger spoke, slowly. “Maybe you don’t know your wife as well as you think.”
Huh! “Why you say that?”
The stranger hesitated. “Look at this place.” He gestured at the whole dining area, then towards the living room. “Look at the artwork, Bryce, or the furniture. Everything’s nice, sure; top of the line, but except for the kitchen, almost nothing’s been used.”
Bryce’s frown deepened.
“Her spice rack is full of mismatched containers. She replaces things as she uses them up. But there’s only a single setting’s worth of silverware in the sink. See these plants?” He stepped nearer the potted jade plant leading to the front door. “Anybody who has little kids over regularly isn’t going to have one of these sitting here, or all the sandstone artwork lying around. Look at this place. Everything’s new, ready, like it’s waiting for her to use it. Or maybe she’s waiting for someone to use it with.” He fixed Bryce with a level gaze.
Bryce couldn’t let that one go. “And who might that be, pal, you?”
“Until we met, I’d assume it would be her husband.”
He could feel the threads of the aluminum bat against his palms. Bryce didn’t like the way this was going; he expected far more cowering and cringing than he was getting. The stranger still seemed off-balance, but nowhere near the level of contrition Bryce felt necessary, especially considering who was holding the baseball bat.
This was his damn house!
Another tactic. “You know, you’re just a way for her to pass the time. Tick-tocks on the clock. Took me a while to catch on, but nobody lives up to her standards.
“She doesn’t really want you. Not you, not any of the other ‘football stars’ Mercedes drags in here; none of us. Nobody real,” he added.
“What are you talking about?”
Bryce sneered. “She’s always had her heart set on fantasy men. She met an actor once, way back before he made it big. Some punk-ass man-in-the-moon romantic lead,” he laughed, throwing spit in the other man’s face. “She used to drag me off to watch his movies, talk about him. Build him all up like some kinda Superman. I thought it would wear off after a while, but no luck. No luck for us, football star. The bitch tried to hide it from me, too.”
There we go, yes. Finally, he was getting through. The intruder had gone pasty-white again so fast it looked like his dark eyes were going to pop right out of his head. But no, Bryce had more. He continued, thrilled to watch his verbal assault lay open the other man’s heart. He looked like someone had popped him in the balls with a sledgehammer, only in a sort of slow-motion. He pushed one hand against the table’s edge, seeking support, something like raw shock slackening his face. Bryce continued slowly, grinding his words into the intruder.
“Doesn’t love a punk-ass like you,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Feels good, doesn’t it? I had a couple buddies of mine in the business check him out, you know, just for fun? A stiff. Doesn’t do the party scene, man, doesn’t even drink. Real low-profile—quiet; a real wuss this guy. So much for the man-in-the-moon.” Bryce prodded the shellshocked stranger with the bat, playfully. A little pressure, and he could probably shove him right over. “The kicker is, the guy’s a star, man, A-list. He wouldn’t—if he even knew her, ever really met her—remember a damn thing about her, an empty little nothing like her.”
The other man pushed weakly at the end of the bat.
Bryce grinned as wide as he could. He was really enjoying this. More, even, than he’d be enjoying that chick from the Green Lantern right now had she been a little smarter. Hey, maybe that was it—the thought struck Bryce that he probably owed the greatest pleasures in his life to the stupidity of women. He’d have to think about that one later. Meantime:
“I even tried to get her close to him once, as
a gag. Wanted to see what would happen. Got us tickets to a premier, right? Amnesia. The guy didn’t even see her, but she thought he did. Shallow bastard sat right above us in the balcony. You should have seen her face afterwards. Heh. She spent our marriage pining away for her man in the moon.”
Something weird was happening to the other guy’s face. Bryce had never seen anybody look so – so bleak, so raw. Bryce felt a dark thrill run through him. “You get that you’re nothing, don’t you? Brycey’s wifey doesn’t bat an eye at anybody real.” He exaggerated the last word, drawing it out as he applied pressure on his end of the bat.
The intruder’s eyes swam up and met his own. “But you? You’re real?”
“Real as they come, bro.” Bryce started to laugh. The whole thing was so damn funny. Here he’d caught Merce’s latest honeyboy, caught him dead to rights in what was legally still his house. The poor kid looked like he was about to cry, at that. He looked down, away from Bryce, and shifted his weight aimlessly. Freaked-beyond-out, no doubt. “Learning all sorts of new things tonight about the babe of the hour, aren’t you?”
The other man hung his head. “You have no idea.” As before, something between a sob and a chuckle escaped the stranger. Bryce was betting it was closer to a sob. The man considered the pine table, rubbing absently at the path of the grain. Confusion, indecision, near panic. Just as Bryce was sure his visitor was about to burst into tears, he spoke again.
“But she pulled a Houdini, didn’t she?”
Bryce just looked at him.
“She pulled the Great Escape on you.” He pushed the bat aside, eased a step closer. “You don’t control her. Can’t hold her in. She married you, but she managed to get away from you, Bryce, at least in her heart, and you can’t stand it either, can you?” Again, that look of absolute curiosity, of focus.
“Look, man,” Bryce forced air between his teeth. “You’re in my house. Whether or not you had a key to get in is—”
“I don’t have a key.” Pause. “I never had a key. You left the door open. I didn’t even come here to see your wife.”
For the first time since the restaurant, uncertainty played along the entire slope of Bryce’s spine. It left him chilled. He fastened himself tighter to the aluminum bat. No key? “Then—”
“I’m not your wife’s lover, and I‘ve never played football.” A funny sort of smile began to break across his face. It was the smile that did it. Bryce had seen him before. Somewhere, somewhere.
“Who the hell are you?” He raised—
The bat was suddenly gone, twisted clockwise until it slipped from his fingers. All confusion likewise vanished, cast aside like a paper mask off the features of the stranger.
“I’m the man in the moon, and I remember everything.”
Bryce blinked, found he couldn’t shove the air from his lungs, and huffed a grimace at the unmasked stranger, and backpedaled as his reality lurched under his feet. “You’re the guy,” he gagged. The words choked him, snagged in his gorge like something prickly. “You’re the reason she –”
The other man raised his hands. “Hey, look, I’m just here for some papers.”
Bryce could hear himself sputtering. The words washing over themselves in his mind were getting lost on the way to his mouth.
“You ruined my life!” As he rushed forward, Bryce had a headlong vision of himself shoving the other man hard against the corner of the hallway, separating his spine clean in half against the sudden edge of the pine doorframe. He drove with all the taut energy he could muster, bracing his forearms and leaning with his shoulder—
And it didn’t exactly turn out the way he’d planned. Bryce saw everything the other man did; it just happened a touch faster than he could react.
Jack Flynn slipped to one side, blocking wrist-to-wrist even as his near hand dove over Bryce’s arm and gripped the flesh above and behind his elbow. Their arms locked. Pivoting, he dragged Bryce along the path of his own momentum, pushing down and around with his first wrist until that hand rested behind Bryce’s shoulder blade and Bryce’s arm wrenched, curled and kinked in a manner never intended by nature. Falling forward, unable to stop. Just before his bone tore free of its socket, the stranger let him go, allowing Bryce to careen off the base of the wall near the hallway.
Shock, pain, and suddenly sobered anger drew Bryce to his feet. He yanked himself upward, gripping the table leaf with his other hand. He didn’t dare trust his right arm—each joint grated ice-hot-ice-hot-ice, and the chill flooded his whole body. “Do you know who my family is?” He rasped. “You’re not going to be able to breathe in L.A.”
The other man stood poised, focused entirely on Bryce as he struggled to his feet. “I don’t even live here anymore,” he said, seemingly apologetic.
Mercedes kept a gun somewhere in the house, probably in her bedroom. Bryce made as if to lunge at his opponent, then turned and ran into the living room—
—straight into the presence of Death.
The third man was tall, pale, with a high widow’s peak that matched his greying goatee, and the hardness in his eyes stopped Bryce dead in his tracks as completely as if the sharp, dark figure had reached out one gloved hand and plucked at his heart. A whispery, whistling scream filled the room as Bryce’s legs turned watery and weak, and for the second time that night he realized it was his own breathing.
The new man wore seamless, shiny black gloves. As he hacked and gasped for air, Bryce heard the new leather squeak as the man raised one finger to his lips. “Shh.” The other hand held a gun, a blackened, dull pistol. A thick, tubelike silencer made the gun seem bizarrely out of proportion, just like in the movies.
Someone spoke in the adjoining study. The echoes around the intervening wall twisted the new voice into something spectral, sinister.
“Now, this looks like the perfect recipe for a little domestic violence.” Bryce turned and saw Jack, his eyes focused on someone standing in the doorway to the library.
“Gently now, Mr. Flynn. Gently.” The speaker’s voice shifted, and Bryce could tell he was standing mostly in the dining room now. Jack began backing around the table, toward Bryce and the bearded man. The unseen specter chuckled, a sound that chilled Bryce through, and added. “Be very gentle now, Mr. Flynn. Wouldn’t want you to think you need to do anything fast. Could be dangerous. I’m sure this place isn’t as well insured as the ‘Tower.'” A laugh.
Bryce could see the speaker now, over Jack’s shoulder, and again the conviction rang through him that he stood in the presence of Death. Only the figure in the bright dining room was much more frightening, more dreadful than the grey man, and not just because he held his pistol out like a spy or killer on television. The round spot of darkness at the end of the gun moved back and forth minimally, alternately covering Jack, then Bryce, then Jack again. The leather he wore was softer somehow, less reflective than it should have been. He was much younger than his counterpart in the living room, with hair thick and blond over a high forehead. His skin was pasty white. A small, precise mouth, almost lipless. On a street he’d look normal but for the face. Bryce didn’t know if it was the blazing kitchen behind him or the angle of the shadows or just some trick of the night or booze, but the small man in the dining room had absolutely whiteless eyes.
A hungry sneer hooked his lips, and he gestured with his head towards Bryce and the other man. “You need me to tell you how this is going to happen?” To Bryce, he said, “Put your hands behind your head and kneel down, then cross your feet.”
Jack turned to the living room, face unreadable, and laced his hands behind his head. The light-eating figure behind him stepped closer, but not too close, and nodded to the older man next to Bryce. Heart hammering, Bryce dared a look at Jack as he started to kneel, and saw Jack’s eyes skip over the bearded man, then focus past them all, toward the corner where Mercedes had planted a large mirror.
Bryce felt his bowels loosen a little, not much, and looked down at himself. He looked up again just in
time.
As Jack crossed the threshold into the living room his heel came down awkwardly on the heavy end of the glass tumbler Bryce had tipped from the table. Jack grunted and started to go down, sending the tumbler out from underfoot and spinning across the polished pine floor. Instead of stumbling, Jack bent forward, eyes on the mirror, and drove his foot back and up, right into the gunman’s hand. Bryce blinked, unsure what had happened, as the gun sailed straight up into the air, past the white rafters.
Jack wheeled in perfect balance, extremities spinning like the arms of a gyroscope, and the leather-clad killer spun from blows Bryce had not even seen. The smaller man was quick to recover, and swept his hands back and forth rapidly as Jack advanced, catching him twice in the midsection and once under the jaw. Jack returned in kind.
Bryce couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The fight had begun so suddenly, with a kind of fierce abruptness he’d never seen. The two men whirled back and forth across the broad pine floor. It struck him that the two were using different fighting styles. Unlike fights on television, where one man seemed to do all the damage and the other just folded over, both Jack and the sinuous, sour-faced man seemed just as fast and angry as the other. They circled and lunged in the wide entrance to the living room, and their sleeves fluttered against each other like birds’ wings. Over-under-over-under-over-under. The little man seemed desperate to make some room for himself, to throw his opponent backward and gain a spot of time, but Jack pressed in hard, throwing his whole body into a block that caught the charging killer full in the chest.
