by Joseph Flynn
But Kinnard wasn’t ready to go.
Not while the French cocksucker was still drawing breath.
Kinnard watched the Frenchman as the guy moved in on him. Even drunk and with his balance less than perfect, he was light on his feet. He had his hands up, but they wouldn’t be his primary weapons. The Frenchman was a kicker. That was when it came to Kinnard where he’d seen a move like the one the prick had used to kick Suzi’s ashes into the river. SportsCenter. When the cable channel didn’t have enough real sports highlights to show they’d put on some of those soccer trick shots. Guys doing somersaults, kicking the ball past the goalie.
So he knew what to expect: feet. Maybe a head butt. Like the guy who cracked that dago’s sternum with his head in a big game a few years back. He’d been French, too. So watch for that.
The Frenchman was smiling at Kinnard, blood on his teeth from Kinnard’s first shot. Looking like he was a wolf about to eat a lamb. Confident little fuck. Kinnard figured he had three inches and thirty pounds on the guy, none of it fat. Maybe it was Kinnard’s gray hair that had him fooled. That was the case, hooray for gray.
The Frenchman spat out a gob of blood and started to say something.
Kinnard loved it when assholes talked. Their minds were on getting out whatever it was they had to say. Not on fighting. Kinnard shot forward and hit the prick with two lefts and a right while he was still yapping. The lefts set him back on his heels and the right lifted him off his feet.
Damn, if he didn’t do a backflip instead of going down hard. Fucker went into a roll right out of the flip and popped back up to his feet. Like he was made of rubber or something, the asshole just kept bouncing back. He was still hurting from three shots to the head, though, and Kinnard wasn’t about to give him any time to recover. He closed on the guy fast.
Not fast enough. The Frenchman’s right foot shot out, going for Kinnard’s groin. Would have ended the fight right there if he’d connected. Kinnard would have collapsed like a sack of shit and been available for stomping. No fancy getaway moves for him. But he managed to turn just enough to take the kick on his left thigh. It felt like he’d been hit with an axe.
He staggered backward and now the frog pursued, kicking right, left, and right again. Like a boxer throwing combinations and, Jesus Christ, were his legs strong. His first two kicks were directed at Kinnard’s head, only Frenchie hadn’t gotten the range yet, underestimating Kinnard’s height. The kicks caught Kinnard on his shoulders, felt like he’d been hit with sledgehammers. The last kick was another try for Kinnard’s crotch. He managed to sidestep that one completely, get both hands around the guy’s ankle, lift it high into the air, and then hold on so the fucker wouldn’t be able to do any more acrobatics.
Kinnard used his grip on the Frenchman’s leg to drive him straight down to the pavement. The back of the guy’s head hit first, followed by his torso and keister. A series of satisfying cries of pain reached Kinnard’s ears. He’d finally put some real hurt into the sonofabitch. There was a question in Kinnard’s mind, though, whether that last gasp of agony might have his own.
The pain in his left leg was ratcheting up fast. God, had that bastard frog ruptured his femoral artery or something? Was he dying on his feet? Not that he was going to be standing long if the throbbing in his leg kept getting worse.
And, God Almighty, that French bastard was getting to his feet again. No fancy moves this time. He was using both hands to push himself upright. If Kinnard had had his gun with him, he would have emptied the whole clip into this guy. Then crack his skull with the barrel. But he didn’t have his gun, and here came the Frenchman again.
He was trying to take a run at Kinnard but the fall had messed up his wiring. He wasn’t light on his feet anymore. In fact, he was having trouble just staying upright. If Kinnard had had two good legs to work with, he could have stepped out of the way, given the guy a little shove and sent him into the river. With any luck, the prick wouldn’t know how to swim.
But fancy footwork was no more available to Kinnard than his gun. Still, he was able to see what the Frenchman intended to try. No kicks this time. Not with those wobbly legs. Not with the raw hatred in those eyes. The guy was going to try to kill Kinnard with his head. He wasn’t tall enough to go tête à tête — head to head — so he had to try to crack Kinnard’s chest. Just like that other French guy in that big game.
Head butts were fight finishers, sometimes fatally so. There were only two good countermoves. The first was to get out of the way. But it was already too late for that. The second was too meet the hard surface of the attacking skull with something that could absorb the blow without damage, something that would overwhelm the integrity of the cervical spine.
The heel of Kinnard’s right palm shot forward to collide with the Frenchman’s thrusting forehead. The bones of Kinnard’s arm were stronger than those anchoring the Frenchman’s head. The smack of flesh on flesh was followed by the crack of the frog’s neck breaking. He went down like he’d been shot. His legs twitched twice and then he was still.
Kinnard didn’t see any of that. The jolt of hitting his opponent’s head was instantly transmitted to the shoulder the Frenchman had kicked. That pain combined with the agony in his left leg was more than consciousness would tolerate. He collapsed alongside the Frenchman, his head coming to rest atop his opponent’s outstretched arm.
When the cops found them two hours later it looked as if the battered American lay in the fond embrace of the Frenchman he had killed.
The Hangman’s Companion is available for the Kindle from www.amazon.com.
