by Rowan Casey
I didn’t hang out there much; in fact, my first visit was on a case, the night I met Veronica. It was a messy divorce about to happen. Guy wanted me to follow his soon-to-be-ex, find out who she was seeing. Turned out she was seeing whoever happened to buy her a drink. Just a lonely woman, looking for company, married to a jerk. I watched her from across the bar, but gradually my attention shifted to the singer. She had full, dark hair and deep blue eyes and a voice that seemed to be breathy whisper in my ear. Without giving it much thought, I made my way to the stage and took a seat as close as I could get. After the show, one of the wait staff handed me a note. It said to pick a booth and order drinks. That’s how we hooked up.
Okay, it might seem obvious now, but at the time I just took it to be one of those things. Sure, maybe it was more like one of those things you read about than one of those things you actually experience, but how the heck was I supposed to know? I’m just a guy, and I thought she was just a gal.
But that was then. Tonight, the place was on its final lap of the evening, the energy of the crowd starting to wind down. Two big guys at the door in black t-shirts and black jeans waved me in without pausing their conversation. Nobody was on the stage and the stage lights were off. The bartender told me it was about ten minutes to last call, so I paid for a beer with a twenty, one of two from an ATM transaction that had dropped my bank account into the single digits, and told him he could keep the change if he could tell me who had booked or hired Veronica Gates. He looked at me like I was either really ugly or really stupid, or both, then let me know he had no idea who that was, and that he had only been working there for about a week. So I asked him who arranged the singers. Another look, this one more on the wary side, and maybe a bit confused. He gestured to one of waitresses and walked over to the other side of the bar. They both looked at me, exchanged a few words, then looked at me again. Then the guy pulled out a phone and held it between them, speaking for a few more seconds. When he came back, he gave me the name of the manager, and pointed me to a door near the restrooms.
I knocked. Nothing happened for a long minute, maybe two, so I knocked again. Nothing.
The knob turned when I tried it and the door cracked inward with a gentle push. I could see a wall a few feet opposite. I resisted the urge to glance around, knowing that would only draw attention and look suspicious. I stepped in and the door shut gently behind me.
What I had taken to be a hallway at first I now saw was a service corridor. Bare walls leading to a side exit. Weak florescent lighting on the ceiling. No other doors or outlets. I turned around to go back inside.
There was no knob. I put a hand on the door, but the hinges were on my side. The fit of the door was so snug, I doubt a credit card would slide in, let alone a finger. After puzzling a moment, it made sense, sort of. A delivery entrance. This interior door could be propped open when needed. But they didn’t want people wandering in from the side door that led outside. Kept it locked at night. I looked around the frame and found a button, like a doorbell. I thought about pressing it, but considering I’d been sent here deliberately, I doubted they wanted me back. Hey, I can take a hint, if I have enough time to ponder it.
The side door had a push bar. I pulled out my phone to alert Pip as I reached the door and leaned against it. The door opened into an alley. I was pressing the Bluetooth earpiece in, listening to it connect on the other end, when I stepped onto the pavement in the grayscale of moonlight and discovered I wasn’t alone.
Three guys. I recognized two of them from the door. One was black, the other white. Both were at least twice my size and bald. The third didn’t look like he’d been bottle-fed human growth hormone, the way the others did, but he wasn’t what I’d call a runt. At least he was wearing a navy blazer and button down shirt over regular, if probably ridiculously expensive, blue jeans. And his wavy hair was way too well-manicured. Given that, I figured it would most likely be two-on-one. I’d still be in a world of hurt, but the math sounded better.
“I hear you have a complaint about the talent,” the guy in the blazer said. There was an accent, but I couldn’t quite place it. Something about his vowels.
Pip’s voice popped into my ear right as he finished. “Hello, Sir Regis. Any luck?”
I cleared my throat and hoped she could catch up without needing a full briefing.
“Sure do,” I said to the guy in the blazer, hoping Pip could follow the conversation. “The last one’s knife skills sucked. She had one job. What kind of an operation are you running around here, anyway?”
Not the most epic oh-snap! response ever, granted, but I figured something unexpected was preferable to meekly claiming there had been some misunderstanding.
Blazer guy was quiet for a moment, his lip twitching just enough that I suspected he was holding back a smile. Then he said, “You seem like a nice kid. Bit mouthy, but I like that. So I’m going to let you walk away. All you have to do is promise you won’t come back. Ever.”
“But where else am I going to find cheap domestic beer for nine bucks a bottle? In this town?”
“Sir Regis, what are you doing?” The voice in my ear had a pleading edge to it. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought maybe Pip didn’t trust my ability to get out of a jam without her help. “It sounds like you are trying to initiate a confrontation.”
Mr. Blazer-sporter, just coincidentally, seemed to agree. “Funny guy. Thing is, we don’t book comedians. Boys, show our friend here what we do with comedians.”
The two bookends started toward me. I took a step back, leaving my hands loose and hanging near my waist.
Here’s the thing—sure, I boxed, and for all my talk about not having much of a right, I’d be lying if I pretended that meant I couldn’t outpunch your average schmo off the street. Problem was, these guys weren’t your average schmo. Each of them had at least seventy-five, maybe closer to a hundred, pounds on me. There’s a reason there are weight classes in prize fights. Couple that with the fact that, in the real world, even two regular-sized guys would have a distinct numerical advantage that only Hollywood thinks is easily overcome.
But I still had one thing going for me. I am quick in the reflex department, and these guys didn’t know I was a pug. Okay, technically that’s two things, but it seems more like one. Or maybe one and a half.
Cue-ball on the right, Eight-ball on the left. Cue-ball took the lead. He was rawboned, with jagged cheeks. Probably a bleeder. His smile gave me the impression he couldn’t believe someone was willing to pay him for this kind of thing.
I took two quick breathes and exhaled deeply.
“I bet you hit like a bitch,” I said. “Because you sure look like one.”
There was a tactical reason for the taunt, but I have to admit the words came out before I’d actually thought of it.
Now, I’m no martial artist. Boxing is a sport. It has rules and a referee and you can quit anytime you want. And I certainly don’t have a whole lot of expertise in dealing with multiple opponents. But I figured the best way to overcome a numerical disadvantage was to subtract one from the equation.
The big man’s smile grew wider, though it looked more angry than happy. That meant my words had the desired effect. But the depth of that smile also caused me to seriously question the merit of my strategy.
The other one took a few long strides forward. His black skin shimmered in the dim alley light. His eyes seemed to give off their own light, intense as they were. He was all business.
“Oh, sure,” I said. “Go ahead and prove me right. Let your friend do all the heavy lifting for you.”
Both of them seemed to coil, muscles tense and ready to spring. For a brief moment, I thought they were going to bull rush me, in which case I was about to get curb-stomped. Game over, man, game over. If I did manage to survive, it would be in traction with years of physical therapy for me to be able to feed myself again. But then Cue Ball held out an arm, stiff and wide, signaling for his comrade to hold back.
&nbs
p; “He’s mine,” he said, still smiling. But it was obviously forced now.
Keeping my arms loose and hanging took a lot of self-control. The instinct is to throw ‘em up, assume a fight stance. But I couldn’t risk him deciding to rush me low.
He took a step and I stuck out my chin. Nothing too blatant, just enough to look inviting.
His arms were down, but bent, one balled fist near his chest, the other around his midsection. I pretended to take a step back, but moved only about an inch. That was enough.
Not quite as slow as I’d hoped, but it didn’t matter, because he telegraphed his move like a dance flourish. His poor arm discipline forced him to draw his fist back before launching it in a ballistic arc. I watched the knuckles rocketing toward my face and dipped my head to the left. His weight followed his fist past me and he bent forward a bit. As expected, he doubled down and threw a wild left hook coming back the other way.
I bounced back, let the hook rotate him to just the right angle, and speared my two forefingers into his left eye.
Hey, this wasn’t a ring, and I didn’t see a ref anywhere.
His hand shot to his face and I unloaded a respectable right straight into his nose. Two jabs after that, just to make sure he was stunned, then I finished with an uppercut thrown with enough force I would have left my feet had my upward momentum not been negated by his jaw. His head snapped back and he fell on his ass, back of his skull smacking the brick wall behind him.
Now the odds were a bit better, though the next guy was unlikely to be so compliant. I pivoted, hands up, weight on the balls of my feet, ready for the attack I was certain was already in motion.
Eight-ball wasn’t barreling toward me like a locomotive. In fact, he wasn’t even directly in front of me any longer. He was back behind Blazer guy, helping him take it off—the blazer, that is—and neatly folding it in half, longways, then draping it over his arm. Hard to explain, but there was something distinctly off-putting about the amount of deference he was showing.
Okay, I thought. I get it. Blazer guy was another pug. Probably state Golden Gloves Middleweight champ or something. Saw my fistwork and took it as a challenge. I congratulated myself on the turn of events, since all it would have taken to end this was for one of them to pull out a gun.
He pulled out a gun.
A pistol. Something semi-auto. Stainless steel. Or maybe nickel. I didn’t know. Guns weren’t my thing. I owned one, a little .38 revolver, tucked away under a trigger guard in a bottom drawer, but I’d never had occasion to use it. And since I didn’t have it with me, it wasn’t going to do me much good right then, anyway.
The gun glinted as he raised it. But instead of pointing it at me, he handed it to Eight Ball, who accepted it like it was a Faberge egg and tucked it in his waistband with the careful and exaggerated fine-motor movements of someone who expected it to break.
Definitely looking to settle this mano y mano, I thought. The guy even took off his shirt, holding it by the shoulders and flicking the sleeves in as he folded it and set it atop the blazer. His t-shirt, a clean, brilliant shade of white, followed. I raised my fists, rubbing a knuckle under my chin, thinking, man, this guy is really old school.
Of course, I was thinking Jim Corbett old school, not greco-roman old school.
His shoes came off next, followed by his pants, then his socks, and the next thing I knew, his happy-slapper was dangling like a desiccated snake. I didn’t know what to make of it. This guy was either an even bigger bleeder than I dreamed of and the biggest dandy to ever don clothes, or he was planning to make me squeal like a pig. Or maybe it was all an attempt to distract me. In that case, it was working.
He took a step forward, and I eased to my left, taking the center. But he didn’t move closer. He just lowered himself to his knees, placing his palms in front of him. It wouldn’t be long before I realized his idea of old school wasn’t taught anymore, if it ever had been.
His skin seemed to erupt, hair sprouting like grass until he became covered in a pelt of golden fur up to his neck. His hands seemed to inflate as his fingers retracted and his feet stretched. Within seconds, I was looking at the same head, only now it was on the body of a giant cat.
But he wasn’t finished. A momentary look of pain washed over his face. He cocked his head and stretched his feline arms out, lowering his upper body and sticking his hindquarters up. I heard something that sounded like wet fabric tearing, and a long tail emerged from his backside. This wasn’t a cat’s tail, though. It was dark and ribbed and when it curled over his back and began to sway like a charmer’s flute from side to side I saw it had a sharp hook on its bulbous end. A stinger.
“Sir Regis! Keep your distance! It’s a manticore!”
The voice in my ear startled me. I had almost forgot about Pip.
“A what?” I said, under my breath, eyes still on that stinger.
“A manticore! A creature with the head of a man, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion!”
Lovely, I thought. File this under hashtag FML. “I don’t suppose there’s—”
Before I could finish, that tail whipped forward, stretching farther than I realized it could, the creature’s back bending with it like it were made of rubber tubing. I jerked my shoulder back and threw my rearmost leg to the side just as the stinger stabbed the space my head had occupied a fraction of a second earlier. The round end of the tail scraped my nose, sending a gamey stench up my nostrils that smacked of flesh and sweat and sticky bodily fluids.
“Hurry, Sir Regis! Get clear before he can strike again!”
Too late. The tail whipsawed back and launched over and down toward me in an angry arc. I dove forward and rolled, hearing it crack off the cement behind me as I popped up onto my feet right in front Mr. Man-Cat-Bug. He had a paw already cocked, extending a vicious-looking set of claws that seemed to sparkle their sharpness at the tips. It swatted at my face and I ducked. The bottom-most claw snagged my hat. He shook it off and the sight of it dropping to the concrete, deformed, with a small tear in the side, riled me beyond what could be considered reasonable or proportionate, given the circumstances.
“Get out of there, Sir Regis! You have to stay beyond the range of his tail!”
She didn’t have to tell me thrice. That tail had already snapped back and was zooming toward me. I weaved under it and as soon as I felt it shoot by I turned and sprinted toward the back fence.
Then the concrete jumped out of nowhere and punched me in the face.
That was what it seemed like, but I shook my head clear and felt the hard concrete of the drive against me, could smell the cement and feel the pebbly grit on my face. I looked back and Cue-ball had a hold of my ankle. He’d crawled out far enough to trip me and now was giving me another bloody smile, his face puffy from where I had pummeled him. He pushed himself onto his knees, still holding my leg.
“Look out, Sir Regis!”
She was like a broken record, but I was grateful for it. Over Cue Ball’s shoulder I saw it, that stinger, slashing from above. I’m not sure why, but I repeated Pip’s warning, yelling Look out! but instead of looking back he pushed himself up, lifting my ankle, and was no sooner on his feet than that stinger punched into his back. Two images flashed in my eyes, one of the stinger plunging toward me, then of him blocking it from view. He let out a grunt, his eyes bulging, and dropped my foot. His face froze into a grimace and his arms seemed to shrivel. All of his skin appeared to shrink wrap around his frame which swelled in puffs and bumps. Then his body jerked back a few feet and I heard the stinger pull out with a wet, sucking sound. Cue Ball stood there for a heartbeat, frozen in place, then fell forward onto his face without so much as a blinking.
“Good Heavens, Sir Regis! That was close!”
Hearing those words, it finally occurred to me that Pip was close enough to see what was happening. “Where are you?”
“I’m right above you! Moving into position. I have your armament!”
I looked around,
spinning my head each way I could. I was on my second visual circuit when I saw her. Her voice blasted in my ear.
“Sir Regis! Keep your eyes on your opponent!”
Good advice. I glanced back just in time to see Leo the Scorpion bounding toward me, a lion’s charge. His mouth opened wide and he let out a roar that rattled my head. I managed to push myself into a crouch by the time he was at ten feet. At five, those paws came up and he leaped.
I shot toward him, slicing between those paws, and landed a solid right against the point of his chin.
My hand felt like I’d just punched a block of wood. The thing shook its head, a very cat-like movement, and staggered back a few steps.
“Bravo, Sir Regis! Your courageous stand has created an opening! Here! Prepare to receive your sword and shield!”
I raised my head. The shield was already on its way, frisbeeing down with a bit of lift, and I was able to catch it. I had no time to congratulate myself, as the sword followed immediately after. It seemed about to impale me, but at the last moment it dropped like a cut fastball, turning over, and I saw it was coming in handle-first. My palm slapped against the leather and I felt the hilt wedge against the side of my fist.
Lion-Bug-Guy roared again, but didn’t charge. That tail sat above its head, poised. I kept it in view peripherally, but I watched the creature’s eyes. That’s one thing you learn in boxing. The punch is thrown when the decision is made, and you can’t catch that by watching your opponent’s gloves. Those eyes moved all over me, taking me in. Clearly, the addition of the shield and the sword prompted a change in strategy.
Then I saw it. A glint, a flash. Lids popping, eyes fixing for a split second. The tail shot forward. I threw up my shield and saw the stinger spear through it, missing my arm by a hair, its tip inches from my face. The tip caught like a hook and I tensed, anticipating what would happen next.
