Have Club Will Travel

by Michael Joy

narrow aisle to reach me I had set up three tables so that they were facing each other in a triangular pattern with mine furthest away from the front door. While the other two gang members were being patted down in the parking lot I held up my empty hands and indicated silently that they could take whichever table they chose. The skin head hesitated as if unsure, the cowboy hat immediately moved to the table closest to the axe handle.

  Who knows what other surprises were concealed in the room? I had checked under all four tables and the chairs that were at the tables all were clean. While the men outside were making their way to the front door the owner arrived with my burger, to have been cooked that quickly the meat was thin and grey looking but I received a fork for the coleslaw, clearly there were instructions that no knives were to be distributed. One of the skin heads asked for a burger as well the other asked for a steak, the other one said "make it two burgers." I suppose that dealing with a steak without a steak knife would prove too much of a challenge especially the stringy meat you would be served if the sign saying steak $5.99 was any guide. I put some catsup on my plate and dipped the end of a burger in it.

  This was getting silly each of us gathering items that could be used as last ditch weapons. I could see the two cowboys fishing a cigarette out of a breast pocket, I noted that the pockets dragged down lower than a pack of cigarettes should create, they had some kind of derringer or palm gun there. The two men in motor cycle leathers wore bulky vests that I was sure concealed other weapons.

  Coffee arrived at this point the four cups served to the other men steaming hot mine was only warmish.

  I decided to get down to business. "I represent Frank's Association in this matter they have decide that they will reduce the levy from three percent to two, but there are conditions. Firstly both groups will agree to stop encroaching on each other's territory; in addition you will cease cooking meth in these areas."

  The four men sat faces frozen relaying nothing for a moment then they pulled out cell phones.

  Each repeated my statement word for word. If anything their eyes got colder as they spoke, clearly they were expecting something very different.

  "What about the high grade pot we have been buying from your people?" It took me a moment to realize that he was referring to Frank's as the sellers.

  "I don't have any instructions about that, we will revisit that once you have confirmed that you agree to this proposal."

  "We want a discount of twenty percent on our purchases going forward, and then we can talk about this other shit." said the second cowboy hat.

  I could read the smirks on the two skin heads as they heard this. "Yeah we want the same discount and I think we should just eliminate this levy and you pricks stay out of our business we will set up where we want to."

  "The instructions that I received don't extend to that. I can make a call."

  I pulled out a burner phone that they had given me with not enough information there was only one number programmed. "They say they want a twenty percent discount and elimination of the levy in addition they will not agree to change their arrangements with regards cooking meth."

  The voice that replied was extremely specific. "You failed to tell them that we would destroy their meth operations if they did not agree, tell them that the skin heads have six operations that are at risk presently and the locals have four such operations. Make sure they relay this to the decision makers and stay on the line. Plus the levy is now up to six percent."

  While I was not happy I leaned forwards in the chair and repeated the message. Their scowls deepened as they spoke into their own phones. The reply must have been short. They started to draw their guns as the second cowboy hat said. "You are going to tell us everything…"

  I stood as they began to draw their weapons, pushing the chair back and grasping the seat back of the chair beside mine. I had pointed my other finger at the two in cowboy hats but I was looking at the second skinhead as if the comment was directed at him as the gun came out of his jacket it was pointed for a second at them and they had to decide what to do.

  I had smuggled in thirty feet of fishing line and 6 plastic staples. While the owner started the hamburger for me I had attached a loop to the back leg of the chair and then the table leg and across the frayed carpet to front wall. The late evening sun illuminated the back wall and left the floor in shadow, the fishing line pulled the pin on a spring loaded device that had ridden as part of the clip on my cell phone holster. All it did was to cause a blank round like those people use for nail guns to fire. Under normal circumstances this would have no effect except to startle the participants, the fishing line also overbalanced the heavy cross cut saw, I had moved the base against the wall and left only one iron tooth contacting wood.

  They were processing the thought a gun had fired and knowing that I didn't have a gun in either hand they looked at each other. All of them were suddenly aware of the heavy saw falling into the area where they had been sitting. There were so many teeth and it was so wide that the thing seemed unstoppable and they were caught between trying to avoid the metal and bringing up their guns.

  They were aware that I was moving away, the chair back in both hands. If I had intended I could likely have brained one of them. Instead I threw the chair sidearm at the lowest part of the rear window, the diamond in my ring is tiny but it isn't for show. I had scored a panel of the glass with it; a few light taps with a hard object like an ashtray would have broken it loose if I had thought that no-one would notice. The chair shattered the glass as much as separating it along the cut; at least I didn't have the chair hanging halfway through a window with large glass teeth as I leaped through the break.

  My pants were lined with a single layer of Kevlar to protect me from, the glass, my hat and leather jacket had two layers therefore the hat was bunched in my hands so that they could break my fall among the shards of glass and I rolled forwards using my back in case the glass had carried further. There were shouts behind me and then I was running.

  Things would have been better if they had made the mistake of shooting at each other. Maybe the bad blood I had been told existed between these separate gangs was just friendly competition.

  With the last table against the window and the other chairs in front of the table four large men would find it time consuming to get through the broken glass to pursue me. I cut to the left to put an old fridge sitting on the back porch between me and any gunfire and I borrowed a hatchet sitting beside a pile of kindling I didn't bother with the axe buried in a tree stump and then I ran.

  In seconds I was in low brush that bordered the back where seedlings had been trying to reclaim the cleared area. Behind me I heard cursing and a couple of shots were fired at me. I cringed slightly and pushed harder, each time I encountered a larger tree I tried to put it immediately behind me hopefully screening my movements even though the narrow boles would likely not prevent a bullet from hitting me. I had over thirty yards of distance on them before their yelled directions to each other told me that they were actually in pursuit.

  I run almost every day, for fitness and for fun. I even ran when other men did not. When people talk about running for their life I can guarantee that I know more about it than anyone that you have ever met. That and I am far better prepared than they are. I have lived much longer than most men because I choose to make plans for leaving rather than fighting four men.

  I was just beginning to congratulate myself when I heard the roar of the motor cycles I groaned. There were four riders in addition to four men on foot. A bullet smacked into a tree ahead of me. I had been counting on these men using short barrelled pistols which would be harder to aim with any accuracy, that and the act of trying to run uphill over broken ground would also throw off their aim. Two layers of Kevlar does not actually stop bullets it would be sufficient if we were in a knife fight but not like this. I had managed almost a hundred yards up hill when I looked back, I was fifty yards from the summit and I could s
ee the two trail bikes at least climbing clear of the first scrub they were almost up to the four men on foot, I kept going.

  Ahead of me there was a small out cropping of stone which I put behind me as I climbed and then I heard a blast of fire from a weapon on full auto, one bullet smacked into stone the others lost in the hillside, one rider had stopped to shoot, the other was continuing to close what looked like a rifle across the handlebars of his bike.

  Only seconds later I was approaching the summit, the rounded top of the hill concealing me from the men further down slope I glanced back and allowed myself to stagger as if gaining the hill top had sucked most of my strength. The shadow of the other man on the bike had overlapped mine on the ground, I had not been mistaken he had closed to less than twenty feet.

  The hatchet in my hand was a crude tool, poorly balanced and the blade both dull and nicked. Not ideal, but I had handled tools like it a thousand times. I was also tired of getting shot at.

  As I whipped around I could see that rather than trying to ride me down with the weight of the machine he was reaching for the rifle, it was bound to the handlebars with a bungee cord. I threw the hatchet, at that distance the hatchet rotated one and a half times