by T. F. Torrey
“Sounds great,” I said, although right then it didn’t.
“And next time we take a trip to the desert I can give you a call and you can go, too,” Macy said.
“Oh, please,” Sharon said disgustedly.
“Sounds great,” I lied.
Macy downed the rest of his beer and stood up, extending his hand across the bar to me. “Nice seeing you again, Jack.”
“I’m glad we ran into each other again,” I said, taking his and shaking it firmly.
“Feel free to call me anytime,” he said. “You know, if there’s anything you want.”
“Or if there’s anything you want to get off your chest,” Sharon interjected.
“Thanks,” I said, discreetly glaring at Sharon. “You feel free to do the same.”
As they got to the door, Macy turned around and said, “I’ll see you soon, Jack. You know how things come up.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Macy exited smiling and waving through the OPEN sign.
It was just a few days later that I found out what kind of “things” came up in Macy’s life.
Chapter 5
I took a step back from the doorway. The oaf stepped toward me. I tried to think of something to say. There was nothing. These guys had likely been drinking all day, and the time for reasoned discussion with an intruder was long gone.
I took another step backward. The oaf took another step toward me, but his step was unsteady, and he glanced at the ground like maybe it was shifting on him. Alcohol will surprise you like that.
That was my edge. It had to be.
I stepped back again, and just as the oaf lifted his foot to step toward me, I swung. My fist impacted his jaw and he dropped to one knee. I felt a surge of premature triumph well up in my chest. In the split second where I could have acted, I did nothing, feeling somehow like I’d already won.
From one knee, he launched himself shoulder-first into my abdomen, knocking me backward. He continued the thrust, and I fell to the ground. He fell on top of me, landing with his knee just above my belt. With the pain in my stomach and the sandy ground on my back came the reality of the situation.
Things looked grim.
I rolled the guy off me. He was too unsteady to resist much. We scrambled to our feet, crouched and squared against each other, arms out low in front.
And over his shoulder, between the Mexican tag team duo, I saw the girl, still on the couch with the other oaf. We locked eyes for just a second. Her expression showed the gratitude of the princess for the fool. She was glad that I had stood up for her, but—she knew they’d ride my body out into the desert somewhere, and ride hers all over the carpet.
No. As long as there was life in my body, I’d never let that happen.
Unfortunately for both of us, that might not be much longer.
The oaf lunged at me again, reaching out with both arms and stepping off with his left foot. But I didn’t feel like wrestling. I nimbly stepped outside his foot and caught his left arm, using his momentum and his sleeve to throw him to the ground beside me. He landed on all fours and I kicked him as hard as I could in the stomach. And before he could collapse to the ground I kicked him fiercely in the face. He tipped over onto his right side, blood running through his fingers as he clutched his nose.
I didn’t have time to admire my work. The tag team duo was in motion. I spun to face them as they stepped into the yard. Yeah. Two of them. One of me. Probably three times my weight. Think of something. Fast. Now. I took a couple of steps backward. They didn’t say anything, either to me or to each other. It was quiet inside and out. The silence was ominous.
They acted like they’d rehearsed this many times. As they moved toward me they split up, Wide-face to my left and Squash to my right. Their eyes were steady and calm, business-like. “What did you do today, Jose and Pepe?” “Oh, you know, we just fed a guy his ears and toes. You know, nothing special.”
If I ran now, if I vaulted back over the fence, I could call the police and—and what? They were probably already looking for me, and these guys could just say I’d come in and started trouble. But the girl could vouch for me! But that didn’t help any for the gunshots. Or Arnie’s hero. And if I left and didn’t call the police, the girl would still pay.
At the middle of the yard, I stopped retreating. There stopped being a point to it. Now they had moved so that I was directly between them. If I broke for the fence now they’d nail me. If I stayed where I was—
Suddenly I let out a yell and rushed toward Squash with my hands raised to face level, like I was going to grab his throat.
He fell for it.
He watched my hands all the way, raising his own to defend himself. At the last second I kicked him as hard as I could in the groin. He grunted and doubled over.
And I was a crazy man. I punched his ear and kicked at his leg and dropped both fists into an overhead smash onto the back of his neck with all the vigor I could muster. Still, in those fractions of seconds of my onslaught, I wondered how much a relatively sedentary bartender could muster. Almost in answer to these secret musings, Squash flopped squirming onto the grass.
And a blinding white pain pounded into my right temple. I didn’t know if I’d been kicked or punched. I wasn’t thinking at all. My entire reality consisted of a great white pain with little gray flecks through it. Then a brief falling sensation. My senses came back from their brief journey just in time to feel the hard ground under my left elbow and a painfully angular beer can crushed under my left hip.
I clambered to my feet—no time for pain. Squash was climbing to his feet and Wide-face was closing in for another swat. I backed up a couple of steps for time.
Wide-face swung hard at my head. I whipped my head back instinctively, feeling the breeze on my nose. Hot blood trickled down my face from my temple. He stepped forward and swung again. Again I yanked my head back in time. But just as I took a step backward I realized that I was backing up toward the house.
And I felt a huge arm clamp around my throat from behind. I kicked my left leg back and tried to curl out, but it was to no avail. The arm around my throat tightened and pulled me up straight. A hand grabbed my elbow while I struggled for breath and freedom.
Wide-face strode calmly toward me, smiling and rubbing the knuckles on his right hand with the fingers of his left. Behind him, Squash brushed himself off, not smiling—cold, intense, and more than a little angry. But I didn’t see either one of them, because just then I noticed a figure vaulting the chain link fence, silhouetted in the light of the moon and the streetlights. The figure wore an outback hat.
John Lupo dropped inside the fence behind Squash.
“Hey!” he said, his voice not quite a shout.
The Mexicans whirled around, and I felt the grip on my throat and arm tighten.
“I’ll give you one chance to let my friend go,” John said.
If I could have breathed, I would have told him to save his breath and start punching.
“Or what?” Wide-face asked.
It didn’t matter what John’s answer would have been. Squash was giving his reply in actions, not words. He walked toward John Lupo.
By sight the situation still looked hopeless. Squash was as a full head taller than John and outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. Hell, I was bigger than John was. Behind Squash stood Wide-face, every bit as big as his friend. And to make matters worse, the dark-haired oaf had finally gotten off the couch and come outside. He had the empty tequila bottle in his hand, and after he smashed it against the door frame, he was wielding a lethal weapon.
But still John stood at ease, his outback hat slung low. From the shadows under the brim, his eyes flashed calm and cool, almost indifferent. He still had that air of collected control.
Squash wasn’t impressed. He stepped in and swung the pork roast that was his right hand at John Lupo’s face.
John stepped in, caught the fist with both hands, turned and pulled the arm across his chest
, and, as he pulled Squash off balance, smashed him twice in the nose with his elbow. With his right foot John kicked into the side of Squash’s knees, and just like that Squash was lying on his back on the ground, holding both hands up to his bloody nose.
Even after the dog scene, I was impressed.
Wide-face wasn’t. He approached John cautiously, but confidently. After all, he was still a giant compared to John.
John walked straight at him, leaving no false hope for anything but physical confrontation.
Wide-face raised his hands as if to box, then, just when John got into range, kicked hard with his left foot at John’s ribs.
Unlike Squash had been, John wasn’t fooled at all. Moving slightly to his left, he caught the kick, neat as whiskey, under his right arm. Wide-face’s arms flailed wildly as he struggled to keep his balance, but John lifted the leg and thrust forward. Wide-face hopped once, then tipped over onto his back, but even as he fell, John kicked him twice in the groin. Then he let go of the leg, leaving Wide-face groaning and writhing on the ground, and strode calmly toward the dark-haired oaf with the broken bottle.
Just then the grip on my throat eased ever so slightly, and likewise the grip on my left elbow let up just a little.
Just a little was all I needed. I wrenched my arm free and elbowed back as hard as I could, catching my holder in his ribs. And again. And again.
The arm around my throat relaxed and I broke free, whirling and going crazy again. I punched his fat face and I punched his ugly stomach. I punched again at his bloody face—
And he caught my fist and hit me so hard in the throat I thought for sure that precious swallowing was a thing of the past. He hit me above my left eye and I fell back onto one knee. Without a break he kicked out at my head. I raised my arms to block the kick. Then something amazing happened: I got lucky.
The force of his kick against my arm whipped my hand, wrist, and forearm around his shinbone. Suddenly, I had ahold of his leg. And taking a cue from John, I lifted and lunged. He fell backward as I threw my right forearm across his throat and slammed him against the wall of the house. His head hit the bricks, and I stepped in and kneed him hard in the groin. Twice I pounded his jaw with my left fist, then stepped back suddenly, gripping his shirt and slamming him face-first into the ground. He rolled over onto his back and tried to figure out which part to hold in pain.
I whirled to see the other oaf slashing the broken bottle at John Lupo. He swung viciously across right to left, then stepped forward and slashed back across. John stepped backward, just out of range, hands low, still with that sense of control in his eyes.
The oaf stepped and swung, but as he did John swayed back, caught the wrist with his right hand, and pulled the arm out straight while stepping in to the side. With fluid grace and rocket speed, he smashed his left forearm against the back of the elbow. I could almost hear the grind of bone and the tearing of ligaments as the attacker’s arm bent the wrong way out of control.
The oaf dropped the bottle, but before it even hit the ground, John punched his jaw and kicked his legs out from under him. He fell into a whimpering heap beside the bottle.
Then, suddenly, it was quiet again—well, as quiet as it gets in Phoenix. The four offenders lay on the ground around us, some of them moaning a little, some of them muttering curses and challenges. Somewhere off in another part of the city a siren howled, but for the first time that night I didn’t think it howled for me.
The noise I noticed loudest was my own shallow breathing. John stood a few feet from me, and I was momentarily impressed that he didn’t seem to be breathing hard. What impressed me more was that through it all his hat had stayed firmly, effortlessly, in place on his head. He glanced all over quickly, then headed for the back fence, saying, “Come on, Jack, let’s get while the getting’s good.”
“Wait!” I said.
He stopped and spun toward me, alert for any new challenge, his eyes glinting from the shadows under his hat.
“What about the girl?” I asked.
“What about her?”
I glanced—and he did, too—at the back door of the house. The girl had gotten up off the couch during the scuffle, and now she stood meekly in the doorway. “We can’t just leave her here,” I said.
John looked at me patiently. “What do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Take her with us?”
“Take her with us? To your place? To work every day? Out to the river on weekends?” He shook his head. “You haven’t even met her yet, and you’ve already appointed yourself her guardian?”
I shrugged rather resignedly and looked at the girl, but I didn’t say anything.
John stepped toward me, turning to make sure that she could also hear his words. “Look,” he said. “We can’t take her with us, and we can’t follow her everywhere to keep her out of trouble. If she’s got any sense at all she’ll leave, now, while she has the chance. Like we’re going to.”
I looked to see her reaction, but she was already gone out of the doorway. She extracted her purse from somewhere and put it over her shoulder. As she headed out to the front of the house, she looked back at me. Though she spoke too softly for me to hear, she unmistakably mouthed the words: “Thank you.” Anyway, I saw it plainly in her eyes.
***
John was already back over the fence, waiting impatiently for me to follow. I climbed over the fence myself, then we were walking quickly over the gravel of the service alley.
Suddenly I wondered and I asked, “How did you—how did—why were—how did you manage to come in like that? Just in time.”
He laughed, an easy laugh, tilting his head back. “It was magic,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say. At the time it had seemed really handy. Now it seemed really strange. Still, I didn’t think it was magic.
He was smiling. “Well, it must look like magic, until you find out how it was done.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
He said nothing.
“So,” I said, “how was it done?”
“Well, I followed you.”
I waited while he found some more words.
“After I fired the shots, I noticed that you were running the wrong way,” he said. “You were too far away for me to catch you, but I figured that you’d see that you were going the wrong way and come back.”
“Which I did.”
“Yeah, so I stopped off in Encanto Park and waited for you to come by.” He laughed again. “Then that jogger nailed you.” He was lost in laughter now.
“And you didn’t help,” I said pointedly.
“There was no need,” he said, stopping laughing. “You took care of him pretty well, I must say.”
My chest, or my head, swelled a little with the compliment.
We reached the end of the gravel alley and looked up and down 19th Avenue. Seeing no police cars or anything, we headed north. Nineteenth is another of the mile-block roads of Phoenix, flanked on both sides by commercial plazas. Indian School was in sight a quarter mile ahead of us. We walked briskly on the sidewalk.
“I stayed out of sight when you ran by,” John continued. “Then I followed you a ways back while you took those side streets.”
“Why didn’t you just walk with me?” I asked.
“Simple,” he said. “I wanted to see if you’d make it without me.”
I thought about that for a moment. It rather galled me to be so clearly patronized. It suddenly occurred to me that the entire evening might have been set up as a test—of me.
“When the dog came back, I thought you were a goner,” he continued.
“I didn’t have time to think.”
“But I was impressed,” he said. “You did what you had to do, and you made it. That was really good thinking.”
My chest didn’t swell this time. “I felt kind of bad for the dog,” I admitted.
“Well,” he said, then he paused. “I almost did, too. But you remember that he ma
de the choice to attack you. That was his decision. When he chose to attack you he chose to deal with however it turned out.”
“Well,” I said reluctantly.
“Well, nothing,” he said. “You always have the right—no, the obligation—to defend yourself to the best of your ability. The responsibility for the attack lies with the attacker. The dog. He was responsible for what happened to him.”
“Still, I chose to defend.”
“As opposed to what?” he asked.
We walked on in silence. At Indian School Road we hung a right. It was less than an eighth of a mile to my place now. Still we saw no police and no heroes.
“Back there was a different story,” John said, continuing. “I got to that gravel road just in time to see you hop the fence. What were you doing there, anyway?”
“Well, you know, the girl wanted to leave, and, they, uh, they wanted her prone, so I just helped her out.”
“You just helped her out?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“How did you know she wanted to leave? Did she tell you?”
“No, she didn’t tell me.” I didn’t like this interrogation. “She just sat there with an I-want-to-leave look on her face. She didn’t even know I was there.”
“So you chose to attack her four friends?”
“No. There was no choice to it. She wanted to leave. They wanted to make her stay. I was there, so I helped her. I couldn’t just turn my back on her, whether she knew I was there or not. Would you have done any different?”
He was calm. “Did I?” he asked.
“Did you what?”
He sighed. “I got to the fence when you were talking to that first dude. Then a minute later you were in trouble. Did I turn my back on you?”
“No.”
“But that’s different. I know you. You didn’t know the girl.”
“Well, that’s not different to me. I can’t just turn my back on situations like that, whether I know the people or not.”
“I know what you mean,” he said. We were silent again for a while. “You would have done all right if there had only been two of them,” he pointed out.
“Yeah,” I said, “but there were four of them. Thanks.”
