Rock Solid

by Paul Slatter

  He said quietly, “How’s Alla doing?”

  Dennis smiled. It wasn’t often anyone asked him about his wife, not these days.

  “She’s getting better I think. She’s managing to move her toes. Apparently, we were lucky—the guy who worked on her that night was a top surgeon. She’s been to see him and had x-rays done. The man’s saying a couple more operations and things may improve tenfold. He’s even suggesting she may be able to walk again.”

  Chendrill said, “But?”

  And Dennis nodded, “Yeah, you’re right, there’s always a ‘but’, and it’s a big one, it’s going to cost money to do it now or we can wait and let it go through the healthcare system. But there’s another problem there, which I’m ashamed to say is mine, because, you see, when I lost everything, I let the healthcare insurance slip too. Luckily someone—and I don’t even want to think about who—but someone luckily put up the money for the accident, and I’m hoping whoever did was from the past and stays there.”

  Chendrill stared at him, then down at the table cloth, and thought about Patrick, knowing deep down it was him—the guy living his life without any real responsibility, treating hookers the same way others would treat a girl with whom they were in a serious relationship. Looking up again, he said, “Many ‘buts’ hey?”

  Dennis nodded again, “Yeah too many.”

  Chendrill sat there staring at Archall Diamond, wondering why the guy was sitting in their living room at eight-thirty in the evening wearing sunglasses. What he’d do, he thought, was speak to Sebastian about Alla and see if he could help and then have Sebastian tell Patrick to lay off and stay away. After all, Sebastian was the only person the sexed-up ex-condo salesman would listen to, for the moment anyhow. “How much for the operation if you go private?” said Chendrill.

  “About a hundred grand for them both,” Dennis answered.

  Then Chendrill nodded towards Archall Diamond, “And can I ask you why that asshole is here?”

  And from Dennis’s face, he could see the man was a pain. Coming straight out with it, Dennis said, “I haven’t got my licence back yet—as you’ve probably guessed—and one of the problems with operating outside the system is that first of all, you may not get paid and second of all, some of the people aren’t nice, but they do pay, and pay well. And Archall pays well. He just got here actually and has told me about a friend of his who also wants a diamond in his tooth. Apparently, he liked Archall’s so much he’d like me to go see him out in Richmond—at some house on the river.”

  Chendrill said, “I don’t recommend you go anywhere with him,” and watched Dennis shrug.

  “Obviously I need the money Chuck, it’s not what I’d prefer to do, but I can’t afford to turn anything down right now, even if it costs me my licence for good, which to be frank I may never get back anyway.”

  Chendrill nodded. The man was so honest with his friends, but not with himself. Or maybe he was? At least he was trying to make it work again with the woman he loved when so many would have given up. Chendrill said, “When you go, call me. I want to come along with you—I’m serious. If this guy gives you a problem about it, you call me okay. Do not go alone.”

  Chendrill stood. “I can’t promise anything, I’m going to speak with someone about Alla and—he may be able to help financially.”

  Then changing the subject, Chendrill called out loudly to Alla, “Alla, I’m glad to see you’re looking well.” Then nodding towards Archall Diamond, he followed it up jokingly with, “And keep away from him, he’s trouble.”

  Then he turned and said quietly to Dennis, “Don’t forget what I said.”

  Chendrill left the basement, but not before crossing the open suite to hug Alla and kiss her cheek, smelling her perfect skin and getting a closer look at Diamond as he tried to read what the guy was up to.

  He pulled the Aston away from the curb and drove up the street, then went around the block and stopped in the shadows a distance away, looking at the lights in the windows of the basement suite that now doubled as Dennis’ surgery. Archall Diamond was sitting in his friend’s home, he thought, more interested in some friend’s tooth than in his Mercedes, which for some reason was sitting crushed to a cube in the garage.

  “A friend of his also wants a diamond in his tooth,” Dennis had said.

  Guys like Diamond don’t arrange for other people to fuck up their perfectly good front teeth like that, thought Chendrill, they want to be unique—even if they were as dumb as that fuckhead. There was more to it. The guy had removed one love rival, of that much he was certain, but there was nothing going on between those two. From what Chendrill could tell, all Archall Diamond was doing was gawking at a beautiful woman who was being polite.

  An hour later, Chendrill was still there watching the front of Dennis’s when he saw Diamond come out, still with his sunglasses on, even though it was night-time, smiling to himself and, stopping in the driveway for a moment, he stared at the windows, then walked to the rear of a truck and opened it.

  Quietly, Chendrill opened the Aston’s driver side door, slipped out, closed it again, and moved in the shadows along the other side of the street towards where Diamond was standing with the back of the truck down and both hands in a tool bag sifting through it until he pulled out a pair of long nose pliers.

  Coming up from behind at an angle and catching him on his blind side, Chendrill said, “You going back in there with those to help him pull some teeth?” Archall turned, quickly pulling the Taser from his bag and firing the unit’s two small darts with their thin wires trailing behind and catching Chendrill right in the shoulder as he tried to twist away, sending fifty thousand volts into him and throwing him helplessly to the ground.

  ******

  Rann Singh sat up in bed and looked to the five Africans surrounding him as they stood, pangars in hand, with ragged clothes and unkempt dreadlocked matted hair and said in Swahili, “I’ll give you about thirty seconds to leave peacefully right now or I’m going to leave you all for dead and if you live you live.”

  Rann watched as the one in the center held up Blou’s empty shotgun then threw it on the floor. Rann stared at him summing them all up. He was the biggest, and in the moonlight Rann could see his eyes were watery and yellow, but he looked strong. The others were smaller with the same blotchy bearded look of the same age; another, looking nervous, was younger, just a kid, maybe in his early twenties. Rann said, “The other guy needed that, I don’t.”

  And the African replied simply, “Money or we kill you.”

  Then Rann smiled and said as he raised his hands, speaking Swahili, the language he loved so much, “Okay, okay. You win—you win. You can have the money. It’s behind the door.” And asking with his eyes if it was okay to move, he slowly slid out of bed, shuffling his way toward the door as the Africans kept their distance, but blocked his path as Rann stood and leaned forward, placing his hands out in front of himself, touching the wood of the beamed wall, and feeling its varnish beneath his palms. He said again, “I’m going to get your money, it’s right here by the door.”

  And slowly Rann began to move towards the door along the wall. Passing his grandfather’s coat hook, he saw the small nail he’d watched him hammer in for him when he was a child, remembering how he had stood holding a huge hammer in both hands as his grandfather held the nail and Rann tried to knock it into one of the beams.

  He moved on slowly, step by step along the wall until he was out and away from the bed. He reached the door, large and solid and open wide, just as he’d left it before he’d slept, its inner face hidden from view flat against the wooden wall beams. The Africans in the open doorway watched him cautiously as he slowly pulled it away from the wall and gently brought them inside, respecting their superiority with his eyes as he squeezed it past them, feeling the weight of the mahogany bite down tight against the door jam as he closed the solid door and gently turned the key, feeling the bronze of the deadbolt fall into place as he locked them all in the ro
om with him.

  Slowly he turned to them, dropping the key into his trouser pocket for them all to see, and said in the language he knew they’d all understand, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  He brought his right foot up hard and fast, catching the African who’d thrown the shotgun on the floor perfectly in the throat, crushing his windpipe and knocking him into the wall as a younger second man came at him, instinctively hacking down blindly with his pangar. Rann felt the young man’s arm break at the elbow as he stepped to the side, holding the man’s wrist with his left hand and snapping the elbow with his other as he took the man’s knee out with his left foot, all in one swift move, and then let go.

  Taking a quick step forward, he smashed the flat of his foot into the third African’s chest, sending him off his feet and into the wall; then ducking, feeling the swish of a pangar blade skimming his head right before feeling the weight of the fifth African as he grabbed him from the side and ran him into the wall. He felt the sting in his back as he landed hard next to his grandfather’s coat hook, and then the other African who’d taken the kick to the chest was on him, holding him fast along with the other, both clinging desperately to their pangars as they pushed against him holding him there. Rann felt their strong hands and arms pressing against him and smelled their breath, sweat, and hair as they tried to tire him with their strength, rubbing their heads and elbows into his face. Then he felt one release the hand he was holding the pangar in as he worked the butt of the weapon into his neck, the man pulling back and swinging in for the kill, Rann waiting till the last second as the blade came down, pulling away from the other, spinning inside and using the man’s momentum to roll him around, smashing him into the wall, crushing the man’s nose with the back of his head and hearing the metal from his grandfather’s coat hook pierce through the man’s skull as he hit the wall. Then like lightning, he was away, coming again back at the other African, moving inside him as the man came at him hitting as hard as he had ever hit another man with an eight punch combo, crashing his fists with incredible speed and precision into the African’s solar plexus, stomach, and heart and hearing the man’s pangar hit the ground as he felt the muscles and ribs break down as his fists flew in and out like whips, one after the other, sending him momentarily to the floor.

  Then he backed off, bouncing around the floor at the foot of his grandfather’s bed, like a boxer catching his breath and surveying the damage. One was dead, hanging limp from his grandfather’s hook, another on the floor not breathing from the kick to the throat that crushed his windpipe, the kid down with a broken arm looking terrified, another was moving quickly from the side swinging his pangar like Zorro, hacking and slashing the air from side to side as he came. Rann moved to the corner by the door as he approached, letting the African pin him there, using each wall as a shield, waiting for the angle to change as the man switched the swinging from side to side and tried to throw down a thrust from another angle that he’d hope would be the last, then it came at him like lightning from above, the man raising the pangar and bringing it down with both hands, hoping to smash through Rann’s forearms as he lifted them to protect himself from the blow. As soon as the African committed to the swipe, like a whip, Rann was on him grabbing both the man’s wrists as he twisted himself down to the side, using the man’s momentum to pull him downward and smash him face-first to the floor.

  Rann backed off again, bouncing like a fighter, keeping on his toes, getting his air and looking around him, the Africans in shock from what had happened to them in nothing more than a matter of seconds. He looked around feeling air rush in and out of his lungs as he felt his heart race in his chest. No one was coming at him yet. One dead, maybe two by now, as he’d felt the power of his foot hit the man’s throat. Another, the young one unmoving, crouching down with a broken arm and busted knee, was still terrified. The African Zorro was playing dead. The one who’d suffered the punch combo to the stomach and chest was on his hands and knees and now just getting his wind. He’d be next and would be coming at him again.

  He waited, knowing he could finish them all, but he waited, breathing, skipping in the center of the room as he regained his strength and kicked any pangars he could see under the bed. Then the African who thought he was Zorro stood and looked at Rann, his face covered in blood, his lip and nose split open; the other African was staring at Rann now too. Rann, who was trained to fight, still keeping on his toes and wiping the sweat from his eyes and his now bald head, only too happy to have no hair for any of them to grab and hold.

  The remaining two men looked at each other, then to the kid on the floor who’d given up, motioning with their eyes, signalling him to stand. Rann said in Swahili, “If you think you can just say sorry and leave you can’t. You had your chance.”

  But these men who lived in the forest at the foot of the mountain weren’t going anywhere. Slowly the kid with the broken arm got to his feet. Still bobbing, Rann said to him, “Sit back down and stay out of it and I’ll not break the other one and maybe you’ll live.”

  But he didn’t listen. Suddenly the one by the door came at him, running full force as the other came at the same time. Rann moved to the side at the last second, lifting his left leg and tripping one, sending him headfirst into the dresser and smashing face first into the mirror as he landed. The other dove on him, pinning Rann to the floor, grabbing him by his neck in a choke hold as he began to shout at the kid with the broken arm.

  “Pangar, Pangar.”

  The kid moved towards the collection of pangars under the bed, reaching under and picking one up and slowly moving back towards them as the African struggled to hold onto Rann as he wriggled and wriggled, trying to break free. The African shouted at the kid desperately, “Hit him in the head—Hit him in the head.”

  As the kid moved forward, trying to hold his broken arm at the same time as the pangar, reaching them at the foot of the bed and looking down at Rann’s head, Rann wriggling like crazy, tasting the man’s blood from his arm, smelling his breath, feeling the African’s face against the side of his head, the man wrapping his legs around him, clasping him with his whole body, still screaming at the kid, “Kill him—Kill him!” The kid drew nearer, trying to summon the courage to slay a man. Then he was right there above them, letting his broken arm dangle as he raised the pangar wiping the tears from his eyes from the fear and pain with the back of his hand. Rann watched as he lined up on him with his eyes for a hit that would land right above his forehead, and waited, listening to the African screaming in his ear as he did. Then he went still, allowing the kid to gain focus for a split second to take the hit that would put him out of his misery. Just then, the African who hit the dresser came around, stirring and lifting himself from the glass, distracting the kid as he swung the pangar down at the same time that Rann, who was waiting for the very last second, shifted his weight with all his might, swung the African holding him around to take the blow right above his ear.

  Before the kid could realize what had just happened, Rann quickly shook the dead man off him, stood, and with a spinning back kick into the kid’s chest, sent him flying across his grandfather’s bed and onto the floor on the other side. Then Rann was up again bobbing on his feet, arms up at his chest getting his breath, surveying the damage, saying to himself “Three dead, two to go.” He spat the dead man’s blood from his mouth and watched the African who hit the dresser look around the room at his three dead comrades.

  “Like I said, it’s too late, if you want to say sorry.”

  The African was looking for a pangar now, and saw them in the darkness in a pile under the bed—and saw too the one stuck in his friend’s head on the other side of Rann—still bobbing on his toes like he’d been trained, watching him and watching the side of the bed where he’d sent the kid with his broken arm and pangar flying, keeping them both in his line of site. The African stood with his tough bare feet in the broken glass mirror looking for a weapon. Then he saw the shotgun on the floor next to h
is friend with the crushed windpipe, and ran over to it and picked it up and held it at Rann, getting ready to fire. Rann looked at the two large barrels aiming straight at him and wished the South African had never left it for him as a parting gift, then remembered the guy had given him the shotgun but no cartridges. Rann said in Swahili, “If that was loaded, you’d have already shot me.”

  The African smiled back at him with the gun saying, “Maybe it is and I want to shoot you twice, once to bring you down and then next to kill you.”

  Rann watched him, trying to work out which end the man was going to use as a club—the barrel or the stock? He knew if it was loaded, there was little he could do at this range. But it wasn’t, there wasn’t any ammo—besides, the guy would have fired by now. The African was still coming at him slowly, laughing and smiling.

  “We been here before and we know where the man keep the ammunition Bwana choot and I’m going to shoot you Bwana choot, first in the legs then in the face. I going to blow your legs off first then shoot you in the face, yeah in the face choot boy, in the face.”

  And that’s when he raised the gun aimed at Rann’s legs and pulled the trigger. Hearing the trigger but not the hammer releasing, in that split second, Rann was on him, knocking the gun to one side with the palm of his hand and bringing his foot up hard into the African’s chin, knocking his head back and taking him clean off his feet, landing back in the mirror glass behind him. Leaning over as he landed to pick up the gun, Rann held it in his hand as he walked carefully towards the side of the bed where he’d sent the kid flying to see him lying there on the ground, still holding the pangar with which he’d missed Rann and killed his friend—its blade now stuck deep in his side.