Rusty Puppy

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “I think maybe we ought to bring you inside.” I turned, and there was Coldpoint behind me with his handgun drawn. Our impulsiveness had caused us to lose focus, not wait until the man we knew was coming arrived.

  Now he had arrived.

  He was standing about five feet from me and he had the gun in one hand and an umbrella in the other hand, cocked against his shoulder. Rain ran off the umbrella and off my rain hood.

  “Know you’re pretty good with your hands and feet, you get up close, so let’s keep the distance the way it is. And the golf club, drop it. Go inside, and don’t give me shit. I want to shoot you anyway.”

  “The boys you hired failed you,” I said. “You ought to let it go at that.”

  “Maybe we can get some good out of you yet.”

  “I don’t do anal,” I said.

  “Go inside. I’m out of patience and I don’t have a sense of humor.”

  I went inside and there was Leonard, behind the crowd, filming with his cell phone. You couldn’t see the boxers, just the backs of people.

  Leonard glanced at me and Coldpoint.

  “Motherfucker,” he said.

  The crowd was so loud and involved they had yet to notice us.

  “Hey,” Coldpoint called out. “Back here.”

  What that led to was part of the crowd turning toward us, and coming out of it was Sheerfault. When he saw that Coldpoint had me at gunpoint, he smiled and showed his teeth wide as a piano row.

  Coldpoint pushed me until I was near Leonard. Now the crowd had moved toward us. They gathered about us and forgot the two fighters in the ring of wire, and the fighters were still at it, not having noticed they’d lost their audience.

  The crowd was tight around us now.

  Leonard touched his phone and then dropped his arm and held the phone against his leg. Sheerfault came over and took it without a struggle. Bobo shouldered his way through the onlookers and came to stand by Sheerfault.

  I glanced through a gap in the gathering, saw the two fighters had sat down in the ring, arms around one another to keep from toppling over.

  “What we have here,” Coldpoint said, “is a predicament.”

  “What you have here,” I said to the crowd, “is a crime in progress. You folks don’t want to be part of it, you ought to hike out, get away from this asshole and his ass hairs.”

  No one moved.

  Sheerfault said, “That little speech wasn’t very persuasive, was it.” He turned toward Leonard. “What’s with you, nigger, all out of smartass remarks?”

  “Reached my monthly quota,” Leonard said. “Next month I’ll start up again.”

  “Always a clown, even to the last,” Sheerfault said.

  “You got clown-ass-whipped, is what you got,” Leonard said. “I made you my bitch.”

  Sheerfault stepped toward Leonard. Coldpoint said, “Stop right there. Enough of this shit.”

  Sheerfault paused.

  “Naw, let him come on,” Leonard said. “He does best when there’s a gun involved. He needs an edge.”

  “You shut up too or I’ll drill Hap’s spine,” Coldpoint said. He sounded amazingly like a child on the playground who had just responded to being called a stupid-head.

  Leonard went quiet. I could tell from the look on his face it was painful to do so.

  “Just so you know,” Coldpoint said, “the cop outside that little girl’s room, I think he’s going to come out poorly.”

  He let that comment hang in the air.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Leonard said.

  “It means I got some folks going to pay him and the girl a visit. It means he probably won’t be around when morning comes, and neither will the girl. Anyone gets in the way, I’ve sent two of the best to surprise them. The two Roscoe sent were not so good.”

  “All niggers,” Sheerfault said.

  “Shut up,” Coldpoint said.

  “Don’t get all sophisticated now,” Leonard said. “Stick to what you really are. And let me tell you, that cop and that girl, anything happens to them, I’ll skin you, starting with your dick. If you have one.”

  “But I haven’t given my pair the word yet,” Coldpoint said. “I’m waiting until a little later. I can move things forward, I have to. Make it happen sooner. My men, they are very good at what they do. These two”—he nodded at Sheerfault and Bobo—“not so much.”

  “Hey,” Sheerfault said.

  The man with the shotgun snickered.

  “You best get hold of yourself,” Sheerfault said to him. “I know where your big ass lives.”

  Shotgun man went silent, turned red-faced.

  The lady judge, well dressed and out of place, said, “Wait a minute. Are we talking about killing someone?”

  “Like it hasn’t happened before,” Coldpoint said. “Don’t get self-righteous now, Jill. None of you. You all are part of this, and we got enough stuff on all of you, you say a word, we all go down. Way down.”

  The judge maybe wasn’t as far to the right of Attila as some suggested, but she was far enough to know when to go along to get along. She swallowed heavily, dipped her head so that her brown teased hair caught the light and bounced off her hairspray. Then she sort of faded like the Invisible Woman. It was as if her personality had been pulled out of the top of her head and cast to the wind.

  “Might go easier on you if you did speak up,” I said. But that judge wasn’t hearing me. Her mind was drifting along somewhere on the River Styx.

  “Better wake up,” I said to her.

  Coldpoint hit me in the back of the head with the gun barrel. It dropped me to my knees and made me see double for a moment.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Coldpoint said. “All you people. All of you. You have gotten your hands dirty, and you’re going to get them dirty tonight, and for some of you it’ll be dirtier than before. But you think I don’t have your asses in my pocket, just try and rat on us. And here’s another thing, we may get some fine entertainment out of it.”

  “Will there be a pony?” Leonard said.

  He was ignored.

  “I like ponies.”

  I struggled to my feet.

  “You like ponies, Hap?”

  “Fuck the pony,” I said.

  “You two, get in that ring and fight,” Coldpoint said.

  “Not likely,” I said.

  “I think it’ll make for a good match,” Coldpoint said, “and here’s the thing: you don’t, the two at the hospital get dead.”

  “We do, they’ll get dead,” Leonard said.

  “I can let them live,” Coldpoint said. “I can work things out, I make that choice. It’s easier they die, but I can spare them. But not if you two don’t get in that ring.”

  “Bullshit,” Leonard said. “I’m not fighting Hap.”

  “Sure you are,” Coldpoint said.

  “Like we can trust your word,” Leonard said.

  “We ought to do,” I said.

  “What the fuck, Hap. He ain’t gonna spare nobody.”

  “I might,” Coldpoint said. “I will.”

  “I tell you this, I come out of here with arms and legs and my nuts swing, and either one of them people are dead, I’m coming after you,” Leonard said.

  “You said that already.”

  “I didn’t say I’m coming after all of you, though.”

  “Now you’ve said it. Get in the ring.”

  Leonard looked at me. I said, “It’s okay. Got to do what we got to do.”

  I could tell he got it then. No one else would have noted the subtle shift in his features, but I had. Brett had reinforcements coming. All we had to do was fight and stall.

  52

  They pulled the two fighters sitting on the ground out of there, and the big guy with the shotgun who had helped get them off the bus took them away. After a few moments he came back.

  “They’re on the bus,” he said to Coldpoint.

  Coldpoint nodded.

  Sheerfaul
t had opened the wire gate and was grinning at us. I really hated him. Bobo stood nearby, his mouth hanging open. I don’t know why, but in that moment, I felt sorry for the poor chucklehead. He was like a dog that belonged to bad people.

  Once we were inside the fencing, Sheerfault closed the gate. Coldpoint held up his hand. His phone was in it.

  “I get the sense you’re slacking, I call,” he said. “I only have to call. I don’t have to wait for anyone to answer. I call, and they go. You got that.”

  “We got it,” I said.

  “I better see some serious movement in there, and some hard hits,” Coldpoint said. “You can do anything you want to do, but you got to do it for real.”

  “Shit, Hap,” Leonard said.

  “I know,” I said.

  Leonard took off my slicker and hung it on the fence. I remembered he had a gun in the pocket of the slicker, but right then didn’t call for trying to shoot it out. Coldpoint and Sheerfault also had guns. And then there were the ones who got off the bus, brought the fighters in. What we had to do was steal some time.

  I took off my shirt, and Leonard took off his.

  “You boys been working out,” Coldpoint said.

  “Why, thank you,” I said. “Personally, I feel a little fat.”

  “Do it,” Coldpoint said. “Do it now. And be all in about it.”

  I let out my breath and took a deep one in. I said, “Watch for the low ones, Leonard. I cheat.”

  “Me too.”

  “Same alike,” I said.

  And now the world outside of the ring went away. We had to fight, and we had to keep at it until Brett hooked up Marvin and the others. As far as Coldpoint knew, there weren’t any cops about to be involved. Marvin had bearded them in his own den, made them feel foolish, but I was pretty sure that the way it looked to Coldpoint was two lone rogues had slipped up here to get proof of what was going on, and had fucked up and were going to pay for it.

  He was right about that last part, of course.

  Leonard and I sparred frequently, and we opened up a bit now and then, but not since many years ago, when we’d fought in a kickboxing tournament, but we had never truly gone for broke.

  So now we began to circle, and then I began to dance, skipping a little. Leonard grinned at me. He knew I was best when the other guy started, that I was a counterfighter in the ring, though less so on the street. We skipped around each other.

  Coldpoint said, “Get to it.”

  “Don’t cramp our styles,” Leonard said.

  And now Leonard moved, came fast, punched for my head. I nodded to the side and slipped the punch; another came, and I slipped that. He kicked out to my thigh with his right leg, the lead leg, and I lifted my leg and sloughed it off and came at him with a push off my back leg. He was ready for that, knowing I can get off the line faster than him, and knowing my hands were faster, and me knowing he was deceptive and could hit like a mule kicks if a mule was turbo-powered. We clashed a bit, and I grabbed him around the neck and we came in close, him hitting me in the stomach a couple of light shots. I leaned my head in, said, “Make it look real. Lives are on the line.”

  He butted me. My nose sprayed blood. I tried to move back. He gave me a front kick to the midsection and then dove at me to grapple, but I rolled out of the way. He hit the ground and tumbled and came up and turned and I hooked him to the ribs and skipped back, more hurt than I was letting on. My head rocked and I couldn’t breathe. I could hardly hold my body upright, that midsection kick having taken my wind and polished the inside of my backbone.

  He gave me a concerned look. He knew that had been pretty damn real, but I gave a gentle nod, not only to let him know I was okay but that what he did was fine. We had to keep it moving, had to keep it real, had to buy Brett and Marvin time.

  Now we came together again and Leonard darted a jab, but I double-palmed his arm, kind of climbed it on the outside, and hit him with a ridge hand in the jaw. It was a damn good shot and sent him flying backward. He hit on his back, and damn if he didn’t do a back roll and come up on his feet. He looked at me, grinned, and spat a wad of blood in the dirt.

  The crowd was going now, cheering, and I was thinking how weird that was. They were loving what we were doing, and when we were done we’d take shots to the head and be slipped into the sawdust pool, and the ones we were trying to protect at the hospital would be dead, but for now they loved us, two pit bulls in the ring, fighting.

  I bobbed and weaved, mostly just to give some show, and me and Leonard eased together. He faked a right and caught me with that goddamn cannon-hot hook in the ribs again. I felt something move inside of me that wasn’t my last meal. I grabbed at Leonard, trying to pin his arms, and then in that moment, years of training, years of having been in sport battles and real battles linked together, and I just became a man in a ring with another man, not my brother but a fighter. Punches and low kicks were thrown, and one of those low kicks caught me inside the thigh, and without even knowing it was about to happen, I collapsed to one knee. Leonard leaped on me like a giant angry toad, knocking me onto my back. He straddled me and I bumped him. It rolled him on his side. I tried to slip away, but he was on top of me again, straddling me, raining blows on my head. I deflected them with my hands, caught one of his arms, pulled it to me, and tried to throw a leg up and around his neck, going for a triangle hold, but this wasn’t Leonard’s first rodeo either. He leaned into me and that gave him room to bend his arm a little, and I couldn’t hold him. He grabbed my neck with one hand and used his other hand to shove a thumb into the notch in my throat and pressed down.

  I lost my grip on his arm, and he grabbed my arm in turn. He swung his body and threw himself back into a lying arm bar, and if he was holding back any I couldn’t tell it. Like me he was caught up in the moment. But his grasp wasn’t firm. I wiggled free, got to my feet, and so did he.

  We threw fist and hammer fist, and close in I palmed him under the chin, and I was sick when it hit, because it was a solid strike, and I could see I had him staggered, and now I knew he was mine, and if I stopped, the phone call would be made, so I started in, threw some solid punches, but not too solid. Had to make it last. But then I realized Leonard was playing possum. He dropped suddenly and spun around close to the ground with an extended leg and swept my feet out from under me.

  I came up immediately, but let me tell you, the lights seemed fuzzy and my heart seemed weak, and every move I made was no less trouble than trying to climb a greased pole.

  Leonard kicked again; I slid past the kick and grabbed him around the waist, shifted my body, and threw him over my hip. He hit the ground hard. I heard the air go out of him. But as was his manner, he came back from it quickly. He probably couldn’t breathe, but he could still move. He rolled and came up and then we exchanged kicks. I couldn’t tell you if I hit him or if he hit me because I was out of it. I was beyond pain. I felt myself going numb all over, and then I heard something I thought was familiar, but in my state I couldn’t identify it.

  “The law,” Leonard said.

  And then I knew. It was sirens.

  There was a mad rush toward the door. The crowd had panicked.

  I put my hands on my knees and bent over. I felt faint. Leonard stepped in and got hold of me and straightened me up. All of a sudden, things switched and it was me holding him up.

  He said, “I take it back, what I said once about you being fast but not able to hit hard. You hit hard.”

  “And you’re faster than you look.”

  “We aren’t going to do that again under any circumstances,” Leonard said.

  “I hear that,” I said.

  Coldpoint, Sheerfault, and Bobo were trotting toward the front of the building, the last ones out, but then Coldpoint turned and came back toward us with his gun held forward. I guess he figured he was going to go ahead and take us out.

  Leonard had gotten hold of his jacket now, and he brought out his gun. Coldpoint stared a moment, made a sour face,
turned and ran out of the door and into the rain, stood in the opening holding his phone. He pressed it, gave us a shit-eating grin, and ran out of sight.

  “Chickenshit,” Leonard yelled after him.

  53

  Me and Leonard got our shit together enough to head out of the fencing, across the mill, and out of the door. The crowd broke and was running in every which direction. Some of them were trying to climb the hill Leonard and I had come down.

  I picked up the golf club I had been forced to drop, and soon after one of the guards came running by, heading for the back of the mill, hoping for a way out. He was the one with the shotgun, and he still had it, but he tossed it into the weeds as he passed. Or almost passed. I swung the club as he came near, caught him alongside the jaw and sent teeth flying.

  “Fore,” I said as the big man hit the dirt.

  The rain had grown more fierce and was cold on my head and neck and was soaking through my clothes. I don’t know how Aquaman takes it. I saw Coldpoint running toward his car. What was his plan now? Drive to Mexico? Go home and shoot himself?

  No plan he could come up with would be any good.

  “I’m going to see I can find Sheerfault,” Leonard said.

  “Good. I got Coldpoint.”

  I splashed along through puddles after him. He was running toward the line of parked cars, but there was no help there. Cruiser lights strobed through the wet night. At the bottom of the road, cruisers were blocking the way out. Highway Patrol and all manner of law were out of their cars and coming up the drive in a herd of law enforcement cloaked in black slickers, their pistols drawn. I could see them nabbing runners left and right, throwing them on the ground and yelling for them to stay put.

  I was twenty feet away from Coldpoint when he realized he had no way to go forward, turned and came back in my direction, saw me. He decided in that instant he was going to at least shoot me before all was said and done. His lifted the pistol. I swung the club hard and let it go. It sailed across the distance between us, almost invisible in the rain and the night, caught Coldpoint somewhere in the face. I heard him grunt like a constipated man trying to pass a football, and the pistol went up in the air, and he fell onto the ground and rolled up against one of the parked cars.