by Jon Mills
“But you are entitled to ten minutes.”
“I don’t want it.”
Gimpy nodded, and shuffled over to Pope. Pope looked at Jack and a big smile appeared. He gave a nod and the announcer informed the crowd that the fights would continue. Of course the ticket holders erupted with applause.
The next two fights followed suit to the first. While each opponent took a different approach, they all made the fatal mistake of letting their emotions get the better of them. Game plans went out the window and as ego took over, Jack capitalized on it in brutal fashion. As he finished his third opponent he glanced over at Pope. Gone was the smug smile, in its place a look of fear. Was it the same expression he had before he ordered his men to attack Tyson? God, he hoped so.
Before the final fight, Gimpy came over to Jack and tried to convince him that a break might be worth taking for who he was about to go up against.
Some of the crowd began to chant, “Duke. Duke. Duke!”
“If I were you I would take the break.”
Jack took a sip of water then poured the rest over his head, drenching his T-shirt.
“Let’s go.”
“Are you sure?”
Gimpy nodded, a concerned expression masking his face as he stepped into the center of the room and announced the fight would continue. Like any great announcer he gave a stellar performance introducing Jack, and then an even better one for the fighter they called Duke. Tyson had already filled him in on how dangerous he was, and how quickly he’d handled Nicky, but words didn’t do the man justice. The crowd didn’t need to divide for Jack to see him; he was head and shoulders above the tallest in the room.
“Duke. Duke. Duke!” The chants continued as he stepped forward, a skull bandanna covering the lower half of his face. He removed it to reveal a horribly deformed face, the result of a burn.
Jack scanned the room to make sure Spike still had the suitcase. Sure enough he was right there beside Pope. Though now Pope and Spike had melted into the crowd as if they were considering bolting if he won.
The fight commenced and Duke came forward but unlike the others he didn’t throw punches or kicks, he just walked towards Jack, fearless and convinced the outcome would be the same as before.
Jack launched into a spinning kick, striking him square in the gut. It was like kicking a steel wall. He bounced off him and Duke grinned. Jack shot in firing jabs and hooks that knocked him back but never enough to rattle him.
There were few people he’d fought like him over the course of his life.
Oh, Jack had encountered his fair share of battle-hardened men but those he couldn’t drop with fists he usually could with chains, knives, guns, any object within his reach. This wasn’t like showing up to collect on a debt where all the rules were off the table. The only weapon he had was himself.
A loud yell came from Duke’s corner and like a light switch turning on, he lunged forward striking Jack with one hell of a blow to the face. Jack stumbled back to the floor, but immediately got up as Duke continued his attack, firing kicks at him.
Every connection was like being hit with a battering ram.
Holy shit, Jack thought as he tried his best to weather the tornado of blows.
He felt like a rag doll being tossed around. For every strike he managed to land, Duke unleashed a furious flurry of steroid-fueled punches and kicks. For a brief moment Duke stepped back while Jack nursed a split lip, and a bleeding nose. His head felt like it was swelling from the onslaught. One of his eyes was swelling, making it hard to see. One knee and hand on the cage floor, he cast a glance to Pope who was beaming. But it wasn’t Pope he saw, it was Roy Gafino. He saw a man that relished in torture, a man who had taught him to show no mercy, a man that had formed his character from a young age. Hatred rose up in the belly of Jack, a fire that had gained him the nickname of “The Butcher.” It welled to the surface, like an old friend. Jack spat blood on the floor and got up again. The crowd went wild, thirsty for more.
Duke cast a glance over his shoulder, an absent expression before turning to face him. As they studied each other, Eddie Carmine’s words came back to him.
Even the strongest trees can fall when you know where to strike.
There were no rules on what could be done inside the cage. Regular punches and kicks were having no effect on this man. His skin was like leather, his bones as strong as steel except he was still a man. Of that Jack was convinced if only by the rage that was similar to his own. And if Jack could bleed, so could he.
Jack pressed forward and Duke gave a nod as if accepting the challenge.
Except this time Jack didn’t throw a punch, or a kick to the stomach as before, instead he began hacking away at the three areas that were most vulnerable on a man of his build — the feet, the knees and his nuts. He kept his distance and used his foot like a pickaxe, stabbing in and out, and then kept moving. He saw Duke wince, again, then again. The side of the leg area just above the knee was prime real estate for bringing even the tallest to their knees. Jack slammed the heel of his foot down on the top of Duke’s foot, backed out, ducked a punch, slipped around him and fired one into his nuts from behind. He also kicked the tendons at the back of the leg and as Duke buckled, he followed through with another kick to the tailbone. It was these areas, though small and seemingly insignificant, that caused extreme pain.
The cheering for Duke gradually faded as the crowd saw the beast of a man wince, groan and finally break. All attempts at this point to try to grapple with Jack were pointless. He staggered forward, pain shooting through his body, and if the expression on his face eased for even a second, Jack repeated the same again though changing up where, and how he did it. Slowly some of the crowd began chanting his name and a ripple effect spread out over the knot of people.
Jack caught the look on Pope’s face. Defiance, horror, rage. It was all there. All the signs of someone about to lose an excessive amount of money.
A few hard blows to the knee and Duke could no longer stand. His right leg gave out from beneath him, and Jack took advantage of it — this time charging forward and firing off a knee to his face. As soon as he landed, and twisted to get back up, Jack was on him like a boa constrictor wrapping himself around the back of him and gripping his neck in a chokehold. Duke fought for control, pulling at Jack’s arms, but he’d locked himself in, strapped himself on even as Duke rose to his feet and flailed around in a desperate attempt to survive. Fifteen to twenty seconds and he would lose consciousness, and two to four minutes and he’d be dead.
Jack felt his body go limp and he could have killed him but that’s what Pope would have wanted, and he won the money whether Duke lived or died. Even as Jack pulled tightly on the man’s neck contemplating finishing him he looked over to Pope and then released his hold. Duke’s body flopped to one side and Jack rolled off him to a triumphant roar of cheers. Had some of those cheering for him lost money? Without a doubt but judging by the class of people in attendance, money meant nothing to them.
But to Pope, it was everything.
Jack breathed hard trying to catch his breath.
He rose to his feet. Gimpy came into the center to announce Jack the winner, he motioned to Spike and although Pope looked hesitant, he couldn’t lose face in front of his paying customers and colleagues. Jack was counting on that. Pope gave a nod and Spike squeezed through the crowd, unlocked the handcuff and reluctantly presented the winnings.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” he said to Spike who glared at him before returning to Pope’s side. Corks from bottles of champagne were popped, and a glass was offered to Jack but he waved it off. Several businessmen handed him cards and told him to call them, offering to make him a wealthy man. But none of that mattered. Jack knew the highs and lows of money but without Dana it mattered little.
“Mr. Weslo. Mr. Weslo!” Pope hollered through the noise of music as he made his way back to the elevators. Jack turned.
“That was an impressive comeback. You s
hould stick around, celebrate. I’m sure there are many people here who would love to meet you.”
“We’re done.” Jack turned away but then stopped. “Oh, and that goes for Tyson,” Jack said.
Pope chuckled. “He works for me.”
“Not anymore,” Jack replied jabbing the button for the elevator. He tossed Pope a sideways glance and waited for the elevator to come up.
Spike put a hand near his jacket as if reaching for a gun, and Pope stopped him, shaking his head. “You know, Mr. Weslo, this evening I received news that employees of mine were found murdered.”
He stared at him as if expecting Jack to confess; instead Jack stepped into the empty elevator, and threw back the same words Pope had used when referring to Tyson.
“What a shame. Terrible world, isn’t it?”
Jack smiled, tapped the elevator button and the doors slid closed.
The look on Pope’s face was priceless.
Chapter 25
The elevator jerked to a stop somewhere between floors seventeen and sixteen. The lights shut off and Jack found himself enveloped in a blanket of darkness, staring up at where the glowing numbers were previously counting down. Although he knew Pope was pissed, and expected blowback from winning the fight, killing his men and disrespecting him, he couldn’t rule out that this wasn’t just a simple malfunction. Though it didn’t take long to begin to think the worst.
Jack listened carefully. He thought he could still hear the faint sound of music. He climbed up and pushed up the escape hatch that led into the shaft. High above he could see the faint glimmer of light seeping through the cracks of the upper elevator doors, and hear the sound of music. There was still power but not in the shaft.
He expected Pope to try something; he just hadn’t anticipated this.
Jack shoved the suitcase full of money up through the hatch, and hauled himself into it. The elevator shifted ever so slightly, and the cables holding it from dropping to the thirteenth floor wobbled like thick piano strings.
There was no ladder in the shaft as most maintenance could be done from on top of the elevator car. The only way up was to climb the rails like a fire station pole but they were covered in grease and that meant he couldn’t carry up the suitcase.
He had no other choice than to jam it between the shaft rails and leave it there hidden by darkness, wedged in between metal and grease. Once done, Jack looked up, took a deep breath and began the precarious climb.
“Is that everyone?” Pope asked Spike.
“That’s all of them. We just loaded the last group into the elevators. They’ll be out of the building shortly.”
“Good.” Pope nodded, he wasn’t going to let that weasel slip away into the night telling him what to do, taking his money or more importantly making him look like a fool.
“As soon as the last one leaves, lock down the thirteenth to twenty-second floors. We’ll start the elevator again, and then I want our guys ready on the sixteenth floor. When the doors open, don’t kill him.” Pope jabbed his finger at Spike. “I want him alive.”
“And if he fights back, which he will?”
“Bruise, maim or break a bone but I want him alive, Spike.”
He nodded and took off with three men holding Glocks. Pope took a hard sip on his beer and tossed the bottle across the room. It shattered and he walked over to the large tinted window and looked over the city. He’d never been so insulted in his life. He hadn’t worked this hard, come this far to have some stranger walk in off the street and steal it out from underneath him.
As the last of the paying customers exited the building for the evening, Spike had the tower locked and contacted Pope by phone to let him know. In days gone by Pope would have let his crew send a message to anyone he disliked but this was personal. He wanted to humiliate him in front of his men the way he had been when news spread that Weslo was behind the death of some of his men. As for the money, he’d lost far more than what was given in winnings. He like many of his colleagues from surrounding cities had placed large wagers on Duke winning and now it was gone. He could recoup the financial loss but making him look like a fool, that was unforgiveable. He couldn’t have people think they could take out his men without punishment — what message did that send?
Now his remaining guys needed to see how he handled it.
Pope took off for the stairwell to join Spike on the sixteenth floor. He wanted to see the look on Weslo’s face when the doors opened and they dragged his sorry ass out and made him kneel.
Thick, pasty black grime gloved his hands as he struggled to climb up the slippery rails. Instead of exiting on the seventeenth floor he continued up one more floor. He figured if Pope was behind it, there would be men waiting and right now, with no weapon the odds were stacked against him. On a steel lip in front of the elevator doors on the eighteenth floor, Jack wiped his hands on his clothes before trying to pry open the jaws of steel by wedging the tips of his fingers between the crack. He had no idea who or what lay beyond but unless he got out of the shaft he was nothing more than a sitting duck. As fluorescent light flooded his face and he slipped his body through, he took a second to catch his breath. There was no one waiting for him on the other side but he figured that wouldn’t last. Jack pressed on down the corridor, sliding his back against the wall and trying his best to make no sound. He snuck into the stairwell only to hear the echo of voices, and boots heading his way. Jack peered over and saw four armed men. He dashed up two more floors to the twentieth and found himself in a darkened corridor with locked offices. He returned to the stairwell and was about to go up one floor when he heard a heavy fire door slam above him. There were men now coming down. Without a weapon, Jack grabbed the closest thing to him — a fire extinguisher from the wall. He went back into the twentieth floor and blended in with the darkness, taking cover behind a computer desk. He figured they would bypass his floor but as soon as he heard the door crack open and saw the beam of a flashlight illuminate the space, he knew they were searching for him.
“I want him found!” Pope yelled as he stormed out of the empty elevator car on the sixteenth floor. Spike had already told several of his guys to sweep every floor from thirteen to twenty-two. “He couldn’t have gone far.”
The building was not conducive for anyone to escape by climbing down the outside of the structure which meant he was on one of these floors and if he had to tear apart every office in this building he would find him.
He fished out his cell phone and contacted his men on the ground. “No one gets out. Lock every ground floor door. And do not kill. I want him alive.”
Jack wasn’t scared but he wasn’t comfortable either. He’d learned to use fear to his advantage, to ride the lightning so to speak, and often it was in these times his mind was the clearest. Whereas others would only deal with surface fears like money, relationships and health issues, his had always been life and death. And if Dana was gone, he wouldn’t care whether he lived or died. That was why he crouched in the dark and pulled the pin on the extinguisher and waited patiently. It was all about timing. If he could just take one of them out, he could get his hands on a gun and that would level the playing field.
“Eric, where the hell’s the light switch in here?” one of them said. Jack could only make out the silhouette of their figures against the backdrop of the night sky behind them. They were wrapped 360 degrees by tinted glass windows, and the floor itself was open with concrete pillars throughout. From what he could tell the office resembled a call center with computer desks and large gray divider privacy panels. The floors were carpeted, and there were lots of aisles. Jack had positioned himself behind a panel not far from the stairwell. He peered out and saw the bright white light sweep the tops of the offices.
“Right, he’s not in here. Let’s go.”
“Pope told us to search every floor.”
“I’m not risking my neck for that asshole.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that.”
Jack was
glad they were talking among themselves as it made it easier to stay undetected and ahead of them. He shifted position multiple times as one came close but then turned at the last second down another aisle.
As he moved again his foot caught on a panel and it let out a thud. Their immediate reaction was to unload rounds in his direction. Although it was dark and he was pretty sure they couldn’t see him, he stayed low and kept moving.
He knew now he had minutes.
One of them would alert the others and the whole floor would be crawling with them. Jack took an offensive approach and headed in the direction of the guy closest to him. He came up from behind and wielded the metal extinguisher like a battle axe. The guy turned just as he swung. It was too late. The hardened metal connected with his skull knocking him out instantly. Problem was the gun slipped out of his hand and Jack didn’t see which way it went. It was too damn dark in there.
Rounds erupted in his direction before he had a chance to search for it.
All Jack could do was hit the ground running still clasping the extinguisher.
Shit, he thought as he took cover behind a panel further down.
“Eric. Eric!” his pal yelled dashing over to where he’d last seen him. Jack knew that his reaction would be one of two: he would either come after him or head out and call for backup. More than likely it would be to call for backup, as he’d assume he was now in possession of a gun. Using this to his advantage, Jack crept up, closing the distance between the two of them while he was down checking his pal’s vitals. However, unlike his friend, he heard him approaching from behind and twisted around firing off several rounds. Jack lunged out of the line of fire, circled around and engaged the extinguisher. A large cloud of white powder exploded out, filling the air as he ran and aimed it in his direction. There was only one purpose behind this — to cause disorientation and confusion, giving him a way to get even closer without getting shot.