TKO

by Tom Schreck

  Gunner’s face was streaked in his own blood and he fell face down. I could hear him choke on the combination of his own blood and the mud.

  “WASABIIII!!!!!”

  My head was spinning and I couldn’t control my breathing, but I looked up in time to see Billy heading toward Mitchell, who was still holding the gun. While he was distracted by Gunner’s demise, Billy jumped into a flying spinning axe kick, but he misjudged Mitchell’s distance and fell on his back. Mitchell had raised his arm in defense, and though Billy’s kick landed him on his ass, the bell-bottoms of his ninja suit had caught Mitchell’s hand and he lost the gun.

  Now, it was me and Mitchell, just as I had spent the last month hoping for.

  “C’mon, motherfucker. You’re about to take a beating from one of life’s big losers,” I said.

  Mitchell circled me with his hands in a karate pose. I had my guard up in a boxing stance and ready.

  Mitchell skipped in to throw a front kick to my groin. I pivoted left and took it on the muscle of my thigh like I did every day when Al lunged at my nuts. I used the pivot for leverage and drilled a left hand straight down the pipe onto Mitchell’s nose. I heard the familiar crackle of cartilage and he instinctively reached up to hold it. As the blood poured out him, I drilled him with a body combination.

  He came back with an elbow to my temple that wobbled me a bit, and he stepped in with a chop aimed at my neck. I recovered in time and stopped him with a jab to his broken nose that I could tell hurt him. I finished with a straight left that he was able to block, and he countered me with his own hook.

  This time my recoil was perfectly in place and I blocked it with my left and immediately drilled him on the point of the jaw with that same left. His head snapped around and he was out before he hit the ground.

  Smitty would’ve been proud.

  41

  I told Billy to cut Howard loose and to tape Mitchell up to the tree, then we all got in the SUV and headed across the brush. Howard looked like he was in shock and he didn’t say a word while Billy was talking nonstop. I didn’t hear any of it because all I could think about was that pit bull’s jaws tearing poor Al to death.

  Harter’s cell phone was fastened to the dashboard and I used it to call AJ’s. Kelley wasn’t going to be happy, but this went way beyond pissing him off. The SUV banged and bumped across the muddy field and it didn’t handle the terrain anything like it did on the TV commercials. It was a fifteen-minute ride and my heart was racing faster than the engine was.

  I skidded the SUV to a stop in time to hear the fit of barking. I instructed Billy to drive toward town and look for the police. Harter had the lights on and the meditation garden was all lit up. From the distance, I could see that Al was running around and around with Seagal chasing him, growling and showing his teeth the whole way. I ran to the fence and took a running leap onto it and scaled it as fast as I could. I got toward the top and saw the layers upon layers of razor wire that would shred my hands and arms if I went through it.

  I heard myself yell “Shit!” and Al stopped to look up at me while the pit charged him with its jaws wide open. At the last split second Al started to run again and for whatever reason, maybe his own sense of flight or fight, he started running all crazy zigzagging around the stone garden. The pit bull was athletic and mean but it didn’t have Al’s ability to change direction and Al had him baffled with his open-field maneuvers. Unfortunately, this just fueled the pit’s anger.

  I knew there was no way Al could keep this pace up for long and I struggled to the razor wire, slicing my index finger pretty good in the process. Al was barking and his ears were flapping as he barely evaded the pit’s charges. I looked close at Al as the razors got caught in my jeans, and it dawned on me that Al didn’t look scared and he didn’t look angry. The crazy-ass hound looked like he was playing a game.

  Al stopped suddenly and skidded on the stones with the pit bull dead straight ahead of him at a distance of less than ten feet. Al barked, almost baiting him, and waited for his charge. I screamed to Al to run and he waited to the last second, taking off with the pit literally right behind him. Al was heaving for air as he switched directions, and the pit bit the very end of his tail. He was closing ground on Al and snapping his jaws when Al ran around the Buddha.

  It appeared Al was losing his breath and starting to slow down on his third trip around the Buddha. I pulled hard to free a leg and the razors cut through one leg of my jeans. It cut me but I had one leg free. My heart felt like it was in the back of my throat as Al started another trip around the Buddha at a much slower speed. He was tiring out.

  The pit bull wasn’t and he got past Al’s tail and jumped toward Al’s shoulders to bring him down. There was no way Al could survive a dogfight with this animal. The pit bull jumped to tackle Al and Al leaped too, but as he did, he took a mid-air, ninety-degree turn like he would in the Moody Blue. The pit bull tried to follow but as Al ducked his low-flying frame under one of the stone benches in front of the Buddha, the pit bull came in high.

  The pit bull’s head cracked just like my shin on a coffee table, except he was flying from a distance of ten feet and the bench was made of solid granite.

  The pit bull’s head split open and the dog collapsed a few feet from the bench that Al was now safely tucked under. I pulled my second leg through the razor and I was now cut all up and down my legs and over my hands, but I pulled myself through and fell the fifteen feet down to the stones, landing on my back. I got up and charged the door to the steel building to find Harter. The door flew open before I could get there, and there stood Harter in front of what looked like some very sophisticated lab equipment.

  He was holding a gun and had it pointed at my head.

  42

  “I have to admit, Duffy, you impress me,” Harter said. “Of course, now I’m going to kill you.”

  “The thing I want to know is how much you knew about Gunner,” I said.

  “Gunner?”

  “Abadon. He went by the name Gunner when he was doing this in other places. Did you know he was the slayer and didn’t care, or was he able to keep that from you?”

  “That’s not for you to know, Duffy—man you’re an inquisitive pain in the ass.”

  “As long as you got your steroids.”

  “Shut up—I’m tired of listening to you. Move!” With his gun, he motioned me inside the steel building and shut the door. I could hear Al barking from outside.

  “Your dog doesn’t ever fucking shut up, does he? After I take care of you, I’ll quiet him down forever,” he said.

  “Al’s got more balls than you’d ever dream of having—you fucking pussy,” I said.

  Al kept barking and barking and barking.

  Behind Harter there were blinking lights, heaters, refrigerators, and all sorts of equipment. This wasn’t your average bathtub crank lab. Gunner had thrown some cash into his operation.

  Harter moved over to a beaker filled with a cloudy liquid.

  “You know, Duff, this is hydriodic acid, and it burns skin all the way down to the bone.” He paused to smile. “It will give your face a distinctive look in the casket.”

  He carefully placed the gun down on the counter and picked up some long rubber gloves. He picked up the beaker of acid and smiled again. Then, with the gun in the other hand, he walked toward me.

  I scanned the room and saw the door that led to the meditation garden and the single smoked window on the other side of the building. To get to the window I’d have to somehow get past Harter, the gun, and the acid. To make it to the door I’d have to outrun a bullet.

  Through it all, Al kept barking outside and it kept annoying Harter.

  “I hate that fucking dog. I’m going to enjoy pouring acid on him,” he said.

  Then a loud bang rocked the other side of the building. Harter’s head s
napped around and he put down the beaker but held on to his gun. A few seconds passed and another bang came on the same side of the building … then another.

  “Don’t move,” Harter said, and he headed to the window.

  Another metallic bang slammed the side of the building.

  Harter raised his gun in his right hand as he waited by the window.

  Another bang.

  Harter’s attention was on the banging, and it gave me a second to think. He cocked his right arm and readied it to fire. He unlocked the window just as another bang slammed the building.

  Harter threw open the window with his gun drawn but was startled by another face staring straight at him from a six-inch distance. The startle was all the delay the man needed, and he raised the steel spear and jammed it with all of his force through Harter’s throat. The gun discharged over Harter’s head and the bullet smashed through a series of lab bottles.

  The spear went through one side of Harter’s throat and came out the other end. He spun around, his face a horrible mask of pain as blood curdled out of his mouth and throat. In the window was the redheaded face of Howard Rheinhart.

  A smell rose in the room and I didn’t want to hang around for the chemistry lesson. I opened the door and scooped up Al, who was still barking himself hoarse, stepped over Harter, and stuffed Al through the window on the other side. I climbed through the window to see Howard and Billy waiting for me. Billy had a pile of rocks in front of him.

  “Let’s go! It’s going to blow!” I screamed and the four of us ran as hard and as fast as we could to the marsh. In less than thirty seconds we had made it a couple of hundred yards when the series of cascading explosions started. There were four or five little ones that ripped into a final big one, and the whole steel compound blew up in a fiery greenish-yellow ball.

  The night lit up with a series of fireworks and the air was filled with a putrid stench.

  “Fellas, this is going to be one of the biggest understatements you’ll ever hear,” I said. “Thanks.”

  I took turns hugging the two of them while Al howled in song.

  Howard smiled for the first time ever in my presence.

  “It’s nice to know I still got it,” he said.

  The three of us laughed so hard it hurt.

  43

  It wasn’t long after the fireworks that the police came … and the FBI … and the U.S. Marshals. Then, within seconds, it was the news and the media with satellite trucks and reporters and camera people. There was crime-scene tape, there were detectives with notepads, there were crime-scene investigators—you name it. If they had a badge, a pen, or a camera, they were there. Thank God, Kelley pulled up in his cruiser.

  They got Mitchell off the tree Billy taped him to and took him away in a paddy wagon, and they interviewed the three of us, first separately and then together. We talked to federal guys, state guys, and the local guys. Kelley stayed with us during each of the interviews and helped with the questions. For a short period of time, they had Howard in cuffs and were reading him his rights, but after a lot of explaining and, I mean a lot of explaining, they uncuffed him and told him to stay in town and check in with parole later that day.

  The blown-apart laboratory, the weapons, the dead pit bull, Mitchell’s arrest, and the chemical and blood tracings left in Abadon’s vehicles stacked the evidence, and it was pretty clear we were the heroes not the villains. When there was a break in all the interviewing and interrogating, there was a moment when it was just Kelley and the three of us.

  “Fellas, you mind if I have a word alone with Duff?” Kelley said.

  We walked about fifteen feet away and out of earshot, at least temporarily, from everyone else.

  “You’re fuckin’ nuts, you know that?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “This shit’s going to hit you hard eventually, you know.”

  “Yeah, I realize that.”

  “You going to be all right?”

  “Nothing that a Schlitz and the love of a fine basset hound won’t cure.”

  Kelley just shook his head and walked back to his cruiser.

  Late that afternoon they let us go. I had told everything I knew and how if it wasn’t for Billy Cramer and Howard Rheinhart, I’d be dead. Billy’s mom came and got him at the police station. She was crying and all disheveled and sick with worry. She looked at me, taking me for the lunatic that I am, and went to hurry Billy away. I broke away from whatever cop was processing my paperwork at that moment and ran to catch up with them.

  “Whoa, whoa … just a second, Mrs. Cramer,” I said.

  “Please, let us go home,” she said.

  “Just a second.” I stopped and looked Billy right in the eye. “Kid, you saved my life,” I extended my hand and he shook it. It wasn’t enough though, and I pulled him to me and hugged him.

  “It was a pleasure, sir,” Billy said.

  “Oh God, we have to go—,” Billy’s mom said, and she ran down the corridor with him.

  That left me and Howard and Al, and we left together with Kelley as an escort. The reporters were waiting for us outside and they crowded us and shouted questions, but we forced past them and got in Kelley’s cruiser and headed home. The three of us were in the back seat with Al sitting on my lap, and I believe the complete exhaustion hit us. We were silent for most of the ride to Howard’s halfway house and Kelley pulled into his driveway. Howard had his hand on the door to get out, but he stopped and put his head down.

  “Duff,” he said. “Why?”

  “Why what?” I said.

  “Why did you come for me? Even after Abadon made me confess, you still kept after me. With my history, why would you do that?”

  “I guess everyone deserves a second chance, Howard.”

  Howard nodded, though I’m not sure he believed me. He got out and headed toward his front door. Kelley threw it in reverse and started to back down the driveway when I asked him to stop. I lowered the window.

  “Hey, Howard,” I said, and he turned.

  “You saved my life, you know,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said and then headed inside.

  Kelley dropped Al and me off, and I grabbed a beer and filled Al’s dish. The beer went down easy, as did the next four or five and maybe more. I’m not sure because I went to sleep and slept hard for I don’t know how long.

  The deadness of the sleep was overtaken by a vivid image of a huge Abadon head with rivers of blood pouring out of every hole in his head and all over me. I awoke and I felt cold, and when my head cleared I noticed I was trembling all over. The last mess I stuck my head into gave me nightmares for a long time. Here we go again, I thought to myself.

  The idea of sleep didn’t much appeal to me, though it didn’t seem to lose its appeal at all with Al. He was on his back with all four legs pointing straight up and his head cocked to one side, both ears acting as an eye mask. Pain in the ass that he was, I couldn’t imagine a better friend.

  I made coffee and flipped on the TV, but stayed far away from any channel that could have possibly reported any news. I didn’t read the paper but I sat down to watch a Classic SportsCentury feature on Greg Louganis. I was exhausted and found myself unable to think of anything.

  An hour or so later Al stirred, shook the drool out of his mouth and onto my bedspread, and joined me on the couch. We sat for a while but I was really struggling with just sitting, so I threw Al in the car and headed for the park. It made sense to give Al a chance to unwind and for both of us to head someplace outside of the walls of the Blue.

  We took a leisurely stroll through the park, and I noticed that the cuts and scratches all over my body stung as my body moved. We came up on the dog park and I wanted to sit and stop the stinging. The snooty brunette and her Corgi were there though at
first I didn’t see them because she was on her back on her yoga mat with headphones. The Corgi was sitting alone in the fenced-in dog run.

  Al took notice and started to pull hard on the leash. I struggled to keep him under control because I didn’t really want to take shit from the blue-blooded, uppity yogi. Al looked up at me and it dawned on me that with what I’d been through and what Al had been through, who was I to worry about a snooty chick, especially one with headphones on with her eyes closed.

  I put my hand over my lips to shush Al and it worked. It never had before, but to Al the stakes were probably never like this before either. I lifted Al, which made my whole body feel like it was ripping and plopped him over the side of the fence. I avoided the gate because it was too close to my meditating friend to chance it.

  Al wasted no time and headed right over to his own cute brunette. He sniffed for a while and in turn let himself be sniffed. Then, without even a Barry White soundtrack to set the mood, Al let loose with the Allah-King love-tron.

  I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen a basset hound make love to a Corgi, but if you haven’t, don’t rush to. Al was using muscles I’ve never seen him use before, and I swear his brown eyes rolled back just before he closed them for his final drives. Apparently, Al had it going on because Ms. Corgi started to bark in what I could only imagine was some sort of canine bliss. Good for Ms. Corgi, not good for her yogasizing mother and unfortunate for me.

  “Oh my God, Matisse!” she screamed. “What has he done to you?”

  Al, meanwhile, kind of slumped down in the middle of the park and looked at me like he wanted a Kool Menthol. Matisse ran toward her traumatized mother with what I thought was an extra little spring in her short step.

  “You pig, you, you, you … keep that thing away from my Matisse!” she continued to yell, her face flushed and her hair coming out of place. I wondered what happened to her meditative state.