by J. R. Rain
“No thanks to you.”
A few stragglers pulled in. Twelve bikes total. Plus or minus one or two. And only one of me. I closed my solitaire game.
“Get out,” I said again.
“He’ll kill me.”
“I guess you could say you asked for it.”
“I thought you were going to protect me.”
“I can’t protect someone from their own stupidity.”
“Look, I’m sorry. He said he would...” and here, she looked away and buried her face in her hands, “hurt my sister if I didn’t tell him where I was.”
“No he didn’t.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“I am.”
I waited. From outside I heard muffled voices in between the sounds of sputtering Harleys.
“Okay, fine. I don’t have a sister. I’m sure you know that. I’m sure you checked me out totally.”
“Get out.”
“Fine, I made a mistake. I miss him, okay?”
“Not okay. Get out.”
She sat forward on the couch, her knees together. She was wearing torn jeans that might have been bought that way. These days, it was hard to tell for sure. The jeans were tucked into Ugg boots that looked well used. She glanced toward the office door that wasn’t locked.
“You can’t make me go out there.”
“I can and I will.”
“Oh, I see.” She sat back. “You’re scared. I should have figured. You heard the Harleys and got scared. You’re a chickenshit.”
“It was bound to happen,” I said. “Now get out.”
“I should have never come here.”
“I agree.”
“Steel Eye will kill you, too.”
“Or not.”
Someone gunned his Harley and Camry jumped and squealed a little. She looked at her cell phone for no reason.
“Please don’t make me go out there. Please.”
“We’ve already been through this.”
Footsteps appeared on the exterior stairs that led up to my office. Heavy boots, if I had to guess. Camry sat forward. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”
Harleys were still sputtering and grumbling outside. I heard laughter. Voices. Boots crunching. Mostly, I heard three or four sets of them coming up.
“Oh, fuck,” she said, and to her credit, she looked pale as hell.
“You can say that again.”
The climbing boots were now moving along the outdoor hallway that led to the upstairs offices of which mine was proudly one.
“Steel Eye is crazy.”
“I’m sure he is, judging by your reaction.”
“Why don’t you seem nervous?”
“Maybe I am.”
“You should be.”
“I should be many things. But worried about your boyfriend isn’t one of them.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. Anymore.”
“You can tell that to him.”
“Why are you being like this? You said you would help me.”
“Help you, yes. Entertain you, no.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I’ll let you figure that out.”
I could hear distant voices now. Someone was asking which door. Someone else said, “It’s a few more doors down.”
Right about now, the bikers would be passing my accountant neighbor and the girl who gave “massages.” I was suspicious of the legality of her massages, but let it slide. It was, after all, good to be neighborly.
Camry was openly staring at me. “You think I did this on purpose, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“You think I wanted Steel Eye to show up here?”
“I do, yes.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?”
The heavy footfalls stopped outside my office door, although a few stragglers clomped from behind. I said, “I think you like it when guys fight over you.”
“You don’t know me.”
Someone pounded on the door.
“Shit,” said Camry. “Please. You have to help me.”
I said nothing. I didn’t like Camry, but I also didn’t like someone pounding on my office door. It seemed...rude.
“Who’s fucking in there?” shouted a voice that was, predictably, gruff.
I said to Camry, “Admit that you enjoy guys fighting over you.”
“What the hell are you talking—”
“Is that you, Camry? You fucking bitch. Get the fuck out here before I break this fucking door down.”
She looked at the door, then at me, and then made a face that might have indicated that she’d peed herself a little.
“He sounds scary,” I said, and shivered.
“Shit, okay, fine. I admit it.”
“You admit what?”
“I like it when guys fight.”
“And not just fight, right? Specifically, fight over you.”
“Yes, yes, dammit. I admit it. But a lot of fucking good that does now.”
“Oh, it does some good,” I said, pushing out from behind my desk. As I stood, I unlocked and opened my upper desk drawer and removed my Walther.
“What good?” she said, and her eyes visibly lit up when she saw the gun.
“It confirms you’re a bitch.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Then you’ll help me?”
“We’ll see,” I said.
“He’ll kill you,” said Camry as I reached for the doorknob and put the gun in the back of my waistband. I needed both hands.
“Something is going to kill me someday,” I said, and turned the doorknob while glancing back at her. “But it sure as hell isn’t going to be some jerkoff named Steel Eye.”
I opened the door.
* * *
I counted eleven of them. And only one of me. I liked my chances. Then again, I always liked my chances.
“Who the fuck are you?” asked the guy in front. The color in his right eye, I noted, was washed out, as if his iris had exploded from looking too hard at the sun.
“Your worst nightmare?” I said, my voice rising slightly. I made it sound like a question.
The guys behind him laughed. Most were over six feet. None were as tall as me. I noted Steel Eye’s complete lack of concern for me. It was easy to dismiss a six-foot-four, ex-fullback when ten guys stood behind you. At least, that was what I told myself, since my pride was hurt a little.
“Try again, fuck-wad,” said Steel Eye. He tried to see around me. That was hard for him to do with shoulders like mine. He gave up and looked up at me. “Let’s try this again. Who the fuck are you?”
The mahogany handle of a revolver projected from his jeans. Either that, or he was just happy to see me. The others, I saw, were packing, too. The guy in the back was holding a baseball bat. I looked at the sea of beards, worn blue denim and tattoos. I looked at the bad teeth and bad attitudes...and did what I thought any logical badass would do.
I grabbed Steel Eye by his meaty shoulders, pulled him into my office and slammed the door shut behind him.
Lucky for me, the door locked automatically.
* * *
It happened fast, and the big guy wasn’t expecting it.
He probably also wasn’t expecting to have his hairy face pressed up against the pebbled glass of the window of my office door. I was almost certain that he wasn’t expecting his gun to be forcibly removed from his pants or anticipating the sheer brute strength of the man presently pinning him to the office door.
Now, with his flared nostrils fogging the pebbled glass, I heard a cacophony of guns being drawn and hammers being pulled back. Mostly, I heard a whole lot of cussing and banging.
With one hand, I drew my own gun and held it on him. With the other, I pressed Steel Eye’s face harder than I probably had to against the glass. Any harder and I was certain his face would go through the glass. Undoubtedly, from outside, they got a good look at their leader’s distorted face and the shadow of a gun pointed at his head. Pebbled glass had that
lovely distortion effect.
“Tell them to back off,” I said. “Do it.”
“Fuck off.”
I pulled Steel Eye back and smashed him hard against the glass. I was risking breaking the glass. It was a risk I was willing to take. I’d never much liked pebbled glass anyway.
“Tell them to put away their guns and wait for you in the parking lot.”
“I’ll kill you, man. I’ll kill you dead.”
“Other than being redundant,” I said, grunting a little as I pulled him back a few feet, and then rammed his face into the glass. Something crunched. I may not have been an anatomist, but I was pretty sure I had broken his nose. That was, if the blood coating the pebbled glass was any indication.
“Oh, fuck man. You broke my nose!”
With my suspicions confirmed, I kept his face pushed hard against the glass... giving his buddies outside a good look at their esteemed leader’s blood sliding in rivulets down the glass.
“Tell them,” I said.
“Fuck you!”
The guy had spirit, which I broke with more pressure on the glass.
“The glass...it’s gonna fucking break.”
“I know a good glass man.” That was a lie, of course. Who actually knew good glass men?
“Okay, okay,” he said, or mumbled, since his mouth was also pressed against the glass.
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I’ll talk to them, goddammit.”
I eased the pressure off him and he spoke into the glass from a half inch away. “Bros, take a hike. I got this. Go on.”
I heard mumbling on the other side of the glass. The mumbling seemed to suggest that they didn’t quite believe that their venerated leader had this. In fact, he very much did not have this.
“Tell them to put their guns away too,” I said. “This is a respectable neighborhood.”
“Respectable my ass,” he said, but he told them to put their guns away. I heard more grumbling on the other side of the door. From what I gathered, few liked me, and fewer still liked the current direction in which things had gone.
Most still loitered on the other side of my door. I slammed Steel Eye against the glass again. “Tell them to wait downstairs.”
“Go on,” said Steel Eye. “Git!”
They “got,” cursing and lobbing threats at me. Threats were nothing new. Hell, I’d been threatened by the best.
When I heard the last of them tromp down the stairs, I released Steel Eye and stepped back. He turned wildly, dripping blood from his nose, bottom lip and chin. The drips joined the other bloodstains that sprinkled my carpet. Don’t ask.
He considered charging me until he saw me holding my piece. Or maybe he saw my shoulders. Or maybe he wasn’t as tough as he thought he was.
“Are you going to just stand there and bleed, or do you want to talk about why you’re here?”
“You’re a dead man.”
“That’s a start.” I glanced at Camry, who was sitting on the couch and not looking at us. I said to her, “Wait for it...”
“Fuck you,” said Steel Eye.
“There it is,” I said and turned back to him. “Have a seat, Steel Cheeks.”
Except he didn’t sit. He stood there bleeding and looking menacing, both of which he did well. I indicated the client chair in front of my tooled leather desk. The desk was one of the few luxury items I owned. That it was left by the previous tenant was irrelevant. Meanwhile, Steel Dick didn’t move.
“Take a seat,” I said.
We both looked at each other. He glared. I didn’t so much glare as gaze at him poignantly.
“Sit,” I said. “And if you say fuck you again, I’m going to punch your broken nose.”
He mumbled something about me being dead by this time tomorrow...but he came over and sat.
“I want my gun back.”
I put my own gun in my waistband and opened the file cabinet drawer. I half-cocked the hammer and emptied the six bullets in his revolver into the drawer and shut it. It was a pain because I needed two hands to rotate the chambers and pull the plunger back. That would have been the time for him to go for me, but he didn’t.
I went around my desk and sat, too. I lay his empty Colt .45 revolver on the desk before me. It didn’t make much of a sound against the leather top. I loved my leather top. I also loved Cindy, but in a very different way.
My phone was in the open drawer next to me. I left it there.
“Camry tells me you killed a man,” I said.
“Camry’s a lying bitch.”
“Either that or you really killed a guy.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Steel Eye. “Does it?”
“It does if you’re the dead guy or the police.”
“You ain’t the police.”
“No, but I’m the next best thing.”
Steel Eye wanted to say “fuck you” or something to that effect, but thought better of it, especially since his broken nose was still bleeding.
“Don’t matter if you’re dead, too.”
“You make a lot of threats for a man who just got his nose broken.”
He glared at me, then at Camry, then down at my desk. What did my desk ever do to him?
“If you killed a guy, you’re going to jail. If you didn’t, I’ll let you walk. So which is it?”
“Are you fucking serious, man?”
“As serious as the headache that’s going to be setting in soon.”
“I didn’t kill nobody, asshole.”
I turned to Camry, who was still sitting on the couch and still looking away.
“What do you have to say about that? He sounded serious enough to use a double negative.”
She didn’t move or blink, I thought. She was afraid of him, but there was something else, too.
Ah, hell, I thought. She still loves him.
I was also getting another feeling while I looked at her. I studied her body language...she hadn’t lied to me about him killing someone. Still, one thing was certain: she was afraid of him. In love with him, but afraid of him, too. The fear, I thought, trumped the love, but there was still enough love there for her to text him her location. To see him again.
I drummed my fingers on my leather-tooled desk. The drumming didn’t create noise of any real significance. I considered what to do. Then nodded to myself, because I like to be reassuring, even to myself.
I pulled out my cell and dialed a number. Sanchez answered on the first ring. “That’s more like it,” I said.
“You got lucky, Knighthorse. What do you need?”
“Biker gang. Eleven of them. Most armed. My office.”
“Be there in ten. Don’t piss anyone off.”
“Too late.”
“Shit.” He hung up.
* * *
They came in six minutes.
Steel Eye spent the six minutes glaring at me while holding an increasingly bloody wad of tissues to his face. I didn’t glare back. Indeed, I glanced whimsically with flashes of amusement and mild interest.
The sirens continued blaring outside even as the choppers all fired up. One by one, I heard them leave the smallish parking lot.
“Looks like you’re alone,” I said.
“They’ll be back,” said Steel Eye.
“So will my guys.”
“You hide behind the cops?”
“A show of force never hurt anyone, until it does. You taught me that.”
“Where I go, my brothers go.”
“Makes the bathroom kind of crowded,” I said, “I would think.”
“We’ve got each other’s backs.”
“And they’ve got mine,” I said, jutting a thumb toward the door and sirens. “Seems like we’re even.”
“Until we find you alone.”
“Or until I find you alone.”
He glared some more. I tossed him another tissue. Tissues don’t toss very well, unless you do it right, unless you make a ball of it first. I made the ball and tossed it. H
e snatched it out of the air and applied it to his broken nose. He dropped the other one to the carpeted floor, where the hemoglobin transferred immediately to the fibers. Oh, joy. Another bloodstain. My office now looked like a crime scene. Many crime scenes. Yeah, I was definitely not getting my deposit back.
He dabbed some more while I sat back in my chair and steepled my fingers under my chin.
“Michael said you were hardcore.”
“Michael should know,” I said.
“He suggested that it might be a bad move to come and see you.”
“And, was it?”
Steel Eye shrugged. “People don’t fuck with Michael.”
“Not even you?” I asked.
He shrugged again. “Anyway, you got Michael’s respect...” His voice trailed off.
“Which means?”
“Means you have my respect, too.”
“Now, I can sleep at night.”
We were silent some more after that “bro” moment.
Finally, Steel Eye said, “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Where are the cops?”
“Outside waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For me to call them up.”
“You that tight with the cops?”
“Tight enough.”
“And you ain’t scared?”
“Been a while,” I said, “since I’ve been scared.”
“Me too.”
“The cops scare you?” I asked.
“Nope.” Then he added, “Since neither of us are scared, what do we do about it?”
I said, “We can fight to the death.”
He looked at me from over the tissue and his swelling nose. “For what purpose?”
“Pride?” I said. “The love of a good woman? Street cred?”
He shook his head. “You always like this?”
“Spirited?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of idiotic.”
“That too,” I said.
“You going to call the cops up here or tell them never mind?” he asked.
I shook my head. “The way I see it, you haven’t done anything wrong. Unless you hurt Camry.”
“I ain’t ever hurt Camry.”
“Her bruises suggest otherwise.”
“Fine, so you caught me. Big deal. You gonna arrest me for slapping around my girl?”
“No, but I’ll beat the shit out of you and have Camry film it and we’ll put it on YouTube.”