Ten minutes into the fight, Casey drove in on him hard and the man caught him out by telegraphing right and then catching him with a left hit to his head. His ear sang as the pain exploded and tiny stars danced in front of his eyes. Casey pulled back so that he could catch his breath. He dropped his right hand to give it a rest and brought up his left. He quickly checked his ear for blood, there wasn’t any, though it felt like the side of his head had cracked open. He couldn’t hear a damn thing out of his right ear and hoped to hell it wasn’t permanently damaged.
Casey came back with a series of punches, pulling back a little on the really powerful hits—the uppercuts, the hooks. As a result he was taking a hard beating and his chest and stomach felt it. He kept moving his arms up and down to protect his head and watching the man’s eyes to see where the next punch was coming from. He was a chancy bastard and caught him with a few misdirected punches to the jaw and shoulders. His knee felt like it was on fire and he could sense a slight wobble to it every time he put his weight forward.
It was here in the center of the fight that everything melted away. It was him and the man hitting him, the voices of the crowd outside the range of his hearing, everything drawn in tight, just the two of them in some primal embrace, locked in a dance to the death. A strange feeling would sweep him at such times that maybe this was purgatory and he was doomed to fight forever. Or at least until God forgave him his sins.
The man came in close and Casey tightened the space further so he couldn’t sucker punch him. Then the man did something totally unexpected. He leaned in and whispered in his ear, the one that was still pounding with blood from the cracking great punch he’d given it.
“Listen, let’s end this. Don’t pull yer punches on me anymore, d’ye understand? Let’s end this properly. Irish pride an’ all that, right?” He winked at him, and Casey grinned back, splitting his lip and sending a bright spray of blood down his chin.
And then he just let it happen, instinct and the free fall right down to the essence of life—blood, bone and the fight to survive. It was time to be ruthless. He went in hard and fast, he had to end it before his knee gave out. Fifteen punches in sequence—head, sides, stomach, right, left, jab, uppercut, hook and then again and again.
The man who called himself Gypsy Boy had blood pouring from one eye and his grin was as red as a wolf’s rising from a fresh kill.
“Now ye’re feckin’ talkin’, boyo. Come on ye big bastard an’ finish it if ye can.”
He closed in fast and furious and took a blow to his stomach which telegraphed quite clearly to his legs that he was nearly done for. But the small break and few breaths had restored some of his energy and his focus. He put all of it into the last punch, the energy flowing like fire up his arm and exploding in a right roundhouse that drove the other man down to his knees where he gave Casey a bemused look before toppling over and closing his eyes.
He’d been a fool, a great bloody fool. He tore the tape off his hands ripping the skin on his knuckles in the process. He should have just taken the dive, instead he’d allowed pride to have its way with him. It was, he suspected, one of his greater weaknesses from the life before. There would be no money now to flee the country either. He’d used up much of his prior winnings to clean up his hospital bills. He needed to get dressed and get the hell out of here and do it quickly. He pulled on clean pants and a shirt and bent down to put on his socks and shoes. He felt the air move rather than hearing anything. There was someone behind him. He’d been expecting it from the moment he knocked his opponent out. He just thought he might have an hour’s grace before they came for him.
Ye’re a stubborn bloody goat son, ye use yer pride instead of yer head an’ it’s goin’ to get ye into trouble every time.
Thanks but ye’re a wee bit late with yer advice, he said to the voice in his head, wondering why these echoes of his past life often seemed to come at inopportune moments.
He stood up slowly and turned. Hale had not come but Casey had not thought he would. He wouldn’t handle his own dirty work; he had hired help for that. The henchman he’d sent was a small man, much smaller than Casey but he had a knife and Casey did not. He had long known not to underestimate small men, particularly the wiry ones who could often move as quickly as a snake could strike. Given a little more space he thought he could outmaneuver the man, but here in this tight little room which held a bench and a shower and lockers it was going to be far more difficult. If he could get himself over the bench and into the corner he might have a better shot at defending himself. He would have to take the chance as the man was closing in on him. Everything must answer—shoulders, wrists, elbows, legs, feet, eyes. He was tired and his knee was a blaze of pain. This was not theater, there was no crowd howling in the language of blood and sweat and pain. There was just the hope to survive and the stink of sweat and hatred.
He managed to hit the man a ringing blow to his head, but he got a cut across his arm for his efforts. It reaffirmed what he’d thought—the man was fast. Blood was dripping from his arm and he fought the urge to clutch it to his chest.
He was tired and the other man was fresh, he had his fists and the other man had a knife, he knew how this ended. He jumped up on the bench and that was when his knee finally betrayed him, giving out entirely just as he landed and sending him backwards in an arse-over-teakettle tumble where he struck his shoulder and head with bruising force on the edge of the lockers. There were stars exploding before his eyes and tiny birds chirping in his ears. He was on his back on the cold tiled floor. He thought blearily that it was a miserable place to die. He would have chosen the outdoors, stars overhead, wind in his face. Once his vision cleared, he looked up to see the man standing over him, a feral grin on his face.
“Mr. Hale says he never should have trusted a fucking mick. He also says goodbye.”
Someone was pounding on the door, but it was too late. His last coherent thought was that he was sorry he would never know the man he had once been and then all was utter darkness.
He awoke to the sound of rain drumming on the roof. Which was odd in itself because, like the song said, it hardly ever rained in California. There were voices nearby. They weren’t speaking English, but the language they did speak was utterly soothing to him; just the sound of it was like mother’s milk in his ears.
“Hey, Rip Van Winkle. Decided to join the land of the living again?”
Casey opened one eye and peered up to find Eddy, upside down, peering back at him. Beside him hovered another face, this one a little bruised and battered but with a grin that was filled with gold. The Irish Traveller he’d fought, and as he recalled, stupidly beat. He tried to sit up but found he was spectacularly dizzy, as though he’d just come off a whirligig at Coney Island. Had he ever been to Coney Island, he wondered? He was feeling distinctly muzzy.
“Where the hell am I?” he asked, supine again. He’d try sitting up later, maybe tomorrow. He looked around. He was lying on a bed in a caravan. It was a little lacking in décor, but was tidy and clean. He cautiously felt his head and found to his relief that it was still intact.
“Welcome to me humble abode,” Gypsy Boy said with a neat flourish of his bejeweled hands. He wore a loudly-striped shirt, grey trousers, a leather jacket and a jaunty hat to match. “We’re parked in a wee bit of forest as we felt it was a little hot in old San Francisco last night.”
“Was I stabbed?” he asked, uncertain what was real and what he’d dreamed in the last day.
“Ach, it’s only a scratch. We took care of that poxy fecker for ye. Ye’ve got ten stitches to remember it by though.”
“Took care of it?”
“Aye, ye were bleedin’ like the proverbial stuck pig an’ passed out cold. Yer friend there,” he nodded toward Eddy, “leaped on his back an’ I gave him a few pokes to the head, an’ one or two to the kidneys. He’ll not be botherin’ anyone soon.”
“Or ever,” Eddy added drily.
“Not feckin’ goin’ to let so
me sheisty fecker kill a fellow Irishman on me watch, now am I? ’Twas yer friend that saved ye. He took the knife off that bastard an’ had it at his throat before ye could say Jack Robinson.”
“Well, thanks for that,” Casey said, meaning it quite sincerely.
“Ach, save yer breath to cool yer porridge, man. We’ll take ye up to the state line or further on if ye care to travel with us for a time. Ye’ll not be wantin’ to go back or sure an’ they’ll kill ye this time.”
He nodded, feeling slightly confused with the information coming at him. Gypsy Boy doffed his hat at him and ducked out the door of the caravan.
“Eddy?”
“The man’s right, it’s not safe back there. So I made an executive decision while your Irish ass was unconscious. We’re running away with the gypsies.”
“I can see why I need to but why are you comin’ along? Ye have a job an’ a life back there.”
Eddy shrugged. “I think I’m done with San Francisco. I got itchy feet, man, it’s past time for me to be moving along anyway.”
“Are ye certain?” Casey asked, worried that Eddy had done something on his behalf that he was going to live to regret.
“Yeah, man it’s time for me to go. More reasons than itchy feet truth be told, but that’s a story for another day.”
Eddy reached behind him and grabbed a canvas bag, which he then placed on the bed with Casey.
“Is that my stuff? How the hell did ye get it?”
“I was worried that Hale might send his men there once he realized you were gone. So I did a little reconnaissance and ended up climbing into the third floor tower, you know the place where you never had relations with Bridget.” Eddy’s skepticism was conveyed with the slight upturn of his lips.
“Aye,” Casey returned the look with interest. “I’m familiar with the place.”
“I grabbed your things, what there was, that is. You travel light, man.”
He sat up then, despite the dizziness, panic coursing through his veins. “My ring, I always take it off before a fight.”
Eddy fished in his shirt pocket and came up with the band of silver. “I knew you’d want it. Had to look a bit to find it. Got your rosary, too, didn’t know you were a praying kind of man.” He looped the beads over Casey’s neck and they fell with a reassuring weight against his chest.
He collapsed back into the bed with relief. He felt better the minute he slid the ring onto his finger. It was as if the small bit of silver shored him up and made him aware of his purpose.
“When the gypsy offered I figured it was a gift horse whose mouth didn’t need looking at too closely. We gotta hit the road, brother. You go back, you’re dead. It’s simple math really.”
“I should say goodbye to Bridget, I owe her that much.”
“She’s gone,” Eddy said. “She left yesterday. There’s a letter for you. I found it sitting on your bed.”
“Gone?” he said blankly.
Eddy handed him an envelope. It was a pale lavender and thick—old-fashioned stationery that would not have been out of place in a Victorian lady’s home. He opened it and a trace of her jasmine scent wafted out.
Hey Irish – I’m selling the house, it deserves to have a family. And you were going to leave soon, we both know it. You were leaving the day I met you. It was nice to stop with you for a while on that dusty road. I hope you find her.
And that was it, she hadn’t signed it. It was true to the windy-footed child which she had long been. She was right; the house deserved children and dogs and cats and noise and love. He felt sad at the thought of her drifting off across the country again. A woman could only live that way so long before something dark would catch her in its grasp. He had a pretty good notion just what was likely to snatch Bridget. He folded the letter up and put it back in the envelope.
“So it was you saved my life. Thank ye.”
“You know what this means, man,” Eddy said with one of his rare smiles that always put Casey on guard. He never smiled unless he was planning something.
“Uh no, I can’t say that I do,” he said.
“I saved your life, so you owe me a favor.”
Casey sighed. “I suppose I should have seen this comin’. What is it that ye want?”
“When we part company with the gypsies, I want you to go on a walk with me,” Eddy said.
“A walk? Ye want to go on a fockin’ walk? I’ve just been stabbed, last I checked.”
“It can wait until you are completely healed, but then I want you to come walking with me,” Eddy repeated, a certain stubborn set to his chin which Casey had come to recognize over these last months.
“What sort of a walk are ye talkin’ about here?”
“A long one, maybe uncomfortable sometimes, too.”
“How long exactly? And how uncomfortable?”
“I want you to walk to South Dakota with me, so pretty uncomfortable.”
“Ye want to do this for what reason?”
“Because there is nothing like a long walk to clear your head.”
“Ye think walkin’ a couple thousand miles is goin’ to clear my head?”
“It’s only fifteen hundred. And as to clearing your head, it can’t hurt. Well, that’s a lie, but we won’t know unless we do it. So?”
Casey sat up, dizzy still from blood loss and the sound beating Gypsy Boy had ladled out to him.
“All right, you bastard, I’ll take a walk with ye.”
Part Six
The Far Side of Barsoom
May 1977-August 1977
Chapter Fifty-three
Roll Call of the Dead
MAY HAD BEEN a fitful month of sudden rains alternating with periods of sun. As a result, the fields and hedgerows were lushly green and filled to bursting with the chirrup of baby birds and the rustlings of hedgehogs and badgers.
Pamela and the children had come to Tomas’ for the day along with Patrick and Kate. They had spent the afternoon happily roaming his land and having a picnic lunch amongst the ruins and brambles and blooming roses, both having long gone wild up tree trunks and over stile and wall alike. Patrick was walking along beside her, a vague tension about him that she knew was attributable to his work.
“Kate said Shura has left?”
Pamela nodded. “Yes, he literally ran away with the gypsies. He left with Yevgena when her visit was done. He is working in a small herbalist shop in Paris now and rents the room over it for his lodgings. I think he feels more useful there and he and Yevgena have become good friends. He’s rather besotted with her.”
“From what little Casey told me about her, I’m not surprised. Ye’ll all miss him, though, I’m sure.”
“We will, but we want him to be happy more than having him here. How is the case going?” she asked. She knew Pat and Tomas were still working doggedly on the Oggie Carrigan case and were slowly making headway. Both men had to keep up with their other work and other cases as well. For Patrick this was mostly composed of drawing up wills and land purchases and overseeing the details until all deals, whether that of land bought or sold or death disbursements, were concluded.
He smiled. “It’s still a quagmire of paper an’ snaky proposals, or as Tomas put it yesterday with much glee ‘a serpentine imbroglio’. To summarize we’re enjoyin’ ourselves immensely, but it has been a deal of long hours. We’ve got an investigator lookin’ into wee Jane’s murder too. The coroner signed off on it bein’ a suicide, so it’s goin’ to be hard to convince anyone to open it up as a possible homicide. Mind you, cases like this can take years of convincin’ before someone agrees that it warrants a harder look. The wheels of justice turn slowly as the sayin’ goes.”
“You love it, don’t you?”
“Aye,” he smiled down at her. “I do.” His expression turned serious then, like a dark cloud had crossed his face. “I assume ye heard about the killin’ of the young man in Upper Donegall Street a few nights back?”
“Yes,” she said. The scene had been a
bad one and there was certainty in the community that it was a gang of men doing it, and that they were deliberately hunting for lone Catholics to catch and then murder in the most violent and terrible ways imaginable. The man was only twenty-four and had been out playing snooker for the evening. He’d met up with a girl he liked and offered to walk her home. At some point, after he left her at the door to her parents’ home, he had been abducted and then beaten and tortured for hours before he was nearly decapitated with a knife and left like so much rubbish in an alleyway. An elderly woman whose house overlooked the alley found the body when she ventured out the next morning to put out her trash. She told the police that she’d heard the sound of a heavy vehicle which reminded her of the sound the black taxis made when they plied their trade along the Shankill Road. It was far too reminiscent of the scene Pamela had photographed shortly after Casey had disappeared.
“There’s so much violence here, it’s easy for a few murderin’ deviants to hide their crimes under the guise of politics an’ vengeance, but I think in this case these men are killin’ for the sheer pleasure of it. Just be certain ye’re not caught out alone in Belfast at night.”
“I’ll try not to,” she said drily. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been out after dark other than the dinner with Yevgena. Most of her evenings consisted of baths and books and getting small children to sleep at a decent time before collapsing herself on the downstairs couch.
Just then Conor launched himself off the garden wall he was walking on into his uncle’s arms. Pat caught him deftly around the middle and swung him neatly up onto his shoulder, narrowly missing a low-hanging branch and causing Pamela to draw in a sharp breath. She was grateful to Pat and Jamie, because Conor got his necessary rough and tumble male play with them; the sort of things that made a mother go faint with all the thoughts of what might happen.
In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4) Page 56