“No!” said Malcolm, talking fast. “I know you’re a circuit player. That’s why I came back here. You fought the Maxim twins in a stretch match in Brooklyn four months ago, the second exhibition event before the Jerkins and Pollo shoot fight. You had a mask, called yourself Stretch Armstrong, and went thirty minutes while they, well, everyone thought they broke your neck. I was there.”
Milkwood, looking as fresh and ugly as he had coming out of the crowd, poked Malcolm’s chest with two fingers and sent him smack against the alley wall with such force that it stole Malcolm’s breath, forcing him to slump down. All the bruises flared and his eyes cramped shut, pain making it hard to breathe. Suck it up, Slow Mo. He hadn’t seen it coming. Just like when Rob tore a strip off him for asking for grocery money. Violence swirled around him crazy fast, not like watching the fights, nothing in quicksand time. When the blows were heading for Malcolm, everything was bullet quick and painful.
Milkwood pressed one finger against his nostril and forced a sneeze. A chewy clump of blood smacked the concrete. “Don’t follow me around, kid. Don’t mention any of that shit to anyone. I’m a circuit ghost, okay? Now you see me, now you don’t.” Milkwood walked with heavy strides down the alley, opposite the fenced entrance.
Malcolm whispered, “I…just…wanted…an autograph.” Malcolm took his pad and pen from his back pocket. He couldn’t hear the heavy steps anymore. “I’m a fan.”
But Milkwood was already over the far fence like a greased, fat ape. Gone.
Fucking circuit fighters, Malcolm thought, gripping himself. Even the losers are first class assholes. Pushing anyone around. Malcolm had been cuffed by just about everyone in the circuit at one time or another, from fans slamming on crank, to pros shoving him out of the way to get to the shitter for a nose-full of candy off a hooker’s plastic boob. Thugs and bullies and assholes all rolled into one.
If I was that damn strong, he thought, that damn tough, pissing in the face of anyone and everyone who got in my way, I would make every one of these shitheels hurt for treating anyone like shit. And I wouldn’t let them touch a hair on my head without breaking them down like a baseball bat on a snowman. If I was that strong, I’d let Rob throw the first punch. Sloppy. Let it hit my eye. Let him get tired. Let his arms fall by their sides. And then, holy fuck, would there be a reckoning.
He slapped his head with his notebook until the image vanished. He wasn’t that strong, he was not that tough, and bullshit pretending didn’t change a thing. Malcolm caught his breath and headed to the fence.
A thought tugged him. Hold on. If Milkwood was that goddamn strong, why the hell did he throw the fight? He gripped a handful of chain links and began to climb, wondering if it was worth it to find out, when a form walked by on the other side. Then stopped.
“Munchkin?”
Malcolm dropped.
Rip snorted, booze staining his words. “I do not believe it!” He had two black eyes, and the kind of torn lip Malcolm had seen in Boston when a circuit-better wailed on a crank-head with the butt of his automatic pistol. “My oh my, what a beautiful scrap of luck this is on such a rotten fucking day.” Rip scaled the fence and was over with a practiced speed.
Ex-army, Malcolm thought, backing up, maybe he wasn’t just a muscle head with tattoos that made him think he was bulletproof. Shit, did Canada even have an army?
“Hey, smart mouth,” Rip said, “why so quiet? Past your bedtime?”
Malcolm slipped his pen between his first two fingers and made a fist, and tucked it behind his back. “Hey, Rip, that was just shit and giggles, man.”
“You hear me laughing?” His pace quickened. “After what those bitches did to me, I think I’m in need to giggle while you eat your own shit.”
“I’m sorry?”
He snorted. “Like I give a fuck. Say it with cash and I won’t break your knee caps so the rats have dessert.”
No, no, shit, shit…Rob would kill him if his winnings weren’t all there. The sour tang of rye filled the air, the booze of all angry townies. There wasn’t much of a choice, though. With his left hand, Malcolm took out his secret cut and handed it over. Sorry, Mom. Will have to save for a new PI later, if I live. “Here you go, Rip. You earned it.”
“Shut your shithole.” Rip smacked the five greenbacks into the air, then gripped Malcolm by the shirt with a meaty fist. “And hand over the real purse, not just some lousy tens.”
Malcolm’s face shook and words growled out of him. “I’ll scream rape.” Malcolm clenched the pen tighter.
Rip laughed with a sick, wet echo. “What? You think the neighbourhood watch is going to come and rescue your sorry can? This is the Heights, you shitheel. 911 doesn’t work here, and cops don’t care what happens in the Judge’s alley. It’s a dumping ground for the parts the Judge doesn’t feed to Samson.” His voice howled. “A fucking parade could march by as I cut your arm off while you scream, and the worst they would do is bet on your time of death.” He shoved Malcolm against the dumpster, weaker than Milkwood but still hard. Bells clanged, and everything smelled like metal. “Hand over every goddamn dime you got or I’ll drown you head first in whatever’s rotting in that can.”
The choice was a con job. Just deciding when he’d like to get killed, here or in Troy, by this shithead or Rob…who would scream at him for losing the money, for starving them, for not being strong enough to protect himself…Fuck this. If I’m going down, I’m going down swinging, not like that fat tub Milkwood. “Fine, fine, fine, here. Take it.”
He thrust the pen up, into Rip’s ribs, and the thug screeched, pulling back. Frantic, Malcolm ran, toward the fence near the parking lot until a vice gripped his neck and tossed him against the wall and all air rushed out of him. Fast, so fast, can’t concentrate on what to do. Painful tears welled as knees hit concrete. Suck it up, Slow Mo. A boot smacked the arm holding the pen and he gagged on a scream. Rip yanked him up by his hair.
“Dumb move, shitheel. Now this is going to be a long night.” On the edge of vision, Malcolm saw a grey blob behind the far fence. Watching. Not doing a goddamn thing. Rip backhanded his face, knuckles cutting across his teeth, and blood filled his mouth. “Shit!” Rip said and Malcolm blinked away the tears before he hit the ground ass-first. Rip’s right hand was dripping blood across his knuckles, and from the wound on his side, staining his dime-a-dozen wife beater T-short. A salty taste covered Malcolm’s teeth. “Jesus, you got razor’s in your mouth?” The dripping fist tightened. “Time to say night-night, Munchkin.” The RIP tattoo throbbed on his neck as he targeted his fist for dropping a deadly right.
Malcolm forced his eyes open and spat the hanging skin back at him. “Fuck you, you tattooed shitheel.”
The dripping fist flew.
CHAPTER FOUR
MILKWOOD RAN LIKE a pale smudge, snapped the chain around the fence and charged down the alley, straight at the bouncer’s back, clasping the fist just as it sought to launch into the kid’s head, all the while screaming in his head, This is dumb, this is dumb, it will come back to bite my ass!
He tore the arm down, twisted, and pulled it up in a hammerlock. With his left hand he thrust the guy’s face hard against the opposite wall, neck first, right hand locked on his pathetic, struggling wrist.
The jackass croaked out muffled screams from his smashed mouth. “Stop squirming, big guy,” Milkwood said. “Better luck breaking out of jail than this hold.”
This is dumb, he told himself, but he had to come back. The kid was like a stray kitten surrounded by a hungry jackal. Whatever the kid’s damage, he’d had the guts to walk a dark alley for an autograph from a corpse. Stupid, sure, no question about it. But no one deserved to be wailed on by a drunk circuit thug. Well, he thought, except me. Okay, knock off the self-analysis. I’ve got the idiot in a lock he can’t break, but now what? Kill the shitstain? Not with a kid watching. That was sick. And letting him go would mean seeing Milkwood do what he shouldn’t be able to do. Fuck, Milkwood thought. This is wh
y I stick to the plan: travel, get cash, eat a menace to society and—
It was gross, and the kid would be a witness, but damn if it wasn’t better than the other options.
The kid gasped as Milkwood bit into that iron thick neck until Rip’s violent twitches stopped. Warm rushes of blood flooded his mouth. He sucked back the liquid gold through his teeth, throat like a vacuum. Rye stained every gulp. Fucking drunks, he thought. Like pissing in champagne. But the hideous warmth rolling into him took the edge off. The plus side was, he wouldn’t need to eat for days now.
The downside was, the kid was staring at him, pale as a bleached bone. The thug’s body slackened. He was fading. Resistance against the hold died. Milkwood lifted up a finger to the kid as if to say, “Hold up, almost done filling the tank. Then we can be on our merry ways.”
But first the shit heel’s pulse and heart beat trip hammered…the sweet spot…And he tore his hungry mouth from its smorgasbord gash on the dude’s neck. The thug dropped with a rag doll grace to the nasty floor. Milkwood sucked his teeth clean. “God damn, I hate rye.” He burped violently, then shook his head, whole head a big stink face. “Gah. I’ve eaten winos that tasted better. Sorry for the horror show, kid.”
The thug twitched. From behind Milkwood, the kid said. “You…killed him.”
Milkwood swallowed whatever was left in his mouth then shivered. “Gonna need bleach to get the taste out of my mush. Faaaantastic.”
“He’s dead.”
Milkwood turned. The kid had little fists in the air just in case the thug got up. “What? No. Not dead. Just passed out. Uh…Vulcan nerve pinch.” Maybe he didn’t see how deep I bit…and maybe while I’m dreaming I should ask for a pony. Milkwood wiped his mouth against his hairy forearm, then rubbed the forearm free of the red stain. “You okay?”
Malcolm nodded.
Milkwood took the pen out of Rip’s side, sucked it clean without even thinking, then screamed to himself, get a grip, you idiot! Do you want him to think you’re some kind of monstrous freak? The kid held up his shaking fists that were doing their damnedest to fight gravity and stay in the air.
“Relax, relax, I come in peace.” He placed the sharp end of the pen in his palm and handed it back. Malcolm put it back between his knuckles, sharp end sticking out. “Don’t believe me, do you?”
“Fuck no, not after that.”
Milkwood laughed. “Fine. Maybe this will be cold comfort. I could have hurt you but I didn’t, right? Could have acted like that bloated gas bag, but I didn’t. Besides, why would I want to hurt a fan?” He smiled, knowing full well it was an ugly sight of crooked white teeth. “C’mon. Let’s split before Chuckles wakes up. Grab your bills. I’ll call him a wound wagon later and he can be someone else’s problem the rest of the night.” The kid grabbed all the bills he could without getting too close to Rip’s body. Milkwood strolled down the alley toward the fence.
He looked back. The kid followed, a harder conviction in his eyes than Milkwood saw in some opponents. He needed that money. Whatever the kid was living for, it seemed he was willing to die for a fistful of cash.
And now he saw what I could do.
It had been a long time since Milkwood had killed anyone that wasn’t food. And he had never killed a kid.
This is why it doesn’t pay to be a hero, he thought, walking with the kid in tow. If I had stuck to the plan, I wouldn’t even be thinking this shit. But the kid saw him. So there was a hard choice coming, and the kid he’d just saved was now in greater danger than before, unless Milkwood could see a way to save him from being dessert.
Fantastic.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEIR FEET SLAPPED a floor made of concrete, condom wrappers, and beer bottles as Malcolm followed Milkwood through a trail featuring sunken bungalows, decrepit coach houses and loud sprawls of tenement buildings until they found a little brick restaurant called The Best Bet Diner shoved like a giant Lego into the ground of a vacant lot. The joint was a sketchy-looking greasy spoon with no curtains to keep out the stinging yellow light from two smoke-stained windows. Thankfully, it was in the same general direction as the hospital, so there wouldn’t be any double backing. Through the whole walk, Malcolm counted his bills until his hands stopped shaking, trying to get the image of that alley fight out of his head. Focus, you idiot. Be careful. Adrenaline might make you stupid. This guy is a psycho and he wants to buy you something to eat after tearing that shit heel from stem to stern. Play quiet, play dumb, and maybe you’ll walk out of the mess you stepped into alive.
He counted the bills. Keep fiscal. Don’t spend more than two bucks. Hold on to the goddamn money you almost died for, money that was going straight up Rob’s nose, money that he needed for a third class private eye like on TV. Or maybe I should just buy a ticket out of Troy. One way to somewhere far the hell away from Rob, the circuit, and sick weirdoes like Rip and—
“I’ll call a wagon,” Milkwood said, going to a silver phone booth covered in swirly gang tags, the insides gutted of its phone book, and soiled newspapers sticking to the floor. “Get a seat, stay put. That guy might have friends we don’t know about.”
I ain’t worried about them, Malcolm thought, but he also knew how fast Milkwood could move if he had to, and the only way out was to play dumb and act smart. Running, he’d end up dead. Telling the bruiser to fuck off wouldn’t get him anywhere better. And maybe, just maybe, if he wasn’t a complete tool, he’d come out ahead. Sometimes, people like Eva or other circuit players got hooked on a freakshow’s career, someone who made a splash and died out quick, but before their stars dimmed they had the glint of celebrity about them. Fans wanted their teeth or hair or shirt or autograph before they died. Necro-collectors could pay a pretty penny for mementos from dead freaks. Milkwood seemed a good candidate for a collector’s item, eventually…except he was still breathing.
But he wanted folks to think he was beat, Malcolm thought. Beat dead. That’s stupid, even if I can make money off him. He shoved open the door, tired, confused and irritated.
Under the static hiss of yellow track lighting, the diner smelt like it looked. Awful. Sour milk and burned cheese were the best smells Malcolm could ferret out of the air (at least he hoped that was cheese). But it was warm, and Malcolm hadn’t realized how cold he’d been until the heat from the tiny grease joint invaded him. There was a perpetual crackle through the whole place, from the shitty lights to the greasy fries and eggs being tortured by a tired and angry bald man in the open kitchen. Braided to the cooking smells was the kind of cheap cigar smoke Malcolm always associated with garage fights, where cheap smoke and old oil blocked out the scene of violence. Two old codgers at the little counter bar wheezed and breezed about hockey stats. They chewed on hard steaks covered in ketchup, paying no attention to the little boy who walked in at the front of the dinner. Malcolm took a seat near the door, just in case he had to dine and dash.
“Wash up,” Milkwood said, coming up behind him and pointing to his face.
Malcolm touched his lip. The pain was crazy but he swallowed the wince. “Not so bad.”
“It’s swelling. They don’t ask many questions here, but a police cruiser might roll by and wonder what a beaten kid is doing with a freaky bastard like me. And for all I know, you’re the most popular face on milk cartons these days, and I didn’t work hard tonight to piss away my earnings on paying off the boys in blue. Go clean yourself up and let the blood get back in your face, I’ll order you something so you don’t crash on the spot. What do you want?”
If he didn’t eat, he’d be a fistful of bills closer to getting a PI, or a ticket. He breathed in the sick smell of the diner and damn, if the good hadn’t crept out of the bad: the watery aroma of melted butter and greasy meat. He wiped his sore lip, bright pain killing the moment of joy. “Nothing.”
Milkwood pulled his greasy ponytail. “Fine, kid, it’s my treat. What do you want?”
“I didn’t stutter, and I’m no charity case.” Malcolm went to th
e tiny green bathroom and locked the door. What was he doing? He should run, get the hell out. Maybe Rip was dead. Good. No, bad, it means cops and maybe those Mounties on horseback chasing his ass back across the border and who the hell else knows what. Why hang with this loser when you had to concentrate on winners?
He gripped the porcelain sink. It was cool and oddly clean, except for the rusty ring around the hole.
Milkwood isn’t a loser, he thought. His strength, his skill at tearing Rip apart clung like gum in Malcolm’s hair as he replayed the scene not ten minutes cold in his mind. Nor could a loser take that beating, get up, and then wipe the walls with a guy who, even if he was a meathead, probably knew enough to beat most guys to the ground. No, Milkwood wasn’t a loser, but that’s what made everything so upside down. Malcolm wanted answers, and maybe an autograph that could make this stupid trip finally worth his while. Maybe he could sign it Stretch Armstrong, since everyone assumed that fat freak was dead, and right now, every dollar counted. Malcolm washed up, and rinsed out his mouth. Stung like hell, but Rip’s cheap shot was no big deal. Not like Rob.
He hissed, and avoided the mirror like the plague. Sometimes…sometimes he didn’t see himself, but traces of Rob. And, though he hated to admit it, Malcolm was scared enough right now. He left the shitter, and questions brewed in his mind like the percolating silver canister behind the cash. Trembles danced through his fingers, so he jammed them in his jeans and returned to find an ancient waitress with brown gums, flecked yellow teeth, and a slight, boring accent taking Milkwood’s order. The fighter’s skin wasn’t so damn pale in the yellow light.
“Half stack of pancakes, butter and syrup. Three eggs scrambled, ketchup on the side. Double order of sausage and a coffee.” He looked at Malcolm. “You want a coffee?”
Malcolm dug in his pocket and pulled out stupid looking Canadian coin as big as casino slug. “Will this get me a coffee?”
Blood and Sawdust Page 3