Tod Goldberg - The End Game

“You have nothing,” Bonaventura said. “They have nothing.”

“No, they had nothing on Capone. You know where he ended up? Right here in Miami, brain sick from the syphilis. Ended up dead in his big-ass mansion over on Palm Island. You can probably see his place out your window, right there on your water. Me? I got your friend Gennaro here,” I said. “I got every single person my guy Slade put an ounce of pressure on, each rolled on you like it was their job, like if they rolled on you, I was gonna give ’em health benefits and a 401(k), you know? Rolled and rolled and rolled, Chrissy. Just one look from Slade was all it took. One look.”

Nate straightened up. Flexed his jaw muscles. Sucked in his stomach, puffed out his chest, narrowed his eyes. I’d ask him later where he picked up those moves, since it made him look like he had the stomach flu.

“That’s why we’re here,” I continued. “Just being a gentleman about things. Being reasonable. You let Gennaro’s interests go, or his wife dies, maybe his kid, too, and it’s on your ass. Besides, you’ve made your nut off of this, right? You can absorb a few gambling losses this week, right?”

Taking risks is about calculating the possibility of success. Hit a 17 against a face card in blackjack and it isn’t a risk, it’s poor judgment. Telling a mafioso exactly how he would be implicated in the murder of one of the wealthiest women in the world is just good business sense.

Provided the Mafioso isn’t already planning the same murder, of course.

That’s where the risk came in. I had to hope I was making the right play.

Bonaventura briefly shifted his eyes over to Jarhead. A real bully only attacks when he knows he can’t be beaten, when he has someone else to handle his business if it looks like the odds aren’t in his favor. And Christopher Bonaventura definitely had the odds.

“You touch Maria Ottone, and you will not sleep another night,” Bonaventura said.

A person with actual skill and training doesn’t care about the odds, especially when fighting someone who has always relied on personal intimidation and not actual physical prowess in defeating his opponents… Or if the person with skill is actually looking to get hit.

“I wouldn’t dream of touching her,” I said. “The plan is for one of my guys to chain her to the anchor, toss her over and see if she’s Houdini.” I looked at my watch. “In about fifteen minutes, if they don’t hear from me, Gennaro’s wife will be under your water, Chrissy.”

If you want to avoid getting hit in the face and aren’t much of a fighter, the best thing to do is run away. Adrenaline and fear will give you a burst of speed that your attacker may not be able to match. It will also give you the opportunity to find a weapon or, better, other people. Civil society is usually more of a deterrent to violence than a piece of balsa wood being waved by someone in mortal fear for their life.

If running isn’t an option, you want to control the situation as best as you can. That means controlling the point of attack. If you’re going to get hit in the face-if, in fact, you’re encouraging someone to hit you in the face-the forehead is the best possible landing position for their fist.

The forehead’s main job is to protect your brain, which makes it one of the hardest plates in the human body. As a side benefit, your forehead has an interstate of thick blood vessels crisscrossing from just above your eyebrows up through your hairline, and, when punctured, they tend to geyser. It’s how every professional wrestler is able to bleed out on the mat and still make it back into the ring the next weekend.

Most people not involved in professional wrestling don’t care for the sight of blood, particularly not blood in geyser form.

The other side benefit is that there’s a pretty good chance that the person hitting you in the forehead is going to break his hand or at least a few fingers or knuckles, especially if you’re someone like Christopher Bonaventura, who’d just tucked his thumb into his fist; it’s a common tactic seen in five-year-old girls and nervous Mafia bosses who realize they’ve been backed into a corner by someone calling himself Tommy the Ice Pick.

So as Christopher Bonaventura swung down at me, I tilted my head back and thrust my neck upward, letting him catch me flush in the forehead, but without losing any control over my neck muscles.

If you don’t want to get knocked out when being hit in the head or face, you have to learn to control the acceleration and deceleration of your head and neck muscles. When someone hits you in the face and you pass out, what’s actually happening is that you’re having a stroke.

A very small stroke, but a stroke just the same.

You want to avoid having a stroke.

A rotary blow-a roundhouse left, for instance-will cause your head to swivel sharply, compressing and constricting your carotid arteries, which is not a good thing if you enjoy having regular cardiac function or the ability to speak.

An uppercut works in much the same way, except that instead of constricting the carotid, the whiplash effect of the acceleration compresses the circulation to the back of your brain.

Keeping circulation flowing to the back of your brain is important, particularly if you like controlling your motor functions. Getting hit square on the chin might snap your temporomandibular joint like a chicken bone, but if you have strong neck muscles, you’ll only pass out from the pain.

If you don’t have the opportunity to walk around with weighted headgear for a few hours every day in order to build up muscle, try yoga. The natural resistance training will give you flexibility and core strength. The serenity might keep you away from angry mob bosses intent on punching you in the face.

Barring the ability to achieve any of the above, your only other option is to match or beat the velocity of the object moving toward you, so that when it impacts, most of the damage goes in the other direction.

Or exactly what happened to Christopher Bonaventura’s fist.

I felt his thick wedding band dig into the tightened flesh of my forehead, splitting it right where I’d hoped, sending a spray of blood out from my head, which I then flung forward, dousing him, and then dousing the sofa, and getting a few drips and drops on the coffee table, too. If I got the opportunity, I’d walk over to the bookcase and grab Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and leave a couple streaks there, too. All of which would be hard for Bonaventura to explain to his daughter, the nice invited guests here for her birthday and the elephant tamer, too.

But first he’d need to go to the emergency room, since as soon as his fist landed on my forehead he let out a shriek, which told me he’d probably just broken his thumb, maybe his ring finger, too, which would serve him right for hitting me with his wedding band. He stumbled out from between the sofa and the coffee table, holding his hand and covered in my blood.

Nate made a move, but Jarhead gave him a slight shove that sent him back against the wall. It was a halfhearted effort by both of them, which is about what I expected. Jarhead was going to let Bonaventura do what he was going to do, which didn’t end up being much at all, which was probably better for all involved.

I had two options here: pretend to be really hurt or be the tough guy.

“That all you got?” I slurred. I staggered up and then fell back into the sofa.

Bonaventura stood next to Jarhead and glared at me. It was about all he could muster, since his hand had already started to balloon grotesquely. Also, I was shaking my head back and forth, spreading blood onto as many surfaces as possible. He was going to have quite the cleaning bill, though something told me he could afford it. His daughter might only get an alpaca for her next birthday, however.