Эйс Аткинс - Kickback

I glanced back to the kitchen and saw two men walk out from the swinging door. One was big and square-jawed, with a shaved head and a Vandyke beard. The other was pudgy and redheaded. The big guy wore a black tank top to show off the muscles and tattoos on his arm. He had the look of a juicer. The pudgy kid was taller and had the same leather coat he’d worn the other day when they broke into my office.

“Don’t think we’ll need to,” I said.

“Those the boys who showed up at your office?”

I nodded.

“Hot damn,” Hawk said. “Where’s Arty?”

The gray-headed guy came through the front door. He nodded at the two boys walking in from the kitchen, stopped to cup his hand to light a cigarette, and then glanced up at the bar. He did a double take just like you see in the movies. A cigarette hung loose in his mouth as he stared and then shook his head.

Arty had on a Sox golf shirt, pleated khakis, and boat shoes. He looked like he sold insurance for a living.

We didn’t move. I gave him a two-finger wave and he walked over.

“Jesus,” he said.

“Arty,” Hawk said. “What are the chances?”

“Hawk,” he said.

“Nice place, Arty,” I said. “You come up with the concept yourself?”

“Fucking Vinnie,” he said. “I heard fucking Vinnie Morris was asking around about me. That son of a bitch.”

“Vinnie didn’t tell us,” I said. “We came for the owners. Two nice women from Blackburn, wives of esteemed judges. I thought this was connected to a travel agency?”

“Figured we might book a ticket on a cruise,” Hawk said. “Play some shuffleboard and shit.”

“We got a lot of partners,” Arty said, placing his left hand in his pocket and his right on the cigarette. As he exhaled, he squinted at us through the smoke. “So the fuck what?”

“Interesting, is all,” I said.

Arty inhaled the last bit of cigarette, the fans scattering away the smoke. The young Latina with the tattoos asked if we’d like another round.

“They were just going,” Arty said.

Hawk began to whistle the theme to High Noon .

36

The bikini girl smiled, looked to Arty Leblanc, who was not smiling, and then quickly walked back toward the kitchen. The bald thug and the redheaded kid joined Leblanc and tried their very best to look tough. The bald thug wasn’t bad. The kid was terrible. He looked about as menacing as Howdy Doody dancing on a buckboard.

“Anyone ever tell you that you look like Howdy Doody?” I said.

He snorted. “Who the fuck is that?”

“He’s fucking with you,” Baldy said. “He’s saying you’re young and don’t know shit. Howdy Doody was a fucking puppet on TV a hundred years ago.”

“He was actually a marionette,” I said. “Marionettes are played by strings. Puppets are controlled by someone shoving their hand up their keister to make them do things.”

“You saying I’m a fucking puppet?” Baldy said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “From this angle, I can’t see Jackie DeMarco’s right hand.”

Hawk smiled. He had turned on the bar stool and his feet were firmly planted on the ground, but I had never even seen him move. His right hand touched his belt slightly below where he kept the .44 Magnum.

“This is a class place,” Arty said. “How about we all talk outside? You know, like gentlemen.”

Two more men walked in through the front door. They were dressed about as well as Arty Leblanc. Cheap pleated khakis and golf shirts. The men’s faces glowed from being out in the sun all day. They were telling jokes and stumbled slow and fast into the situation. “What’s up, Arty?”

Arty eyed me. Baldy stepped up closer. His nose was maybe six inches from mine. If my nose wasn’t so flat, it could have invaded my personal space. “These men were just leaving.”

I picked up my beer. It was half full. Or half empty. I swirled golden liquid around in the light.

“Let me finish up,” I said.

“Just leave,” Arty said. “Your tab is paid. Just don’t make us have to punch your ticket.”

“Yikes.”

The jolly businessmen walked quickly out in a cloister, like a school of fish out the front door. Three of the waitresses huddled near the kitchen door at the end of the bar. They didn’t seem scared. They were smiling and whispering to one another.

“You know why I hate golf?” Hawk said.

“Too many assholes play it?” I said.

“Exactly.”

Baldy pulled his coat back to show a shiny new automatic. Arty, unarmed on the links, smiled. He had a lot of gold fillings. As Hawk stood, Howdy Doody swallowed a couple times.

“Why you harassing these people?” Arty said. “What’s the matter with some folks from Boston making some bucks down here? What are you, the IRS?”

“Tell me about Jackie DeMarco and Bobby Talos.”

“I don’t know no one named Talos,” Arty said.

“Come on, Spenser,” Hawk said. “Shall we dispense with the pleasantries? Arty doesn’t know. He’s too low on the food chain.”

“What’d you say, spade?”

I took in a long breath. I stood, planted my feet firmly, and judged the distance between me and Baldy.

“What’s my name, son?” Hawk said.

Arty Leblanc snickered.

Hawk moved close enough to him that he bumped chests. “What’s my name?”

“I know you, Hawk,” he said. “You’re one badass spade.”

Hawk hit Arty Leblanc so hard and fast under his chin, I heard the pop before I saw a thing. A neat, clean undercut turned out Arty Leblanc’s lights and he slumped to the floor. One of the other golfers dropped down to catch him as Baldy came for me, throwing a hard left at my face. I twisted and covered up my face, and his knuckle connected with my forearm. I pivoted back and shot two hard rights at his temple. The first one connected hard and knocked him back. The second one connected with the top of his head as he dipped his chin. Howdy Doody ran for Hawk and Hawk grabbed him by the front of the shirt and threw him over the bar. The two golfers attended to Arty, wanting no part of the action. One of the bikini girls shrieked. Another called for Richie to knock me on my ass. Richie. For some reason the bald guy didn’t look like a Richie. He looked like his name would be Animal or Bronco.

I hit him again, connecting with a left. He hit me again with a right. Hawk was leaning against the bar, jacket pulled back, .44 exposed, drinking his beer.

Richie and I circled. He was breathing hard. His body was shaped like a barrel, equal parts stomach and chest. A little blood was spilling off his lip. He felt it and wiped it away with his right hand. He smiled, trying to circle in close. I moved a little to the left and stepped in hard and fast with a couple jabs, then a right hook and another right hook. It rattled him, and he dropped the boxing and rushed for me. I sidestepped him and hit an elbow to his throat. That slowed him down a great deal. As he lurched forward, I got two uppercuts nice and clean into his big, bloated gut. He couldn’t breathe, and in a panic reached into his coat, where I caught his fingers on a revolver and ripped it from his hands.

“Let him go,” I heard someone say.

“Uh-oh,” Hawk said. “It’s Howdy Doody time.”

Howdy Doody had a shotgun up in his arms and pointed it at me and then to Hawk. Hawk hadn’t moved. He picked up the beer again and finished it off.

“Say, Art?” Hawk said. “That tab still paid?”

Arty was unconscious. He wasn’t moving from the floor.

“Guess so,” Hawk said.

My breathing wasn’t as good and I could feel a bad give in my newly assembled knee. I nodded to Hawk. Hawk nodded back. One of the girls was shaking. The fun was over. She was calling the cops.