Tod Goldberg - The Bad Beat

We kept walking, our pace nice and slow, and the men kept advancing until there were only twenty feet between us, which was when we stopped.

“If you come any closer,” I said, “my coworker Fiona is going to break one of your noses. You can choose ahead of time which of you would like the honor, or you can just let us keep going down the hall to meet with your boss. The choice is yours.”

The three men looked at one another and then back at me without much in the way of comprehension, so I repeated myself, this time in Russian. This got them to laugh, which gave Fiona enough time to put her brass knuckles on and to pick her victim. She opted for the one in the middle. He saw her coming and just kept laughing, because surely the idea was ridiculous, a tiny woman walking up to a hulk of a man with anything approaching malice. He was so tall, anyway, that it would be impossible for Fiona to punch him in the face, a fact he sadly realized too late, when Fiona punched him in the sternum instead, collapsing him to the ground in a heap.

If you feel like you’re the physically weaker person in a fight, the sternum is one of the best places to attack. It’s difficult to defend, it’s easy to break if you know where to punch (just beneath the notch in the clavicle) and no one ever expects to be punched in the chest.

Breaking your sternum is not recommended for those with a low pain tolerance, since it feels like you’re having a heart attack and, with all the blood you spit up, gives the impression you might have a collapsed lung, too. Unless you pass out from the pain, in which case those would be the things you’d feel once you woke up in intensive care.

When the other two men tried to advance on Fiona, it was already too late. She punched the one on the right in the center of his thigh, breaking the long bone there with an easy crunch, which is a break that requires surgery to fix. He’d probably have metal pins in his leg for the rest of his life. Maybe even a slight limp. All things he would also learn once he woke up in ICU.

Fiona swung around and caught the man on the left in the center of his pelvis. Another satisfying crunch. He would find walking difficult for about three to six months. Sex would be painful for about a year, if it ever felt right again.

Unlike his friends, the one with the broken pelvis didn’t pass out. Which was too bad, because he would actually remember the pain far more than his friends would.

The door at the end of the hallway opened and Yuri Drubich stepped out, shook his head and said, “Idiots.” Two men came out from behind him with guns pulled, but Yuri told them to put them down and drag their comrades out of the hallway before someone stepped on them.

“Which of you is Big Lumpy?” he asked.

“I am the one known as Big Lumpy,” Sam said, except he gave himself a strange-sounding voice. Not quite like Big Lumpy’s, not quite like Sam’s and not quite like any other human’s.

Yuri appraised Sam and then shrugged. “And you are the boy?” He pointed at Brent.

“It’s okay,” I said to Brent.

“I am,” he said.

Yuri shrugged again. He and Brent had that in common, apparently. “Come, all of you, my family is here and I am being honored. If I am to have you all killed, I’d like to know sooner than later.” He shook his head solemnly and pointed at Fiona with his broken arm. “They weren’t going to hurt you, but I understand that the appearances weren’t good. You made your point earlier. I deal with you aboveboard.”

He disappeared back into the room and the two men behind him came to gather up Fiona’s damage while we waited for the path to clear.

“That was weird,” Sam said.

“Not as weird as your voice just was,” I said.

“I should just play it straight?”

“That would be my call,” I said.

“What did he mean about the killing part?” Barry asked.

“Language barrier,” I said. “Nothing to be worried about.”

“He’s actually very polite,” Fiona said. She didn’t bother to wait for the last guy to be dragged off and instead stepped over the man with the crushed chest plate and headed down the hall toward the door Yuri left open. The rest of us did the only thing left to do: We followed her.

When you’re a spy, it’s important to believe the worst about everyone. That way, you won’t be surprised when they do something awful.

The problem, however, is that you never expect the best, never exactly plan for the contingency of decency in the face of strife.

So when the five of us walked into the salon room Reva had reserved for us to shake Yuri Drubich down in and actually found him sitting there with his family, just as he said, it took all of us by surprise. His wife was there, as were his three young children, two boys of about twelve and ten and a girl no more than five. They were all dressed to the nines and looked… happy. Like normal people. Each child had a PSP and was quietly blowing up the world, presumably, but it was hard to tell since they also all had white earbuds in.

“Hello,” I said to the wife. “I’m Dr. Bennington.”

She smiled but didn’t say anything.

“She doesn’t speak or understand English,” Yuri said. “She grew up in Moldova and never had the need to pick it up.”

“And your children?” I asked.

“Kids,” he said, “they know a little. What they learn in rap music.”

“They are adorable,” Fiona said and they really were. “It’s a shame you won’t be able to play catch with them for, what, three months?” Fiona looked around the room with great exaggeration then. “I don’t see your associate Gina.”

“You burst her eardrums,” Yuri said. “And broke her jaw.”

“She shouldn’t have used my lipstick,” Fiona said.

Yuri didn’t respond to this. Instead, he walked up to Brent and stood in front of him without speaking for a long time before finally saying, “You are the one?”

“I am,” he said.

He turned to face Barry. “And you,” he said, “you are the gambler?”

“I’m getting help for that,” Barry said. “And technically I am the loser.”

“You took a great deal of my money and delivered me shoddy goods,” Yuri said. “Did you think you would not pay a price for this?”

“Technically,” Barry said, “you blew up my office and all of my notary equipment.”

Barry’s motivation of “not to die” seemed to be giving him plenty of hubris in the situation. Either that or he was emboldened by seeing Fiona take out three men with literally one hand.

“I did,” Brent said. “And I am sorry. I was trying to do the best for my father, just as your own children probably would for you.”

And a boy becomes a man, I thought. I also thought: This is one of the oddest exchanges of government-or about-to-be government-secrets I’ve ever had.

“This Web site, you design it?”

“Yes,” he said and then he lied and said, “Mr. Lumpy and Dr. Bennington provided me with the technical expertise.”

“But it was you who absconded with my money and attempted to defraud me?”

Brent shot a glance in my direction and I nodded once.

“Yes,” he said.

“And why don’t I kill you?” Yuri asked.

“Because,” Brent said, “I’m not worth anything to you dead. I’m still alive, there’s always a chance I’ll have something else to sell to you.”

“I could use someone like you,” Yuri said. “You have any interest in working for me?”

“He works for me,” Sam said.

“Hmmm, yes, the lumpy one,” he said. “So you are the brains, Lumpy, and you are also the muscle? I have heard all about you. People in Miami, they say your name like it is a threat.”