Michael Baden - Skeleton justice

"Boo'll be here in a little while. Sit tight." The bartender disappeared into the kitchen.

Sam returned to the mound of food before him. Not too bad, really-the cod was flaky and fresh, and that carefully aged grease gave it a nice tang. He ate and drank and watched drag racing on ESPN, waiting for Boo. There were worse ways to spend an afternoon. This working for Manny wasn't too bad.

Ten minutes later, the door of the bar flew open and crashed against the wall. Two men-very big men-stood outlined by the bright sunlight at their backs. The bartender and the other patron vaporized.

Boo had arrived.

Carefully, Sam wiped his hands and his mouth and placed the napkin on the bar. He did not like to meet new people with grease on his fingers or catsup on his lip. Standing down from the bar stool, he nodded to the punks who had entered. "Sam Rosen."

The larger of the two men, early twenties but already toting a big beer belly, stepped forward and shoved Sam against the bar. "Last night, you were messin' with Deanie. What the fuck's up with that? What kinda bullshit you tryin' to pull?"

Deanie? Had that been the name of his informant at Club Epoch? Sam thought she'd been referring to herself as Teeny, which, given the size of her boobs, he'd assumed was a nickname bestowed upon her ironically. Good to have that clarified.

Ignoring the man who had pushed him, Sam stepped away from the bar and faced his companion. From the description of Boo Hravek provided by Travis via Manny, he was pretty sure that the quieter guy was the man himself and the other one was just along for some fun-fun that Sam hoped could be avoided.

Unlike the blockhead bodyguard, Boo Hravek had a gleam of intelligence in his eye as well as a set of pectorals that any man would envy. He was Sam's height, but a good fifty pounds of solid muscle heavier. Sam extended his hand. "Nice to meet you, Boo. Deanie speaks very highly of you."

"The bitch should learn to keep her mouth shut," the bodyguard said. Boo remained silent but took Sam's hand and crushed it in his grip.

Sam smiled, ignoring the pain shooting up his right arm. He watched as Boo relaxed, having established his alpha male status. It was important to Sam that his opponents not feel threatened by him. He wanted them cocksure and careless.

If he'd thought he and Boo could have their conversation in a civilized manner, Sam certainly would have pursued that route. But Boo had seen fit to bring the goon with him, and Sam could tell that rational discussion was out of the question in that quarter. So the only alternative was to neutralize the bodyguard and bring Boo into a position where he valued the opportunity to talk. It was doable-not easy, but doable.

"Have a seat." Sam gestured Boo toward the bar's empty tables and chairs as if he owned the place. When he saw Boo start to lower himself, Sam turned toward the goon and, without a blink of warning, rammed his head directly into the big man's soft gut. The bodyguard staggered, and Sam used that unbalanced moment to hook his foot around his opponent's ankles. The huge kid crashed down so quickly, he had no chance to put out his hands to break his fall. He landed flat on his prominent nose, which cracked with an audible snap. A blossom of red unfurled-dripping from his white polo shirt onto the floor next to his shoulder.

His bodyguard's collapse had come so suddenly that Boo was just beginning to rise from his chair when Sam pivoted and upended the heavy table, pinning the young man momentarily. The goon still lay on the floor, stunned that the blood pooling around him was his own.

"Broken nose makes a hell of a mess, doesn't it?" Sam reached down and compressed the carotid arteries on both sides of the goon's neck. Within eight seconds, he had passed out.

Sam returned his attention to Boo, who was now standing, warily keeping the table between them. When Boo spoke, his voice emerged incongruously high-pitched for a man with a steroid-thickened eighteen-inch-round neck. "You killed him. Why did you have to kill him?"

"Nah, that's just the Mr. Spock trick from Star Trek. Except I do it correctly-both sides of the neck. I could have killed him, but I chose not to." Sam straightened his shirt, which had come partially untucked in all the commotion. "Choice is a good thing, wouldn't you agree, Boo?"

Boo said nothing, his eyes darting from the main entrance to the kitchen door, neither of which promised any help or easy escape.

"Now you have a choice," Sam continued. "You can sit and have a little talk with me, or you can join your friend there."

Boo sat.

"Good. Deanie said you were a smart guy, and I see she was right." Sam remained standing and smiled down at his companion.

"Who are you?" Boo asked.

"Uh, uh, uh-I'm the one asking the questions here. Tell me about the other night at Club Epoch."

Boo's eyes narrowed. "You're a cop. Why don't you just arrest me, then?"

"You insult me, Boo." Sam extended one long, skinny foot. "You ever see a cop in Bruno Magli loafers and a Hugo Boss blazer?"

Boo, a brand-sensitive thug, looked even more puzzled and uneasy. "Why you wanna know about Club Epoch?"

"Because a friend of mine is taking the fall for that bomb. I want to know who set him up."

"It wasn't me. I swear to God I didn't know what was going to go down. When that mailbox blew, I nearly shit myself."

"Boo, I'm losing respect for your intelligence. That's not even close to being a convincing lie."

Boo sat forward in his chair. "No, man, seriously-I didn't know about the bomb. All I was supposed to do was get this rich kid into Club E, buy him some drinks, then invite him to go to this after-hours club. We were on our way there when the whole mailbox thing went down."

"Boo, you're forgetting one little detail. It was one of your friends who put the bomb under the box. A guy named Zeke, or Freak or something. Maybe you have a reason for wanting to get rid of a federal judge."

"No, Freak wasn't one of our guys. He showed up at the club. Was hangin' around, talkin' to the boys. Knew a lot about music. When we all left, he came, too. I coulda run him off, but what did it matter? I was just supposed to take the kid to the after-hours place. If he wanted to come along, so what?"

"Did you see him put the bomb under the mailbox?"

Boo shook his head. "We were walking in a big group. I was in the lead with Paco. Suddenly, someone shouted 'Run' and everyone raced past us, so we started running, too. When the bomb blew, we were at the corner and we stopped to look back. Right away, the police showed up and started askin' questions. That's when I noticed Freak wasn't with us anymore."

"Did you tell the cops about him?"

Boo nodded. "They didn't seem all that interested. They talked to the Korean guy in the market, came back and talked to us some more, then said we could go. That's all I cared about. We split."

Sam studied Boo. A fine sheen of sweat clung to the punk's forehead. Systematically, he cracked all the knuckles on one big paw, then went to work on the other hand. Sam had the sinking feeling that this yahoo was telling the truth. And that meant Manny's case was even more complicated than they'd suspected. "So, who asked you to get Paco into the club?"

Boo squirmed in his seat like a kid in the principal's office. "See, that's the part you're going to have a hard time believing."

"Try me."

"I got this call and a guy with a funny accent offered me five hundred bucks to get Paco into the club, get him some drinks, and take him out after closing. He was actin' all mysterious, said he'd leave the money in a paper bag at the playground." Boo shook his head. "It was like he watched too many movies, yanno?

"I thought someone was messin' with me. I went to the playground expecting some kind of scam. But the bag was there with the money, just like he said. So I figured, what the hell. It's no skin off my nose. We go to Club E all the time anyway."