Maybe Corporate V-P found encouragement in that, because, despite the hold I had on him, he began to kick wildly, trying to knee me in the groin.
I blocked most of them with my hip, but he got in one shot that nearly connected. Came close enough to make me woof and my lungs spasm.
That did it. He’d had his chance, and I’d had enough. I released his jaw, squatted slightly, then drove my open palm hard up under his chin. I used my thighs to create torque, twisting at the hips.
The blow cracked his teeth together-a sickening sound-and lifted him momentarily off the ground. I caught him in both arms, controlling his body, then pinched the thumb and middle fingers of my left hand around his throat. With my right, I slapped his face once… twice, and then I swung in behind him, threading my forearms under his armpits.
His voiced was an octave higher now: “You son-of-a-bitch. I’ll kill you for this.”
There was enough light in the parking lot to see that his mouth was frothing blood.
Breathing heavily, wrestling him, applying more pressure now, I said into his ear, “No more threats. You’re just making it worse.”
Then I leveraged my arms up through his, locked both hands together, and forced my palms against the back of his head-a dangerous pressure hold called a full nelson.
I was aware that Corporate V-P’s four men were not standing idly by while I humiliated their leader. They were the vocal type, at first calling out encouragement and instruction. Then commanding me to stop, to let him go, or they were going to call the cops or kick my ass. The threats varied. I thought I was keeping careful peripheral track of them-they were banded together off to my left.
But not all of them.
My hands locked behind his head, I walked Corporate V-P toward my truck and slammed his body hard against the fender, then slammed him hard a second time. I increased the pressure on the back of his head as I said, “It’s time for you to go home, Hal. What do you think?”
The pain he was in changed his voice, and his attitude. “Yeah, O.K., O.K., Jesus Christ, that’s enough. It was a misunderstanding. Seriously, no hard feelings… goddamn it! You’re breaking my neck!”
So I let V-P stand, releasing pressure, unthreading my fingers-which is when one of his sales crew jumped me from behind. The guy had a strong arm around my throat, but I got my fingers around his wrists and snapped his hands free without much trouble. Then I ducked under, pivoted, got behind him, and drove his arm up into the middle of his back. Drove it with such force that it certainly dislocated his shoulder, and maybe broke it.
Along with his scream of pain, I heard, “Doc, watch it!”
I turned to see Dewey intercept another of the salesmen-Hawaiian shirt, beer gut-who was charging toward me. She stopped him with a stiff-arm, then dropped him with a single overhand right to his nose. The punch had all the speed and accuracy of her once much-feared tennis serve.
That was the end of it. Hal’s underlings had risked enough for their Corporate V-P. He’d lost, so had they, and I knew they’d never look at him or behave the same around him again.
Something else I knew: Back at corporate headquarters in Chicago, the story about Hal, the fight, and how it started would spread quickly. Either Hal would soon be gone, or he would muster sufficient political muscle to oust his underlings. But there was no way his career could endure them hanging around, because he’d been exposed for what he really was, and they’d witnessed it. Authentic leaders are sustained by the strength of their own character. Sham leaders succeed only because they are passable character actors.
Hal had been unmasked.
The hierarchy of corporations is as complicated-and no less primal-than the hierarchies of pack animals. In such packs-wolves or lions or chimps, for instance-alpha males rise to power, then survive or are banished by jockeying underlings.
I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for the guy.
At her Lexus, rubbing her already swelling knuckles, Dewey told me, “And I tried to help you beg out of it because of your glasses. All these years, I didn’t have a clue. What were you back in school, some kinda hot-shit wrestling champion or something?”
Opening the door for her, I said, “Something like that.”
She didn’t want me to follow her home, but I did. Her bungalow has a Spanish tile roof and conch-pink siding. The house is built on low stilts a couple feet above a quarter-acre of bare limestone gravel, the property landscaped for minimum maintenance.
The moon was three days before full, high overhead-its mountainous polar regions visible where the temperature was 300 degrees below zero out there in space. In the moon’s cold light, I could see papaya and palms planted in ornamental clusters, and a banana thicket, too. The papaya and sugar bananas were good. Some mornings for breakfast, Dewey and I would eat them chilled, fresh lime juice squirted on.
Seeing the fruit trees in moon shadow caused me to realize something. Caused me to realize that I might not awake in bed with her ever again, the two of us lounging around, talking during breakfast, laughing at silly things, sharing small secrets. The end of something was in those shadows. I felt a quaking sense of loss.
I knocked. She refused to allow me in. Finally, though, she came out onto the porch. She had ice in a plastic bag, holding it on the knuckles of her right hand.
Standing in the moonlight, I told her about Lake. What had happened to my son. Her reaction-horror, revulsion-was genuine. She’d had some bad things happen in her life. She knew tragedy and grief.
I had to admire her core toughness when she added, “But that doesn’t change what I heard tonight. The words you said to the boy’s mother. I know you. The way your voice sounded. What I heard really, really hurt because I know you meant everything you said. Didn’t you?”
There was no anger in her tone now. Just pain and grief. I shook my head and made a sound of exasperation. “I have too much respect for you, our friendship, to do anything but tell you the truth. Truth is, I don’t know. It was a shock seeing her. Then finding out about the kidnapping. Hell… the only thing I’m sure of is that it scares me, thinking that I might lose you. Lose us. I don’t want that to happen.”
I put my hands on her shoulders. Listened to her try and repress a sniffle-Jesus, now I’d made her cry.
I said, “Can I come in? I leave for Miami in the morning. I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to find my son. If I can find him. This may be our only night together for a while.”
But she remained steadfast. “Doc, look… what you need to understand is, this not a small deal. If you really are in love with someone else, I’ve got to make some important decisions fast. We’re beyond the dating part. The kid games part. At least, I thought we were.”
There was an intentional, underlying meaning there that I didn’t grasp.
She removed my hands from her shoulders, touched her fingers briefly to my face, her blue eyes gray in the moonlight, as wide and sad as I had ever seen them. “I’m not telling this to hurt you. I know you don’t need any more pressure-not with what’s happened to your son. I’ve got to say it, though. You know how we’ve talked about maybe getting married, maybe one day having kids?”
I nodded.
“Well, pal… I’m more than six weeks late. My period, it’s way late. After work, I stopped at Bailey’s General Store and got one of those little test kits. The kind where you pee on the strip. It changes color if you’re pregnant. I went to your place thinking we could have a little ceremony. We could find out together.
“But there you were with a woman. A woman who’s already been through it. She’s already the mother of your son. I get out of the car kinda mixed up, but with all those hopes about us, marriage and a baby, and that’s when I hear you say those words to her, I’ll always love you. That’s exactly what you said. And meant it.