My stomach clenched.This wasn’t a simple escort.
Grill opened the door with my forehead.We burst out onto a narrow, gravel alley that ran parallel to Sprague.It was dark. The little warmth of the day had fled, leaving the air bitter.My breath plumed in front of me.
With another hard shove, Grill flung me into the far wall of the alley.I turned and caught the brunt of the push on my right shoulder, my good one.I grunted and slid to the ground.
“Get up, bitch,” Grill hissed at me.
I stood up slowly, feigning that I was more hurt than I was.Leon remained in the doorway, his hand still beneath his jacket.Grill stood three feet away from me, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet.He held his hands up at shoulder level, his fists lightly clenched.
“You better do what you can to stop me,” Grill said.“’Cuz I’m coming at you like a motherfucker.”
I turned my body away from him, my stancebladed with my left foot forward.My hands came up all on their own, though it had been years since I’d done any training.
Grill smiled, a hint of gold glinting in the light from the streetlight at the end of alley.“Bitch wants to play.Good.”
He moved lightly to the left and right.I held my position, watching the center of his chest and gauging his movements.He was light on his feet and athletic.All the while, I was aware of Leon’s hulking frame in the doorway just ten feet away.
Grill flicked out a left hand at my face. It was more of probe than a punch, and I brushed it aside.He smiled a little wider and continued to dance left and right.Another probing punch snapped out, then a third.I moved my head out of the way of both.
His next punch had more conviction and even blocking it hurt my forearm.He followed up with a right that I ducked under.I realized too late that he was following through with a kick.His shin blasted into my upper leg, catching the nerve that runs beneath the muscle.I let out a cry of pain and fell to the ground hard.
“Oh, yeah!” Grill said.“That shit hurts, don’t it?”
I forced myself up onto all fours and spit dirt from my mouth.
“Get back up,” he ordered.“Or I’ll kick you right there.”
I stood up slowly, watching him out of my peripheral vision.My left leg throbbed and I tested it with a little weight.It wouldn’t hold much.
Grill didn’t wait.He stepped through with another kick, this one drilling straight into my midsection and throwing me back into the wall.I saw it coming and exhaled at the last second, but it still hurt like hell.Both of my shoulder blades absorbed most of the collision, but my head snapped back a little, too, cracking it against the wall.My vision doubled for a second before sliding back into focus.
I stood still, watching Grill dance on the dirty gravel.He raised his hands up in the air and glanced over his shoulder at Leon.
“And the black man is the superior athlete!” he chanted like a manic, racist sportscaster.“He strikes back for four hundred years of oh-presh-un!”
Leon’s flat eyes didn’t waver.
Grill turned back to face me, stepping in and throwing a punch to my face.I moved to my right at the last second and he cracked his fist on the brick wall.He let out a cry of surprise and pain.
Warmth had enveloped me, like it always did in battle.I delivered several short, quick blows to his belly, throat and nose while he was still yowling from punching the wall.Before he could recover from that or from my strikes, I slid behind him, snaked my arms around his neck and clamped down.
I squeezed as tightly as I could, trying to put Grill asleep as fast as possible, before Leon could-
Without warning, I was ripped from Grill and slammed to the ground.I started to get up, but Leon didn’t wait.He kicked me in the ribs, sending me sprawling.There was a shuffle on the gravel, then another kick, this one bouncing off my shoulder.When that kick didn’t move me, he followed with a third, this one low and below my ribs.A blinding white pain flashed through my head when that one landed.
A moment of merciful silence followed, then someone grabbed a handful of hair and jerked my head up.The breath next to my cheek reeked of salami.
“I should kill your white ass,” Grill said.He settled for punching me in the face with his free hand and letting my head drop.
Grill grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and slipped it off of my arm.With one more hard yank, he pulled it off entirely.
“That’ll be my tax,” he said.
I thought they might leave me then, but Leon lifted me up by my belt with one massive paw.“You want to be leavin’ this muthafuckah,” he said, and shoved me down the alley.
I staggered away, in perfect agreement.
27
I kept walking at the end of the alley.My leg hurt, my knee ached and I could feel blood on my face, but I knew that it was time to leave the entire neighborhood.
The pain from my kidney throbbed, butit eased a little as I walked.I didn’t think Leon had done any permanent damage, though a guy his size could easily tear open a kidney with a kick like the one he laid into me.
Thank God for small favors.
The cold February night had me shivering less than a block away from the Hole.The thought of Grill wearing my coat sent a flare of rage through my chest, but I knew there was nothing I could do about it.Not now, anyway.
Something good might come of it, I realized.If he showed Rolo the folded up file in the sleeve that Katie had given me, it might convince him that I actually do have friends on the department.That might buy me just a little protection.
I checked my pockets as I walked.I still had my apartment key and my wallet.And Kris’s picture, still in my back pocket.
Not a total loss.Just my jacket, Katie’s file and a few dollars in cash.
Oh, yeah, I thought.And my pride.Don’t forget about that.
I kept walking, rubbing my arms.Most of my pride was gone a long time ago.
28
I walked through one of the worst parts of River City, my arms wrapped around my chest and my limp more prominent by the block.I kept my head down and trudged forward, always forward.
The hookers and dopers gave me little more than a casual glance as a customer.I saw them eye me up and down out of my peripheral vision.Once, a pair of kids, one white and one black, slipped in behind me for half a block before breaking off.I’m sure that they were thinking about mugging me.Maybe they sensed the brooding anger I was sending out in waves and changed their minds.More likely, they figured that a guy who couldn’t even afford a coat in February wasn’t likely to have more than pocket change.
Twice, police cars rolled past me, but thankfully neither slowed or gave me more than a momentary glance.None stopped me.
Slowly, those businesses with dark, recessed doorways filled with the piranhas, sharks and feeder fish gave way to more modern buildings.I walked on.A few more blocks and the same buildings were newer yet and had minimum-wage security types standing out front.
One of them stood in front of a building full of lawfirms and insurance companies.He looked to be in his late forties, though he could have been older.He had no gray hair and that throws off estimates.His bushy mustache was a holdover from the Seventies.He wore a uniform shirt that was several shades of blue lighter than the police wore, but he sported a huge metal badge on the left chest of his open coat.His large belly sloped out beneath his badge.
He followed me with his eyes as I approached, doing so in the blatant way that only someone with authority can do.My head ached from hitting the back of it onthe alley wall, but I didn’t think my face was too bad.Mullet-man at the Flyers game had pummeled my left arm and Grill and Leon had done a number on my torso, but I believed my mug was mostly untouched.Then I remembered Grill punching me in the face after Leon used me for a football.There was probably a little swelling, maybe even a small cut I wasn’t noticing because of the cold.Great.