“Someone could be calling right now,” Ryan said. “We got unregistered weapons here.”
“I got one, boss,” Phil said. “Don’t make me go back inside so soon.”
“He’s not worth it,” Ryan said. “Like you said, he’s a douchebag, a pube. He’s nothing.”
“A million he cost me.”
“He’ll cost you more if we don’t go.”
Marco sighed unhappily. “Okay, Dante, okay. You made your point.”
“Just looking out for you, boss.”
“I appreciate that,” Marco said, with all the warmth of a jackal. He squared up to face me. “You got lucky this time, Geller. Won’t happen again.” He turned as if to walk away, then spun back and threw a wild right hook at my jaw. The punk couldn’t help thinking he had a freebie coming, but his telegraphed punch was easy to slip. I backed away in a fighting stance. I had let Dante Ryan work me over, for both our sakes, but Marco would have to earn anything he got.
I backed quickly toward the open field where more people would see what was happening. Marco charged toward me, leaving Ryan and Phil in the shelter of the picnic tables. He squared up and threw a short left. I blocked it hard with my forearm. He threw a right and I banged it aside harder.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You can only hit guys who are being held down?”
“You want I should hold him?” Phil asked.
“Stay right there! I don’t need help.” Marco rushed at me with his head down and tried to knock me over, dead easy to sidestep and trip. He went sprawling onto his knees and elbows.
“Minchia!” Marco yelled.
Phil translated again. “Prick or pussy, depends what part of Italy you’re from.”
“Fight like a man,” Marco panted, his hands on his knees.
“And put you at a disadvantage?”
He rushed at me and tried to kick me in the balls. I swept his kicking leg up and away with my forearm and he fell hard to the ground, landing on his back.
I wanted to go after him, beat him worse than I had Claudio. But if I went too far the guns might come out, and with these guys, who knew where too far was?
Marco got up slowly and gave me the dead eyes. “That’s it,” he said. “I don’t care how many people are around.” He reached into his back pocket and came out with a black object that looked like a pen until he moved his thumb and a six-inch blade shot out the end. Then it looked a lot like a stiletto. He came at me, feinting with the blade, trying to get me to plant my feet. I kept my eyes on his knife hand. Marco lunged forward and swept the knife toward my chest. I backed far enough away to dodge the blade easily, but stepped in a rut and stumbled. He swept the knife at me again, slashing the front of my shirt but breaking no skin.
“Hey!” came a shout behind us.
I regained my feet and darted right, risking a quick glance. The cavalry had arrived in the form of half a dozen ballplayers.
“Come on,” Ryan urged Marco. “We’re drawing a fucking crowd here.”
“All right, Jewboy,” Marco said to me. Sweat was dripping off the end of his nose. “You get a free pass for now. But I’m not through with you, got it? You’re dead meat, man. Dead kosher meat.” He laughed and Phil chimed in a moment later. Ryan forced a grin. I clenched my fists.
“No one talks to me like you did,” Marco said.
“More people should.”
“Shut up, Geller!” Dante Ryan said. “Just shut it!” Was he still playing a part here or genuinely concerned that I was going too far? “And stay away from that woman’s house, understand? You go near her again, I’ll kill you myself.”
“Get in line,” I said.
“Come on,” Marco said. “It’s too fucking hot down here.”
He retracted the blade and put the knife away.
“You all right?” the big blond called.
I told him I was and thanked him. He and a few others looked like they wanted to take the bats to Marco, but I waved them off. Who knew what Phil might do if someone took a swing at his boss?
“Look out!” someone shouted. I turned just in time to see Marco rushing at me from the right, the knife blade back out, the knife hand driving toward my side. I tried to move out of the way but the blade tore my shirt and sliced through the skin between my right hip and my ribs. Warm blood started running down my side.
Marco thrust the knife again, this time straight at my heart. Fuck him. Fuck his gunman too. I caught his hand in my right, locked his arm straight and drove my left palm hard into his elbow. There was a cracking sound like a twig snapping. The knife fell to the ground, followed closely by Marco, who screamed and rolled onto his back, clutching his arm. I ran toward the clutch of ballplayers, looking back over my shoulder. Phil was kneeling at Marco’s side as he writhed and moaned in the grass. Ryan was staring at the ground like he wished it would swallow him.
I realized then it wasn’t a ballplayer who had yelled the warning. It had been Ryan. And once the pain subsided, Marco Di Pietra would realize it too.
CHAPTER 19
Not long after midnight, I eased myself out of a cab and walked gingerly into the lobby of my building. I had sixteen stitches in my side but was feeling no pain. I was happy as a clam, in fact, or at least as happy as a clam who has taken two Percocets and has plenty more in his shell.
All things considered, my brush with death-and I speak here not of being slashed by a psychopath but of dealing with the Canadian medical system-went as well as could be expected. The bearded ballplayer drove me to Beth Israel on the condition that I not bleed on the seat of his Taurus. “It’s a burgundy interior,” he said, “but not the same shade.” Ed had wanted to come too but I told him to do himself a favour and go back to his apartment and not let anyone see him with me.
“I got pictures of them, the bastards,” Ed said. “What should I do with them?”
“Nothing, Ed. Don’t even develop the film till we talk.”
The ballplayer, whose name was Mark, gave me a spare T-shirt from his duffle bag to press against the wound while he drove. When we pulled up to Emerg, I thanked him and his friends for not looking away from trouble.
“I’d recognize the guy,” he said. “If it came down to a lineup.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” I said. “Not if you’re smart enough to play centre field. Feel no obligation to provide descriptions to the police, either. None of you. Let it fade. And thanks again.”
On entering the ER, I was required to scour my hands with antiseptic lotion. Personally, I thought the blood leaking out of me posed more of a health hazard than my hands, but as my mother never tires of reminding me, I never went to medical school. Once sanitized, I presented myself, along with my health card, to a nurse behind a counter piled high with files.
She was a tall black woman with regal features and close-cropped hair dyed a ginger blonde. At the sight of my bloody side, she might have raised one eyebrow slightly.
“Take a seat,” she said.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “They’re not exactly burgundy.”
“I didn’t say take one home. Just take one.”
I sat down and started flipping through two-year-old magazines, keeping the T-shirt tight to my side with my elbow. Thankfully, the waiting room was not as full as it would have been during flu season, when anyone with a sniffle heads straight to the nearest ER, instead of taking to their bed and watching daytime TV like normal people. Still, I worked my way through half a dozen magazines before my name was called. A second nurse with twinkling blue eyes and a mop of red curls led me to a curtained-off examination area. She gloved her hands and placed a thick gauze pad on a bed with pale yellow sheets, gripped my hand and eased me down onto my back so the pad was under the wound. She wiped away the blood that had dried on my skin and peered at the slash. I could feel fresh rivulets of blood run down my side like raindrops down a window. “Mm-hmm,” she said.