Rusty held up the hundred.
"Hundred is fake."
Rusty muttered a stream of curses as he stormed out the door.
Ali was still yelling as the door shut behind him. "Ali give you nice set of steak knives for bad bill! No gun, but you stab somebody good!"
Walking down Houston, Rusty turned into a quiet bar. He ordered a scotch, downed it, ordered another before the cute bartender put the bottle back. First luck he had all day. The bartender didn't catch the fake bill. God bless New York's bar scene, where perky tits outweighed brains and skill any day.
He sat in a cloud trying to think. Who was he kidding? He had nothing. He was five miles north of nothing and three west of clue one.
It couldn't have been anything that the cowboy wanted public, or else why not just send cops?
Weapons? By his best estimation, he'd acquired about a half dozen guns or so over the years. All of them went to Ali. Maybe one of them could have been evidence in a murder case? Nope. Figuring in the cowboy's style and readiness to draw, none of the guns he'd stolen were six-shooters.
Drugs? Nope. Couldn't have been. In many a safe, Rusty found the gamut from Valiums into what looked like a half-pound of uncut Colombian. They always left it behind. He and Dante agreed that drugs weren't any direction they wanted to head in, business-wise. Dante may have been an idiot, but he wasn't stupid.
Computers? Dante took care of the computers. He wiped out the hard drives, then sold them in his computer shop. Maybe there was some kind of damaging file on one of the computers. It still amazed Rusty that someone as mentally and physically clumsy as Dante could have such careful fingers on a keyboard.
Deft fingers that were capable of pocketing something before Rusty knew what was in the safe. Jumpsuits had lots of pockets.
Before Rusty could leap up and run over to strangle himself a retard, the bartender squealed and ran to the door. "Yancy! Get in here! You better not be walking by without saying hi." In the doorway, she leapt into a pair of arms, peppering the face with affectionate kisses. Very big arms. The cowboy's goon carried the girl back into the bar, placed her down and sat in the stool next to Rusty.
"Hiya Rusty," he said.
"Hiya Yancy. Funny coincidence isn't it?"
"What? Oh. Well, to be honest, yeah." Yancy actually blushed.
The bartender started pouring a pint before the tap sputtered and died. She clucked her tongue. "I got to go down and change the keg. Don't you leave." She pointed an admonishing finger at Yancy before she walked out back.
"Cute kid," said Rusty.
"Yeah. I used to work the door here. I was following you. The coincidence was that you came in here."
"This before or after Tua?"
Yancy looked surprised. "I guess it wouldn't have taken you long to figure it out at this point. Did you see it?"
"In person." Yancy Benevides was a young heavyweight who made the mistake of running into six too many of David Tua's hooks one night in Vegas. Rusty watched the whipping from the front. The fight was on the same card as one of Rusty's not-so-hopefuls. That was why he looked familiar. "Was that your last?"
Yancy tapped his right eyebrow. "They removed part of my ocular bone. Nicely dislocated my cornea too. Fucking Hawaiian hits harder than a mule kick."
"He's Samoan."
"Either way. Was Hearns your last?"
Now it was Rusty's turn to be surprised. "Yeah. The famous right. Did you see it?"
"Over and over. Broke my Dad's heart. You were his Great White Hope. In a way, I was kinda honored when you punched me in the gym. Until you hit me in the balls."
"Sorry." Rusty wasn't sure if he was apologizing for the low blow or for Mr. Benevides's broken heart.
Yancy shrugged. "S'okay, I guess. I'm gonna stop following you now, since you know I'm here and all."
"All right."
"Mr. Queen wanted me to tell you that you got one more day." Yancy caught himself. "Forget I said that." He tapped his eyebrow again as he stood in explanation of his gaffe.
"Already knew," Rusty lied. "Queen of Hearts. That where you met him?"
"Yup. Working the door."
"So, boxer, to bouncer, to goon? Dad must be proud."
Yancy shrugged. "Pays better than either of the first two. How much does thief pay?"
"Touché."
"Oh, and I owe you this." Yancy brought his huge fist down onto Rusty's crotch, mashing his testicles into the bar stool. Rusty moaned and slumped to the floor. When he found the strength to open his eyes, he was looking up at the bartender.
"You're gonna have to leave, Mister."
They are remarkably perky tits, Rusty thought as he wondered whether his balls would ever work again.
The hole was small and right between Dante's eyebrows. Dante's vacant eyes were crossed, as if trying to look up and into the hole that had opened there. Rusty fought the crazy urge to look in the hole for any evidence of a brain. Instead, he rooted through the pockets of Dante's jumpsuit. Seventeen hundred dollars. Not bad. Rusty knew the old adage to be true. Nobody was more paranoid about theft than a thief. Lucky for him, Dante wasn't bright enough to find a hiding place anywhere but on his body.
It all came together in Rusty's mind. He'd been fighting the wrong fight all along. Never go toe-to-toe with a puncher when you're a boxer.
Last round.
Ding.
Rusty left the message at The Queen of Hearts that he'd meet them there at five a.m. After closing, but before Bleecker Street would have any morning traffic. Rusty got off the train at Second Avenue and jogged the remaining mile, feeling his blood pump, the muscles loosen up. He felt good. He jogged up the stairs to the club, marveling at the god-awful orange awning as he passed it. He knocked on the wooden door. Yancy opened it and stepped aside.
Mr. Queen smiled a big Texas grin as he came in. "Mr. Cobb. I'm so glad that you decided to do business here, clean up the mess you made, and such."
Rusty pulled the metal box out of his backpack. "First of all, let me apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. I didn't know what it was when I took it and I sure as hell didn't know how important it was when I did."
Queen smiled wider. "Bygones and such. Yancy?"
Yancy took the box from Rusty and with his other hand grabbed the hood of Rusty's sweatshirt, choking him.
Queen took the box and stepped back. "Just so's were sure you're not trying to pull a switcheroo here."
"Suit yourself," Rusty croaked.
Queen thumbed the lock on the box.
Three.
Queen opened the box. Rusty spun, catching Yancy with a hook right on the eyebrow he'd pointed to. Yancy let go of the hood and wobbled noticeably.
Two.
Queen looked up, his face a mask of rage. "You sonofa-" He dropped the box and reached for his gun. Rusty threw the dazed Yancy into the space between Queen and himself. Yancy stumbled and fell into the gun. His body muffled the shot, but a red blossom opened on his back.
One.
Rusty dove out the second story window into the ass-ugly orange awning.
BOOM
The explosion blew out all the windows facing Bleecker.
Rusty never figured out just what he was supposed to have stolen.
Dante's money had been enough to buy a timing cap and a small quantity of plastique from Ali. Small, but enough for one good bang. With ultimate caution, Rusty attached the cap to the lock on the box and stuffed the lower part of the tiered box with the explosive, turning the metal casing into a great big shrapnel grenade.
The concussion nearly threw Rusty over the awning, but he caught the edge, rolled, and came down hard on the street. He was covered with shards of glass, but the thick sweatsuit had protected him from any major cuts.
He lay on the concrete for as long as he could afford, did a quick mental inventory of his parts, decided they were intact and carefully got up. Time to go. His ears rang loudly and he feared he wouldn't hear approaching sirens.
On the corner of LaGuardia, Rusty found a slightly burned cowboy hat. He stuffed it into his backpack and started the jog back to Brooklyn.