Jack guided Reilly toward the group. He saw two pairs of legs – male and female, struggling on the floor around the far end of the counter. He shoved Reilly toward the cluster of male customers.
“Here’s another one for you. Have fun. Just don’t do anything to them they wouldn’t do to you.”
Two of the men smiled and slammed Reilly down face first on the booth’s table. They began pummeling his kidneys as Jack hurried down to where Cheeks was doing his dirty work.
He looked over the edge of the counter and saw that the skinhead held the woman’s arms pinned between them with his left hand and had his right thrust up under her bra, twisting her nipple, oblivious to everything else. Her right eye was bruised and swollen. She was crying and writhing under him, even snapping at him with her teeth. A real fighter. She must have put up quite a struggle. Cheeks’ face was bleeding from several scratches.
Jack was tempted to put a slug into the base of Cheeks’ spine so he’d not only never walk again, he’d never get it up again, either. But Cheeks’ knife was in the way, and besides, the bullet might pass right through him and into the woman. So he pocketed the .45, grabbed Cheeks’ right ear, and ripped upward.
Cheeks came off the floor with a howl. Jack lifted him by the ear and stretched his upper body across the counter. He could barely speak. He really wanted to hurt this son of a bitch.
“Naughty, naughty!” he managed to say. “Didn’t you ever go to Catholic school? Didn’t the nuns tell you that bad things would happen to you if you ever did that to a girl?”
He stretched Cheek’s right hand out on the counter, palm down.
“Like you might get warts?”
He pulled the meat hammer from his belt and raised it over his head.
“Or worse?”
He put everything he had into the shot. Bones crunched like breadsticks. Cheeks screamed and slipped off the counter. He rolled on the floor, moaning and crying, cradling his injured hand like a mother with a newborn baby.
“Never hassle a paying customer,” Jack said. “George can’t pay his protection without them.”
He grabbed Reece’s scattergun and pulled him and Reilly free from the customers. Both were battered and bloody. He shoved them toward the front door.
“I told you clowns about trying to cut in on my turf! How many times we have to do this dance?”
Reilly whirled on him, rage in his eyes. He probably would have leapt at Jack’s throat if not for the shotgun.
“We was here first, asshole!”
“Maybe. But I’m here now, so scrape up your two wimps from the back room and get them out of here.”
He oversaw the pair as they dragged Rafe and Tony out the front door. Cheeks was on his feet by then. Jack waved him forward.
“C’mon, loverboy. Party’s over.”
“He’s got my ring!” the brunette cried from the far end of the counter. She held her torn dress up over her breasts. There was blood at the corner of her mouth. “My engagement ring.”
“Really?” Jack said. “That ought to be worth something! Let’s see it.”
Cheeks glared at Jack and reached into his back pocket with his good hand.
“You wanna see it?” he said. Suddenly he was swinging a big Gurkha kukri knife through the air, slashing at Jack’s eyes. “Here! Get a close look!”
Jack blocked the curved blade with the short barrel of the sawed off, then grabbed Cheeks’ wrist and twisted. As Cheeks instinctively brought his broken hand up, Jack dropped the shotgun. He grabbed the injured hand and squeezed. Cheeks screamed and went to his knees.
“Drop the blade,” Jack said softly.
It clattered to the counter.
“Good. Now find that ring and put it on the counter.”
Cheeks dug into the left front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a tiny diamond on a gold band. Jack’s throat tightened when he saw the light in the brunette’s eyes at the sight of it. Such a little thing... yet so important.
Still gripping Cheeks’ crushed hand, he picked up the ring and pretended to examine it.
“You went to all that trouble for this itty bitty thing?” Jack slid it down the counter. “Here, babe. Compliments of the house.”
She had to let the front of her dress drop to grab it. She clutched the tiny ring against her with both hands and began to cry. Jack felt the black fury crowd the edges of his vision. He looked at Cheeks’ round baby face, glaring up at him from seat level by the counter top, and picked up the kukri. He held it before Cheeks’ eyes. The pupils dilated with terror.
Releasing the broken hand, Jack immediately grabbed Cheek’s throat and jaw, twisted him up and around, and slammed the back of his head down on the counter, pinning him there. With two quick strokes he carved a crude “X” in the center of Cheeks’ forehead. He howled and Jack let go. He grabbed the shotgun again and shoved Cheeks toward the door.
“Don’t worry, Cheeks. It’s nothing embarrassing – just your signature.”
Once he had them all outside, he used the shotgun to prod them into the alley between the diner and the vacant three story Borden building next door. They were a pitiful bunch, what with Tony and Rafe barely able to stand, Cheeks with a bloody forehead and a hand swollen to twice normal size, and Reece and Reilly nursing cracked ribs and swollen jaws.
“This is the last time I want to do this dance with you guys. It’s bad for business around here. And besides, sooner or later one of you is really going to get hurt.”
Jack was about to turn and leave them there when he heard tires squeal in the street. Headlights lit the alley and rushed toward him. Jack dove to his left to avoid being hit as the nose of a beat up Chrysler rammed into the mouth of the alley. His foot slipped on some rubble and he went down. By the time he scrambled to his feet, he found himself looking into the business ends of a shotgun, a 9mm automatic, and a Tec 9 assault pistol.
He’d found the missing members of Reilly’s gang.
*
Even though it made his ribs feel like they were breaking, Matt couldn’t help laughing.
“Gotcha! Gotcha, scumbag!”
He picked up the fallen scattergun and jabbed the barrel at Ski mask’s gut. The guy deflected the thrust and almost pulled it from his grasp. Fast hands. Better not leave this guy any openings.
“The gun,” he said. “Take it out real slow and drop it.”
The guy looked at all the guns pointed at him, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his own by the barrel; it fell to the alley floor with a thud.
“Turn around,” Matt told him, “lean on the wall, and spread ‘em, police style. And remember – one funny move and you’re full of holes.”
Matt patted down his torso and legs and told him, “You musta thought I was a stupid jerk to hit this place without back up. These guys’ve been waiting the whole time for you to show. Never figured you’d come in the back, though. But that’s okay. We gotcha now.”
The frisk turned up nothing, not even a wallet. The blue jacket had nothing in the pockets except the cash from the register. He’d get that later. Right now, though, it was game time.