Then he did.
There was something abnormal about the way Bubbles lay there. Smoke’s heart raced off in a wild tattoo. Rat-a-tat-tat. The cat looked almost like it had been broken, or even smashed. Smoke approached Bubbles cautiously.
His heart pounded in his chest.
Run, you idiot.
The cat was demolished. It was humped and bloodied, like it had been tortured and killed by a cruel and sinister child. A streak of blood stained the linoleum beneath its carcass.
RUN. RUN.
He turned and a man stood behind him. The man had just emerged from the bathroom hallway. The man was short and dark, in jeans and a white T-shirt, covered by a light autumn jacket. His face was pock-marked and scarred along the side. He looked to Smoke like a man in his mid-forties, maybe a little older. Behind him stood a much taller, much broader young man. The kid was huge. He wore a leather cap on his head. Greasy brown hair strung down from it. He had a cowlick on the front of his hairline and a wild light in his eyes.
Smoke had seen the look before. It was the look of a crazy kid who should have been locked up someplace, but instead was hired as muscle. It was the look of those guys who went on bank jobs, then suddenly started spraying civilians with gunfire. It was a bad, bad look. It was the look of murder for hire.
Smoke turned to bolt out the back door, but another young man stood there. This one was slim, clean-cut, not as crazy looking, nor nearly as big as the other one. This kid’s eyes said he had seen a few jobs, and did exactly what the bosses told him. This was the survivor type. The survivor type with a Colt. 380 in his hand.
The back yard was blocked, and the way to the stairs was blocked. Smoke couldn’t outrun these guys. He had his cane, but he couldn’t outfight them. He couldn’t do anything.
Damn! So stupid to wait and wait and wait. Now it was too late.
He had had a bad feeling, and here it was in the flesh. The bad feeling personified.
“Can I help you fellows?” he said.
The small, dark man lit a cigarette.
“That’s okay, go ahead and smoke. I don’t mind.”
The man shrugged. “James Dugan, right? That’s what you call yourself these days?”
“Who wants to know?”
The kid ambled out from behind the small man. He was big, even bigger than at first glance. Smoke watched him approach. It was like watching a dark and terrible storm move in across a valley. He angled toward Smoke across the dingy linoleum, taking his time, not hurrying at all.
“Son,” he said. “The man asked you a question. It ain’t polite to answer him with a question.” He cracked his knuckles.
“You guys are in my home. Ever think of that? That puts me in charge of asking questions.”
The big man feinted with his left hand, then delivered a hard right cross to Smoke’s jaw. Smoke stumbled backwards, crashed into the kitchen table and went right over it. Two cats scattered as he rolled over and fell to the floor.
The kid came, and smiling, stood over him. His huge hands, like the mechanical claws that sift through scrap metal at the junkyard, reached down and picked Smoke up by the shirt. The kid backed up and swung him around in a large circle, then let him go. Smoke felt himself crossing the room as if he were flying, his feet barely scraping the ground. He hit the far wall, plowed into it, then bounced off and stumbled backwards. He turned, pinwheeling for balance. He spilled and slid across the floor.
Then the small man was standing over him. Smoke looked up at that hard face. The scar stood out in sharp relief. Smoke thought of the old dueling societies in Germany, where the guys would wear the scars as badges of honor. The guy took a drag on his cigarette.
“Friend,” the guy said. His voice barely rose above a whisper. “I want to talk to you. And I want you to look at me when I do. Right here, in the eyes.”
Smoke did. The eyes. Somehow, this guy had eyes that were worse than the madness of the kid’s eyes. It was almost like there were flames behind those eyes, and the guy was burning in there, burning in a hell you would have to live through to appreciate. Smoke had also seen this look before, but maybe never this strong.
The eyes held him. “Do we understand each other?”
Smoke nodded.
More whispers from the little man. “Okay. Here’s the rules. I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them. You’re not in a position to act funny. You’re not in a position to ask me any questions. Do you still understand?”
Smoke nodded again.
“What? I didn’t hear you.”
“I understand.”
The scarred face smiled. “Good. Now, I want to show you something.”
He stepped aside and again the giant psychotic kid appeared. This time he was holding one of the cats. Melon was the cat’s name, so called because it was orange and as fat as a melon. Smoke’s heart sank at the sight of the kid with Melon. The kid stroked Melon’s fur, and even from the floor Smoke could hear the cat purring.
“That’s a good kitty,” the big boy said.
Jesus, after just watching this kid knock the piss out of me. Talk about betrayal.
Then the kid stopped stroking the cat and instead grabbed it roughly by the head. He turned the cat’s head to the left with a sudden and vicious snap. The cat went limp and the kid dropped its carcass to the floor. Two cats dead. It was a fucking cat holocaust.
The kid would pay for the cats, Smoke decided. In blood.
The scarred face appeared again.
“James Dugan, also known as Walter O’Malley?”
Smoke spit at the face. “Fuck you.” These guys were worse than the cops.
The karate works.
Lola sailed through the morning on that thought alone. Two big men had tried to take advantage of her – face it, they had tried to rape her – and she had kicked ass, just like the tattoo on her back said. It had been scary, sure, but now that it was over and gone, she wanted to do it again. This time, she wanted to go in knowing she would fight, and just get in there and, and, and… KICK ASS.
God, the feeling. She had put their lights out in seconds flat. She could have really hurt them both. By the end there, they were both completely under her power. Even now, she felt a tingle of electric excitement up her spine at the thought of it.
Smoke hadn’t been ready for her last night. That feeling of power, well, it had translated into everything. Friday night had churned up a lot of memories for her, had made it hard, but now it was clear, after last night, that it was for the good.
She felt great, that was the simple matter of fact.
She had lunch monitor duty today so she couldn’t call Smoke. Now she could barely wait until her afternoon break so she could check in with him.
It was a long day.
Smoke opened his eyes and was surprised to find himself on the floor again. For a while, they had put him in the chair.
He looked at the floor around his head. The linoleum was tacky with blood.
The skinny kid, the one who was missing the fingers, stood over him again. “Well, look who’s awake. Your girlfriend called a while ago. She left a message on the machine. She knows you’re out in the shop working. She just wanted to tell you that she loves you.”
The kid’s eyes showed rising good humor. He had a sheet of paper in his lobster claw hand. He referred to it, then looked up with a smile. “That would be Lola Bell, right? Twenty-five years old, African-American, resides at 210 Vesper Street in Portland? Top floor apartment?”
Jesus, Lola. He had to keep her out of it at all costs. It didn’t matter what they did to him. Lola was not part of this. She knew nothing about this. He wouldn’t take the bait. He wouldn’t say anything about her. If he let the comment die, perhaps they would forget about her. If he could get a message to her somehow, tell her to run…