Bronson leapt across the ring and landed on the pit bull’s back.
The crowd went mad with killing frenzy, all except the seven men in the front row.
Bronson had bitten into the smaller dog’s back but he suddenly released his hold. Tchaikovsky had calmly ignored the pain and sunk his teeth deeply into the left foreleg of the dog on his back.
Bronson turned, unable to free himself from the teeth that dug into his leg. He snapped at Tchaikovsky’s left ear and took a small piece of it. The pit bull showed no pain but bit even more deeply into the leg.
“Fight,” shouted someone. “Let go of his leg and fight.”
Tchaikovsky paid no attention.
Bronson was now trying to get away. On his three good legs he pulled the smaller dog around the arena, turning every few seconds to try to sink his teeth into the pit bull.
“Stop it,” shouted someone. “It’s boring.”
Others told the shouter to shut up. The crowd was in a fighting mood. This was not the fight they expected, not the fight they had been led to expect.
Bronson’s foreleg was bleeding badly. He kept thrashing, trying to escape. It was clear to all that the only way he would get away from the pit bull’s grip was to lose his leg.
Bronson lunged awkwardly, teeth apart, at the pit bull’s head.
Tchaikovsky, without loosening his grip, calmly turned his head down toward the dirt floor and out of reach of the madly snapping larger dog.
The fight was clearly over. Tchaikovsky seemed almost sedate and clearly determined to never loosen his jaws.
“Tchaikovsky, stop,” shouted Sasha.
Instantly the pit bull loosened his grip and walked away from his bloody opponent, who tried to move after him on his remaining three legs. The almost severed foreleg made it impossible for him to pursue. He took two steps and rolled over on his side, now trying to lick his bloody wound.
Meanwhile, Tchaikovsky walked indifferently toward his cage, ignoring his own significant but clearly not crippling or life-threatening wounds. There were shouts, demands for the return of bets, while others shouted that there had been nothing wrong with the fight. Drinks spilled. Cigar and cigarette butts were thrown.
Bronson would never fight again. He might survive to walk three-legged through life, but that was the best the animal would ever achieve.
Tchaikovsky entered his cage, turned to face the action in the arena and to watch Bronson hobbling toward his trainer, who stood next to Nimitsov.
“You did well, Tchaikovsky,” said Sasha.
The dog blinked.
Nimitsov looked at Sasha, smiled and shrugged.
What happened next came so fast that Sasha was not really aware that Nimitsov had saved his life. The pudgy young madman had stepped into the ring where the dogs had fought and bled. He faced the seven men in the first row.
Over the crowd roar, Peter shouted, “Betrayers. French scum.”
The Frenchmen in the front row and the crowd heard the elated shriek of madness from the man in the ring. The Frenchmen began to go for their guns. Sasha was frozen for an instant and then dived for Tchaikovsky’s cage and the compartment where the gun was hidden. There was a momentary standoff in the arena because Nimitsov now stood feet apart, a gun in each hand, a very happy look on his face.
The crowd began to scramble for the exits, pushing, trampling each other, growing louder in their panic.
Sasha had just opened the drawer when the first shot was fired.
For an instant he did not know who had started the insane battle, and then he felt the body fall on his back. He heard an explosion of gunfire from the ring and the first row. Sasha pushed the body off of him. It was the young Frenchman who had stared at him.
He was still staring, but now with a third, round eye in his forehead, a simple, bleeding dark hole from which blood and something yellow was seeping. The dead man held a gun loosely in his right hand.
Peter Nimitsov had saved Sasha’s life.
Sasha took the dead man’s gun in one hand, his own in the other, and rolled over shooting toward the first row, over the wooden rim of the ring.
The madness of the battle equaled the madness of the dogfights. Seven men were in that front row, each with a gun in hand.
Two of them were now dead. The remaining five were shooting at Nimitsov, who stood unprotected.
A fat man dashed out of the stands and waddled past Nimitsov, who was firing rapidly. A bullet took the fat man in the back.
Sasha aimed more carefully and put a bullet into the rugged Frenchman who had ordered the death of Peter and himself. The rugged man bit his lower lip and closed his eyes, falling forward.
Now some of the Frenchmen began firing wildly at Sasha.
Except for the combatants, the arena was almost empty. Sasha glanced at the now-wounded Nimitsov, who was on his knees, still firing. One of Nimitsov’s bullets took the oldest Frenchman in the chest and then Nimitsov fell forward on his face. His fingers kept pulling the triggers of his weapon and the random shots shattered through the roof and into empty seats.
The four remaining Frenchmen turned their full attention on Sasha. They had all scrambled for some cover when Nimitsov fell.
Sasha fired almost blindly, hitting nothing.
And then silence. Nimitsov was no longer firing, and since no gunfire was coming from the Frenchmen, Sasha forced his shaking hands to stop pulling the trigger. He had no idea of how many shots he had fired or how many were left or if he was wounded.
His hope that the four men had fled was destroyed when he heard a voice in French say, “You two that way, around. Martin, hold him down. Maurice, go the other way.”
The gunfire resumed. A single person resumed firing at Sasha to keep him in place till the others came around him from the sides or rear. Sasha didn’t shoot. There was no time to think through the slightly controlled panic. Sasha went into a crouch and raced toward the man shooting from the cover of the aisle chairs. While the others flanked him, there was only one man between Sasha and a chance at the exit. Sasha ran right, turned and ran left, took two steps back to the right and then dived forward, now no more than a dozen feet from the man who had him pinned down. Bullets echoed. Sasha’s last bullet tore into the man’s left arm. The man’s gun was in his left hand. Sasha fired again. Nothing.
A wild thought. He turned to go for the guns in Nimitsov’s hands, but it was too late. The Frenchmen had moved into the open and now stood in a circle along the rim of the low wall around the ring.
It was Sasha’s turn to entertain.
“I am a police officer,” Sasha said in French, panting, sitting back, still hoping for a chance at Nimitsov’s guns.
“We suspected,” said the very old man in French. His gun, like the others, was pointed at Sasha. “You have killed my nephew. You have left our business in the hands of old men. Your being a policeman makes no difference.”
“It makes a difference,” came a voice from the darkness of one aisle of the arena.
The Frenchmen turned their guns toward the voice.
Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov stepped into the light. So did five uniformed and helmeted men in flak jackets, all carrying modified Kalishnikov automatic rifles.
There was a moment, only a moment, in which the eyes of the old Frenchmen turned toward each other. They had the least to lose in death. The pause was long and then the oldest man dropped his weapon. So did the others.
“I’m sorry to be a bit late, Sasha,” Rostnikov said awkwardly, going over the rim of the ring and reaching down to help Sasha to his feet. “We had an informant, but she had some difficulty telling us where the fight would be.”
The policemen herded the Frenchmen out of the arena. Sasha saw the old man look toward the body of the rugged man. There were tears in the old man’s eyes as he left the arena.
Sasha, breathing heavily, turned over the body of Peter Nimitsov, who looked up at him. The two guns were still in his hands. Nimitsov let the guns go. The number of bullet holes in the young man was remarkable, including one in his neck and one through his cheek. What was even more remarkable was that Peter Nimitsov was still alive.