Across the street five guys slipped out of the pick-up trucks. They started toward me. I saw the beta dog, and the beer-for-breakfast guy, and the biker with the bad back, and two guys I hadn't seen before, each of them looking like the other four. Same region, same family, or both.
I stayed on the sidewalk. With six guys, I didn't want any of them behind me. I wanted a wall at my back. The alpha dog stepped off the sidewalk into the gutter and met the others as the right-hand item in a neat six-man arc. They all stayed in the street, eight or ten feet from me. Out of reach, but I could smell them. They were all doing the ape thing with their arms and hands and thumbs. Like gunfighters with no guns.
"Six of you?" I said. "Is that it?"
No answer.
"That's kind of incremental, isn't it?" I said. "I was hoping for something a little more radical. Like the difference between an airborne company and an armored division. I guess we were thinking along different lines. I have to say, I'm kind of disappointed."
No answer.
I said, "Anyway, guys, I'm sorry, but I have a dinner date."
They all took a step forward, bringing them closer to each other and closer to me. Six pale faces, sallow in what little light there was.
I said, "I'm wearing a brand new shirt."
No answer.
Basic rule of thumb with six guys: you have to be quick. You can't spend more than the bare minimum of time on any one individual. Which means you have to hit each of them one time only. Because that's the minimum. You can't hit a guy less than once.
I rehearsed my moves. I figured I would start in the middle. One two three, bang bang bang. The third hit would be the hardest. The third guy would be moving. The first two wouldn't. They would be rooted to the spot. Shock and surprise. They would go down easy. But the third guy would be reacting by the time I got to him. And unpredictably. He might have a coherent plan in mind, but it wouldn't be in motion yet. He would still be jerking around with uncontrolled reflex panic.
So I was prepared to miss out on the third guy. Maybe jump straight to the fourth. The third guy might run. Certainly at least one of them would. I have never seen a pack that stayed together after the first few heads hit the pavement.
I said, "Guys, please, I just took a shower."
There was no answer, which was what I had privately predicted. They all stepped forward again, which is what I expected them to do. So I met them halfway, which seemed polite. I took two long strides, the second of them powering off the edge of the curbstone, two hundred and fifty pounds of moving mass, and I hit the third guy from the left with a straight right that would have taken his teeth out if he'd had any to start with. As it was it snapped his head back and turned his spine and shoulders to jelly and he was gone, from the fight and from my vision, because by then I was already jerking left and scything my right elbow into the second guy, horizontal across the bridge of his nose, a colossal blow full of torque from my waist and full of force from the fact that I was basically falling into him. I saw blood in the air and stamped down hard and reversed my momentum and used the same elbow backward on a guy I sensed behind me. I could tell by the impact he was flinching away and I had caught him on the ear, so I made an instantaneous mental note he might need more attention later, and then I jerked forward again and changed the angle of attack by kicking the fourth guy full-on in the groin, a satisfying bone-and-flesh crunch that simultaneously folded him in half and lifted him off his feet.
Three seconds, three down, one taking an eight count.
Nobody ran.
Another mental note: Mississippi hooligans are made of sterner stuff than most. Or else they're just plain dumber.
The fifth guy got as far as scrabbling at my shoulder. Some kind of an attempt at a punch, or maybe he was going for a choke hold. Maybe he planned to keep me still while the sixth guy landed some blows. I couldn't tell. But whatever, he was sorely disappointed in his ambitions. I exploded backward at him, my whole body moving, my torso twisting, my elbow whipping back, and I caught him in the cheek, and then I used the bounce to jam forward once more, in search of the lone survivor. The sixth guy. He caught his heel on the curb and his arms came up like a scarecrow, which I took as an invitation to pop him in the chest, right in the solar plexus, which was like plugging him into an electrical outlet. He hopped and danced and went down in a heap.
The guy I had hit on the ear was pawing at it like it was coming off. His eyes were closed, which made it not much of a fair fight, but those are always my favorite kind. I lined up and smacked a left hook into his chin.
He went down like a dropped marionette.
I breathed out.
Six for six.
End of story.
I coughed twice and spat on the ground. Then I hustled north. I had a block to go and the clock in my head said it was already one minute past nine.
42
I pushed in through the diner door and found the place empty apart from the waitress and the old couple from Toussaint's. They looked to be about halfway through their nightly marathon. The woman had a book, the man had a paper. Deveraux wasn't there yet.
I told the waitress I was expecting company. I asked her for a table for four. I figured the tables for two would be cramped for a long social engagement. She set me up in a spot near the front and I headed for the bathroom.
I rinsed my face and washed my hands and forearms and elbows with hot water and soap. I ran wet fingers through my hair. I breathed in and breathed out. Adrenaline is a bitch. It doesn't know when to quit. I flapped my hands and rolled my shoulders. I took a look in the mirror. My hair was OK. My face was clean.
There was blood on my shirt.
On the pocket. And above. And below. Not much, but some. A definite comma-shaped curl of droplets. Like it had been flung at me. Or like I had walked into a mist. Which I had. The second guy. I had hit him on the bridge of his nose. His nose had bled like a flushing toilet.
I said, "Shit," quietly, to myself.
My old shirts were in the trash in my room.
The stores were all closed.
I edged closer to the sink and took another look in the mirror. The droplets were already drying. Turning brown. Maybe they would end up looking deliberate. Like a logo. Or a pattern. Like a single element taken from a swirling fabric. I had seen similar things. I wasn't sure what they were called. Paisley?
I breathed in, breathed out.
Nothing to be done.
I headed back to the dining room and got there just as Deveraux stepped in through the door.
She wasn't in uniform. She had changed her clothes. She was wearing a silver silk shirt and a black knee-length skirt. High heeled shoes. A silver necklace. The shirt was thin and tight and tiny. It was open at the top. The skirt sat at her waist. I could have spanned her waist with my hands. Her legs were bare. And slim. And long. Her hair was wet from the shower. It was loose on her shoulders. It was spilling down her back. No ponytail. No elastic band. She was smiling, all the way up to her amazing eyes.
I showed her to our table and we sat down facing each other. She was small and neat, centered on her bench. She was wearing perfume. Something faint and subtle. I liked it.
She said, "I'm sorry I'm late."
I said, "No problem."
She said, "You have blood on your shirt."
I said, "Is that what it is?"
"Where did you get it?"
"Across the street from the hotel. There's a store."
"Not the shirt," she said. "The blood. You didn't cut yourself shaving."
"You told me not to."