Avenging Angel Read online

  "You have exactly three seconds to get out of my sight, pretty boy," he said in his best low growl. "Or I'll kick your ass from one end of this dive to the other."

  I wanted to laugh, to tell him to think of something clever and original instead of that redneck rehash. I wanted to tell him to keep talking and glaring because I wanted to hate him with all my heart, because I knew that two things determined who won a fight: muscle and hate. Muscle meaning strength, reflexes and experience; hate meaning just who wanted to hurt the other bastard worse. Whoever wanted to win the most usually did, and since it looked as if they might ratpack me, I wanted to be consumed by hate when words turned to violence.

  "Well?" he said, alarmed I hadn't disappeared yet.

  "I'm waiting for you to start counting."

  He stabbed a finger at my chest. "You just made the biggest mistake of your life."

  "How would you know?" I said suspiciously. "You been following me around?"

  "You're dead," he growled, but didn't immediately follow through with his threat. Instead, he rolled his big shoulders like the champ loosening up before a match, swung his eyes back to his friends, then jerked his head back around to slap a fresh glare on me.

  "Looks don't kill," I said. "That's just an old saying."

  His buddies whispered encouragements to him, and I could hear Amal saying he didn't want any trouble, but they all sounded a million miles away. The familiar rush of exhilaration was hitting me in waves, each more powerful than the last. My emotions pyramided, my body became taut, and a lightheadedness washed over me. The rush peaked and I washed up on a beach of serene and ruthless hate. When the violence began I wouldn't have to think about it — my mind would be a spectator.

  I dropped a quick glance to Britt. She still sat between us, her eyes focused on my face, her expression bestial. I sensed she was feeding off my raw hate and refining it into pure pleasure. I gestured with my chin, and she slipped from between me and my opponent, baring her teeth like a wolf.

  The goon looked sorry to see her go. He was picking up on my heat, and his tough-guy image was fraying at the edges. He was obviously accustomed to winning fights with hard looks and well-delivered one-liners.

  Suddenly he lost it. I saw the meanness in his eyes break and terror crawl in its place. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and I could smell fear oozing out his pores. His friends tried to inflate him with low shouts, but his raft had already sunk.

  "Hell, let's get back to the girls," he said in a shaky voice. "I ain't got the time to stomp no wimp." He smiled to his friends over his shoulder to see if he'd saved face, then put his back to me.

  A good man would have let him go. I couldn't. I couldn't come down, not then, not like that. There was so much adrenaline in my system that if I didn't feed the beast in my belly I'd have the shakes for the rest of a long night. Besides, he'd called me a wimp.

  "I'm afraid you're too late," I said to his back, my voice alien and hoarse.

  He turned around and there was a fateful horror in his eyes. "What'd you say?"

  "I said 'Here comes the train. " I drove my left fist into his solar plexus and he doubled over, his head sinking to chest level. I shot my right hand skyward, the heel of my palm connecting with his chin on the way up. His head flew back until his nose pointed at the ceiling, exposing his neck. I drove extended fingers into his Adam's apple, and his windpipe collapsed like balsa wood. Two of his buddies caught him on the way to the floor.

  I became vaguely aware that Amal was shouting and women were screaming, but they were doing it more out of tradition than alarm. Violence in its many forms was the daily fare on Hayward.

  One of the fallen hero's pals seemed unimpressed with my fine display of fighting talent. He rushed me, fists hefted high on either side of his head, chin down, elbows tucked. He'd probably boxed in college and maybe still sparred at a gym on weekends. He rummaged out a decent left-jab-right-hook combination that probably worked fine on rummies and drunk sailors.

  I ducked the left and deflected the right. He must have been used to at least one of the punches landing because he didn't pull his guard back up, pointing at me with his chin instead. I knew a sweet deal when I saw one. I dropped my right fist somewhere near my boots and brought up the kind of donnybrook they used to write ballads about. He lifted a full four inches off the floor, then gravity got a firm hold and jerked him back down with a vengeance, smacking him on the hard tile like a sack of wet cement dropped from a third-story window.

  With two down there was a lull in the action. I shot Britt a look, and it struck me that I wanted to impress her. She looked impressed, or maybe just primal. Her face was twisted with malevolent euphoria and I half expected to see drool trickling down her chin, but I knew she was too classy a girl for that. Her eyes glowed, backlit by inner pagan fires, and they egged me on — press the attack, there can be no quarter! A brutal, coarse energy flowed between us, and we were made intimate by it. She was vampire and cheerleader at once, and I moved forward, as much to satisfy her terrible hunger as my own savage lust for violent justice.

  One of the two remaining stood frozen against the bar, his face locked up with abject horror. What the hell made a man look like that? I wondered. The other was kneeling on the floor, cradling the head of the original goon in his lap. He looked up at me as if I was a rampant Hun and said, "Haven't you done enough?"

  He probably felt safe playing the role of the medic. I wanted to yell at him, I wanted to tell him that it was they who had started it. They were the evil bastards and I was just an innocent joe dispensing justice as I went along. Instead, I leaned back a little and aimed a kick at his chin. He tried to duck it and got it in the nose instead. Blood sprayed from his nostrils, and he flipped over onto his back and twitched. That'd teach him that in war, medics got shot, too.

  The last of the foursome realized he was most probably next in line and decided he wasn't up to it. He started backpedaling for the door, running into tables and patrons as he went. He faced me the whole way, as if he thought that if he turned his back on me for a bare second I'd leap across the room and sink fangs into his neck.

  "Get him! He's getting away!" Britt screamed, her voice high and urgent.

  "No," I said. "Let him go and tell the others so they know of my valorous deeds…" I paused to catch my breath"…and fear my just wrath."

  "Huh?" she said hoarsely, as out of breath as I.

  "I don't think it would look good if I chased him down Hayward. I think I'd come off as some kind of monster."

  Britt stared at me blankly, then nodded, a shadow of disappointment in her eyes.

  The entire fight had lasted less than ten seconds, which was about average if someone knew what they were doing. I'd ridden a mean wave to victory but now the wave had crested and I was coming down fast.

  Amal looked at me as if I were a traitor, and the Sex Pistols wailed from the jukebox. I held my hand out to Britt and she took it, looking drained and content, like a lioness after a big feed. "We better go," I said. Britt worked up a grin and nodded.

  People got out of our way as if we were contaminated, and we made it to the door without my having to face down any young mavericks out to win a reputation. The second we stepped outside, Britt threw her arms around me and kissed me on the mouth, and it felt as natural as hell. The brawl had done more to bring us together than a month's worth of small talk and candlelight dinners could have. During those hot ten seconds we had shared a passion most lovers would never know.

  She pulled away from me without letting go and looked into my eyes. "You were so great in there. Where did you learn to fight like that? It was so incredibly brutal!" She rolled her eyes back like a feeding shark and the look endeared her to me.

  I shrugged. "I got lucky."

  "Lucky? No, that wasn't luck. That was fantastic." She eyed me shrewdly. "Are you sure you're an insurance salesman?"

  "Sure I'm sure. You wanna go to my place and look at some policies?"

  She
threw her head back and laughed. "Are you asking me to go home with you and look at insurance policies when we've just met?"

  "I'm sorry. I'm paid on commission and I get carried away sometimes."

  She laughed again. "It's all right. I accept your apology and your offer." She kissed me again.

  "Britt, does this mean we're going steady?" I deadpanned, then put a blush on. Like my father, I could blush at will, part of the Strait arsenal of charm.

  "Well." She gave me an odd, searching look. "At least for tonight. Listen, though, I have to make a phone call. Wait here and I'll be right back."

  "I'll go with you," I said quickly. The idea of her walking away terrified something deep inside me.

  "I'll only be a minute. Wait right here." She pushed off, and I was left with a double armful of nothing and a bellyful of want. I watched her walk a block then turn a corner, feeling as if I might die.

  I slunk to a sunken doorway to wait. It smelled of vomit and urine. I checked my pistol then put it back in the shoulder rig. I took a switchblade from my back pocket. I rolled it in my hand, considering the possibilities. If she came back with her pimp, I'd have to knife him. I'd come up from behind and use the sentry-removal technique: left arm around his neck, right hand driving the blade between the fifth and sixth ribs, with a little twist to make sure the heart stopped pumping. There didn't seem to be any way around it; my emotions were overpowering my sense. I did some stretches to loosen up my body and clear my head, but the adrenaline was retreating and the alcohol was shambling back, shameless and unafraid.

  I checked my chrono. Ten minutes on the gallows. Street life crept by, the sun was dying, and the animals crawled out of their holes, hungry for kicks. Hornbugs, devils disguised as middle-aged businessmen, slid sinister looks to the young boys who sold their youth for hard cash. Bums stumbled by, incomprehensible hopelessness blurring their eyes, and clubbers, slaves to dance and bizarre fashion, paraded past like strange peacocks. As usual, Heaven was in full retreat.

  I did some more stretches and checked my chrono again. Fifteen minutes. My heart became so heavy it sank down to my stomach and began to feed.

  Three teddy boys wearing pin-striped suits and pompadours stopped in front of the doorway and demanded spare change. I showed them the knife, and they shrugged and moved on. Screaming broke out from across the street, where two drag queens pounced on a burb who had probably said the wrong thing. They scratched and kicked, and he covered his face and tried to escape, futilely crying out for the spifs. The queens harried him for half a block then let him stagger away, his face and neck bleeding from a dozen scratches, a hard lesson learned.

  I decided I'd just learned a lesson about waiting around for strange whores when Britt came strolling down the sidewalk from the opposite direction she'd left. She walked alone, which meant I wouldn't have to answer to the Hayward Pimp Association after all. I lurked in the dim doorway and watched, admiring her form the way a naturalist would a tigress. She stopped at the spot we'd parted and pivoted, casting black eyes in each direction. The panic on her face made me feel flattered and uneasy at once. I snuck up behind her and grabbed her by the waist.

  "Gimme all your love!" I demanded.

  She whirled, and I saw that lethal face again. "Don't you ever do that to me!"

  "Afraid I got tired of waiting?"

  She gave me a long, penetrating stare. "Yes, I was." Her eyes dropped to my chest, and she adjusted my lapels. "Let's go see those policies."

  8

  I managed to drive home without killing myself or anyone else. I always drove well, even when loaded. What I lost in reflexes I gained in an instinctual feel for the road, a sort of psychic radar. What didn't help my driving was the fact I kept blacking out. Chunks of time vanished without a trace as I slipped in and out of the stream of consciousness. I'd emerge from the black waters and find myself laughing insanely at a joke I couldn't remember and driving down a street I didn't recognize. But it seemed okay because I was blacking out other things, too. I was forgetting I was a murderer and the woman next to me was a whore, and in my black little world that seemed important.

  I broke surface and found myself standing in my kitchen, unable to recall how I'd got there or what I'd done with the Caddy. I was mixing drinks, margaritas by the looks of them. Two bottles of tequila sat in front of me, one empty and the other not much better off. The stove top was the site of a beer-can massacre, and kitchen utensils and uncoordinated ingredients sprawled on the countertops. I must have tried impressing her with my excellent culinary skills, I surmised. The kitchen floor tipped this way and that and it seemed funny it should, so I laughed. A sweeter laughter answered from the direction of the living room, so I laughed some more.

  I blacked out again. Nothing really noticeable, more like a long blink. I surfaced leaning against the counter, breathing like a winded moose, rolling with invisible waves of nausea. I noticed my arms were bare, which meant I was no longer wearing my jacket, and by further supposition I assumed my shoulder holster and gyrapistol were exposed. It was good to know all the drinking hadn't dulled my deductive powers, not by a hair. I looked down at the 20 mm hanging from my side, big as daylight. I didn't think it would do much to substantiate my insurance-salesman story, but I bet it did a lot toward adding to my mystery and glamour.

  The drinks looked more or less finished, so I got a hand wrapped around each and prepared myself for the trek to the living room. The floor rolled sickeningly, and I wasn't sure I was up to the journey. Another laugh floated in from the living room, and I got motivated. I shoved off from the counter like a one-legged sailor negotiating a deck during a hurricane and nearly slipped on the wet tile. I steadied myself in the middle of the floor then launched myself at the doorway. I missed by a foot, laid a shoulder into the doorjamb, executed a careening half spin into the living room and managed to spill only half the drinks.

  "Some bartender you are," Britt mocked from the sofa. I stood up straight and weaved with dignity toward the coffee table. Beer cans and empty glasses crowded its top, a damning congregation of mute witnesses. Have I drunk that much? I asked myself, and couldn't say whether I had or hadn't.

  "Are you sure you're an insurance salesman?" she asked. Her lipstick was smeared and her top was unbuttoned to the waist, exposing a black lace bra. Was that my work? I wondered, pining for moments forever lost.

  "Of course," I answered. "I mean, why not?" I wanted to sit on the sofa beside her, but if I sat down I knew I wouldn't be getting back up, not tonight.

  "Where'd an insurance salesman learn to fight like that?" she slurred.

  "You've obviously never been to an insurance convention," I said. "You need those skills just to get a drink at the beer counter."

  "You wear a big gun."

  "I'm a firm believer in the hard sell."

  "Really? What kind of insurance do you sell?"

  "All kinds. We're nationwide." The story snaked along on its own. Lies come easy to a natural liar.

  "Life insurance?"

  "Sure."

  "So you pay people when someone gets killed." She smiled a funny half smile, funny as in weird.

  "Yes, basically."

  The funny half smile matured into a funny full smile. "Are you sure it isn't the other way around?"

  I frowned. My head felt thick and I couldn't get a firm grip on her meaning, so I turned away from the labor. I supposed it was time to discuss prices, but I felt that would detract from the romance of the moment.

  "You're wondering how much," she said, and romance fell flat on its face. An ugly silence hung around for a while.

  "Yeah, it always comes down to that," I said. "But we have to make a living."

  "Yes," she said, and stood, stretching like a lazy cat. She finished with a sigh, came around the table and stopped in front of me. She took the forgotten drinks out of my hands and let them fall to the floor. Entwining her arms around my neck, she pulled her body tight against mine and said, "You'll pay me,
but not with your money."

  "With what, then?" I asked, afraid for my soul.

  "We'll talk about that in the morning." She took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom.

  It took me about ten seconds to get undressed, and I did so with all the grace of an elephant trying to shake off a collapsed tent.

  Britt took her time. She was the kind of girl who could look languid falling down a flight of stairs. Every movement, every turn of the hand, every roll of hip was a luxurious tease, fluid with an understated sensuality that didn't come off as burlesque. It was nothing anyone could learn; you either had it or you never would. She had it and she wasn't unaware of the fact.

  I sat on the bed and tried to act as if I'd seen it all before, but we both knew better. When she finally ran out of clothes, I ran out of breath. She stood there for a moment, hands on firm hips, promise in her posture. Long muscles rippled, toned and hard, and there was a ruthless desire in her eyes that didn't lean anywhere near tenderness.

  "You're going to hurt me," I whispered in a voice heavy with doom. She acted as if she didn't hear me and flicked off the lights. She stood in perfect skin, her form defined by the deluge of moonlight pouring in from the window, and I nearly drowned in the intensity of that mean moment.

  She pounced. Caught by surprise, I was pinned in three seconds flat, the victim of an obvious professional. She sat on my chest, put her fingers in my hair and sank her teeth into the flesh of my shoulder.

  "Vampire!" I yiped. "I knew it!"

  Her head came back up, and the blood on her teeth and lips appeared black in the moonlight. That's my blood, I thought, and a malaise spread through my heart.

  "So," I said. "You want to play rough." I grabbed her by the shoulders and rolled left, and the power struggle began.

  There is an animal in all of us. A vicious, ruthless beast crouching in the cage of our hearts. Most keep it locked away, embarrassed by its grotesque face, shamed by its ugly methods.