Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

a vicious swiping kick into the back of the knees and he went down on them. The girl had climbed on top of the toilet, jammed to the back of the booth. I looped my right forearm under the giant’s chin. My left forearm went against the back of his neck.

That was it, he was under control.

The guy froze up like a single muscle. Like Coho salmon when they’re out of the water and you have them by the mouth. They twitch hard until they die. I didn’t kill the giant, but I did choke him out. When he was limp I lowered his head into the toilet.

Lucky for him the toilet was clean. In fact it sparkled with sanitation and cleanliness, presumably because the women’s bathroom was so seldom used.

I looked up at the girl. She was looking at me. Her pupils were dilated. But she was not too shocked to have her phone up in front of her, the tiny round camera pointed at me. The flash fired. I stepped back, my vision temporarily ruined. All I could see was her perfectly symmetrical face printed on the back of my eyeballs and the white flash bouncing around in my brain. I got my sight back eventually, but by then the blonde was gone.

And now, there she was again in a bucket hat, part of a little team of people on my tail. Maybe they wanted to give me a medal.

Three

Now I was curious.

The blonde didn’t see me and wasn’t even checking. She was waiting for the others, letting them do the work. Since the guy with the Oxford shirt was now cut out from the group, I decided to stalk him.

I started back up the hill, coming up on his six. None of his buddies were watching or covering. This was not a professionally trained team. So, I asked myself, what were they?

The Oxford shirt guy was walking slowly, looking left, then right, then back up the hill. I noticed the well-trimmed beard guy coming down the hill, on the other side of the street. The two of them made eye contact and I saw the well-trimmed beard moving his lips as he spoke into an ear-piece, which meant they were communicating. Not so dumb maybe. Oxford shirt guy started to walk faster up the hill. Probably following orders from the beard. Which suited me, because I wanted to catch him when he got behind the big tree, right past the dumpster in the alley next to the Porterhouse Bar.

I timed my movements. He was a big guy with a neck like a bull seal, but legs like toothpicks. Classic gym bunny. A guy who trained with weights and rubber bands and mirrors, which meant plenty of muscle up top. Good target. I could hit him there without killing him. All that muscle would protect his spinal cord.

As he stepped into the sweet spot, I swung a hard right hook into that thick neck. It landed well, just above the collar. The punch launched him into the alley, tumbling over thin legs. The guy stumbled a couple of steps and turned to look at me in fear and anger. His hat had fallen off. He started to say something, but by then I had grabbed him by the hair and had the point of my folding knife in his right nostril. I pushed until it drew blood and he winced but didn’t make a sound. I kicked his legs out from under him and knelt down without releasing my grip.

“What do you want?

The guy looked at me and stammered, “We just want to talk to you.”

I said, “What happened, did I win the lottery, or inherit a million dollars?”

“No. Just want to talk.”

The punch had knocked the ear-piece out of his head. It wasn’t fancy, just a regular ear bud from his phone. But I figured they had an open phone line and that others were listening in on the conversation. Which added uncertainty into the equation. Time to move.

I said, “Best to just leave me alone.” And nicked his nose with the blade. A minor, controlled slice up the inside of his nostril. Blood ran into the guy’s mouth. He licked his lips involuntarily and sputtered. I disappeared, joining the steady stream of tourists down the hill.

But I wasn’t done with them. Not yet. I was still curious.

About a minute and a half later I slipped into an ice cream place. It had a nice big window out to the main street, plus I could stand out of sight in the back. I figured the Oxford shirt guy would be returning down the hill. He would meet back up with the well-trimmed beard guy and I wanted to see what happened then.

I ordered a sugar cone with one scoop of chocolate and one scoop vanilla. Chocolate on top, vanilla on the bottom. The guy behind the counter wore a pink uniform with a pink visor. I moved into the shadow at the back of the store while he bent into the freezer to prepare my ice cream.

The front window was like a movie screen. The well-trimmed beard guy entered the frame from the left, moving uphill. He crossed through it, climbing up the grade and then went out on the right side. It was at least the second time he’d climbed the hill. The ice cream was three dollars. I licked the bottom scoop first. Vanilla.

There was one other customer, sitting at a little round table in the window. He was a clean-shaven man with a mustache, wearing a fleece vest over a button-down shirt. He had side-parted hair, which looked like it required regular maintenance and just the right amount of product. The guy was quietly spooning ice cream into his mouth and gazing out the same window.

The ice cream server asked me if it was good. I said it was. He asked me why I’d chosen chocolate on top and vanilla on the bottom.