Clam up on the failure or discuss it with Annie in the hope that talk might lead to a more inspired approach? The choice became academic. Annie was so high on coffee and work that the topic of my adventures on the Kingsway passed only fleetingly through the conversation. Annie was giving herself a thirty-minute break from editing the tapes of her interviews with the movie people. She planned to stick with them till twelve that night and Tuesday night.
“Get another ten minutes out,” she said. Her voice made her sound wired. “Better than a rough edit but not quite finished product, and Wednesday morning I’ll play it for the show’s producer. With all fingers crossed.”
I cheered Annie on in her endeavours and at four-thirty I drove back to my house. It was quiet when I shut the front door behind me. I went up the stairs, turned to the living room and walked into a rousing welcome from Tony Flanagan.
He socked me on the jaw.
I lost consciousness for a couple of seconds, long enough to hit the floor and settle. I raised my head. Sol Nash was sitting in my armchair and had his shiny black loafers propped on a leather footstool. Pamela gave me the footstool the first year we were married. She thought a lawyer was someone who needed to put up his feet in the evening and smoke a pipe. She bought me a rack of pipes. Tony Flanagan was standing between Sol and me with his fists raised to deliver another haymaker. Tony was wearing his straw hat. I was on my back on the floor. Of the three of us, I cut the least dignified figure.
I said to Tony, “I thought we might have arrived at a non-aggression pact yesterday.”
“This here’s business,” Tony said. “Get up.”
“Are you going to hit me again?”
“Unless Mr. Nash says never mind.”
I rubbed my jaw. It hurt when it moved. But conversation seemed a wiser alternative to standing up to Tony’s hands of cement.
“Well, Solly,” I said to Nash, “we’re awaiting your instructions.”
Nash said, “If he don’t get on his feet, kick him.”
He was talking to Tony.
I stood up and Tony fooled me. I expected him to lead with a straight right. It was the punch that knocked me down the first time when he had surprise in his favour. I stuck out a quick left jab and tucked my head inside my shoulder to avoid his right. Tony swung a left hook and it landed high on my right cheek before I could block it. Tony didn’t need the element of surprise. I fell down again.
After a few seconds I sat up. My head was ringing.
I said, “How’d you guys get in here?”
“Two queers and a dog let us in,” Nash said. “Get up.”
“Hospitable, didn’t you find?” I said, not moving. “The queers and the dog?”
Nash said, “Tony, this guy doesn’t quit with the chatter and stand up, put your boots to his knees.”
I held my sitting position on the floor.
Tony scrunched his face into a little-boy look.
“I dunno, Mr. Nash,” he said.
“You nuts?” Nash said. He bristled in his chair. My chair. “Give the guy your foot and let’s do the job here.”
“I ain’t no kick-boxer,” Tony said. His voice had a wounded sound.
“You ain’t Rocky Graziano either,” Nash said.
“Get up, Crang,” Tony said to me.
I said from the floor, “Safer down here.”
“Kick him,” Nash said.
“Shit, Mr. Nash, I box guys,” Tony said. “Kicking people’s for somebody had no training.”
“Good point, Tony,” I said. “Kicking isn’t legit.”
“Shut up,” Nash said to me. To Tony he said, “Stick your shoes in the man. Make him hurt.”
“Jesus, Mr. Nash,” Tony said.
He turned to his left, addressing the plea to Nash in the chair. Tony’s attention was diverted from me. So was Nash’s. I reached for a leg of the footstool with my right hand and pushed off the floor with my left. My head was light and buzzing, but my legs and arms felt able to do their stuff. I lifted from the floor and swung the footstool at Tony’s head. He turned toward me at the moment I swung, and the stool came at his chin like an uppercut.
The stool made a cracking sound when it connected with Tony’s jaw. Tony looked shocked. His straw hat rose off his head and spun three loops in the air. Tony stopped looking shocked. His eyes shut and he fell against the small table beside the chair that Nash was sitting in. Tony landed on the floor. The table tipped over and came to rest on his shoulders. He didn’t notice. Tony was out cold. He wouldn’t be fretting over the morality of punching versus kicking in the immediate future.
The impact with Tony’s jaw had snapped the footstool in two pieces. The larger piece flew across the room and thumped into a row of hardcover American novels on a shelf. I held the other piece in my hand, one leg of the stool. Not much of a weapon. I dropped it.
Nash had his left hand on the arm of the chair and was pulling himself forward while his right hand reached behind him. The man was going for the gun that spread people’s brains on walls. Forewarned is forearmed. Nash’s gun was tucked in a holster at the small of his back. The motion of reaching for it flipped up his suit jacket. I leaned over Nash’s shoulders and yanked the jacket above his head. My yank lifted his hand away from the holster. The hand came up empty.
“Fucking asshole,” Nash said. It was a businesslike mutter.
I pulled until the jacket bent Nash’s head level with his knees. A wallet fell to the floor from his inside pocket. I gave the jacket one more tug. It didn’t tear. Good tailoring. Nash’s head under the jacket developed resistance. It held firm a foot from the floor and began to rise up. He was strong, Solly the Snozz, and as his head and shoulders rose, his right hand was returning to the gun.
I threw a short punch with my left hand at where I thought Nash’s face was located beneath the jacket. The punch caught his skull and stung my hand more than it rocked his head. Nash grunted and his right hand kept moving for the gun.
Nash chopped at my legs with his left hand. I grabbed it and twisted the wrist. It was as thick and rubbery as a bologna. My twist slipped in its flesh.
His right hand found the gun. I dropped his left wrist. He brought the gun out of its holster. I raised my left knee. Nash’s head was still covered by his jacket. He reached up to shake it off with his left hand. The gun came around Nash’s body. I pushed forward with my knee. Nash had the gun pointed to the left, moving toward my stomach. His head came free of the jacket. My knee was aimed at his right hand and I lunged hard. My knee caught his hand and the gun and pinned them both against the arm of the chair. Solly made a noise like it hurt.
“Drop the goddamn gun,” I said. My voice sounded loud. It wasn’t natural to scream in one’s own living room.
My
