The Hammer Falls Read online

  The flare of rage in Dmitri’s eyes cooled almost instantaneously as he returned his attention to Horace. “You’re a rich man now. Plenty left to have a good time. Hell, maybe we all go party. You can have this stupid cunt.” He thumbed carelessly toward the girl he had struck. “After you pay me.” At the last utterance, his eyes went cold and reptilian.

  “Some things are worth more than a good time.” A little kid’s life, maybe, a kid who didn’t deserve the shitty hand he had been dealt.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you kissing my ass.”

  It took a couple of moments for the words to register in Dmitri’s fogged brain. Then he sat up straight. “What?”

  “I said, kiss my white pimply ass.”

  Rage flared in Dmitri’s eyes.

  “The money’s gone,” Horace said.

  Luca reached into his jacket.

  Horace threw himself into Luca, pinning his elbow and his pistol against his torso. The girls screamed. The electro-fiber dagger made a little snap sound as Horace pressed the switch while holding the soft strip of cloth against Luca’s chest. The dagger stiffened instantaneously, and the monofilament edge snicked out and cut through Luca’s sternum, two ribs, aorta, and half a lung. The massive slug-thrower in Luca’s hand tumbled onto the seat, and the bodyguard’s chin sagged to his chest.

  Horace lunged across the back of the limousine onto Dmitri. The girls screamed again and flung themselves away.

  The Russian was well-built, strong, stoned, and didn’t have a prayer. Ring-encrusted fingers clawed weakly at Horace’s face, effectual as a toddler’s, as Horace held him down, ears filled with panicked shrieking.

  It didn’t take long for Horace to finish cutting.

  He left Dmitri’s head propped between his legs, then got out and stood at the curb, wiping blood from his face, spitting out the taste of it. He had never killed anyone outside of the ring before. It had been so much easier, and yet somehow terrifying.

  The Russian syndicate would be on him like a bloodstain, but would they involve the police or handle everything with a silenced bullet and a body bag?

  He did know one thing. A little boy now had his medical expenses paid. Little Jimmy was going to grow up healthy. And this used-up old fighter was going to do what used-up old fighters did—keep fighting until he couldn’t anymore.

  He waved goodbye as the hover’s drive whined up and it sped away. If they hurried, Joey Luca could resurrect. Dmitri was history.

  Now, he had to get the hell out of town. A quick stop at his rathole apartment to grab a few things, and then the bus station. If the mob knew about Lilly, they certainly knew where he lived. But first, a hose to wash off all the blood.

  ROUND 1

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Intermittent splashes of streetlight washed the heads of the bus passengers. Immense expanses of darkness lurked beyond the veil of highway streetlights. Last he knew, the bus had been passing through Illinois. The rumbling whine of its power plant and the deep buzz of its tires on the road soothed him. He dozed.

  In the foggy wasteland between memory and dream, Horace took his favorite table at the Titty Twister and ordered the usual, Bombay Sapphire and tonic. Bathed in shadows and coruscating patterns of laser light, he waited for her. The familiar faces were here: Max the bouncer, Ed and Sheila the bartenders, the girls he knew by stage name who greeted him with varying flavors of “Hey, Hammer!” On the chrome-and-mirror stage, Starchild writhed and spun, a swirl of glitter, silver eyeshadow, and pearlescent lipstick. But despite her exquisitely sculpted body, his attention lay elsewhere to the one called Velvet, who had just led a drunken businessman into one of the shadowed grottoes at the rear of the place. It didn’t matter who she was with or what she was doing, onstage or off, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He’d seen thousands of stunning bodies and beautiful faces come and go, but Velvet had something in the eyes, big, brown pools of mystery and intrigue.

  The Titty Twister was one of his favorite haunts whenever he was in Vegas. The bartenders mixed the drinks to his taste and the stable of dancers offered the kind of variety he liked. Max the bouncer was a decent sort. He was a pit fighting fan and didn’t mistreat the women. Horace’s first appearance had thrown Max into a spasm of fanboyish euphoria.

  And then this new dancer had started about six months ago. Velvet. He had visited several times just to see her, catch her eye, exchange a handful of words, even when his finances were overstretched. She called him by name now like they were old friends, and he’d been in enough strip clubs to recognize when friendliness was genuine. She was a little older than the other dancers, but it was difficult to tell how much. She was one of those women whose age could fall within a twenty-year window. It was the maturity in her eyes that intrigued him, a certain world-weariness that spoke to him, and she held his gaze longer than any woman since...her.

  On this particular night, she returned from the dark recesses of a private dance and spotted him across the bar. The smile bloomed on her face and warmed him in a way he didn’t want to think about, however much he had come here for just that.

  He stood to greet her, and she hugged him with the kind of shallow, carefully guarded touch that conveyed familiarity but not too much.

  “You clean up nice!” she said with real surprise and appreciation, stroking the lapel of his suit, brushing her fingers down the length of his necktie. “Where’s the t-shirt and sweatpants?”

  “Dumpster. Tonight, I’m celebrating.” He pulled out a chair for her. “And I want you to join me.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “And what are we celebrating?”

  “I just came from a meeting. Let me buy you a drink.”

  “Sure, but I can’t stay too long. I gotta work the floor—”

  He withdrew a stack of cash from his breast pocket and placed it on the table. Her eyes bulged. “How would you feel about me buying your time for the rest of your shift?”

  Discomfort tightened her shoulders. “Look, Hammer, I’m flattered, but I don’t do that kind of thing.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I got something worth celebrating and got to tell somebody. Doesn’t look like my buddy Jack is going to show, so I can’t tell him about it. A few drinks, and that’s all. I’ll make it worth your time.”

  She eyed the money, then him. “Okay. Deal. But I still have to go on stage.”

  He shrugged.

  “So what are we celebrating?” she asked.

  “A deal to put me back in the big time.”

  “A big fight?”

  “The biggest. An epic rematch between the legendary Hammer Harkness and Gaston The Freak Rousseau.”

  She smiled. “Legendary, eh?”

  “Maybe you’re too young to remember.”

  “My folks never let me watch that stuff, but I remember you from then. It was everywhere. Hell, you still look the same!”

  “Thanks.”

  “So when is this epic event going to happen?”

  “Too early to say. Maybe six months. Gaston has to agree, and we have to book a venue. But tonight, we party. Tomorrow, I train.”

  A waitress brought them cocktails, plus shots of Irish whiskey. He raised his shot glass and looked into her eyes. “To second chances.”

  At those words, she held his gaze for a long moment, and he would have sworn he saw her eyes get misty for a split second.

  Then she clinked his glass, and they downed the shots.

  Then a presence loomed over them. “Sorry I’m late, amigo,” said a man’s voice. “I was on a stakeout. Had to wait for the money shot.”

  Horace stood and clasped hands with the newcomer. “About goddamn time. I thought you were dead.”

  Jack McTierney ran veined, leathery fingers through a slick, salt-and-pepper pompadour. About half Horace’s mass, Jack moved with controlled, wiry strength. “After videoing a three-hundred-fifty-pound bank executive slip a Mickey to his secreta
ry in a bar and rape her in a two-bit motel, I kinda wish I was dead. But the client’s going to get a hefty divorce settlement and the exec will really want to keep that video off the net.”

  “He raped her?” Velvet said, her face registering less horror and surprise than it should have.

  “It was pretty clear she was barely conscious. A bank like that has the money, though, to spin the media like a gyroscope. I doubt the police’ll touch him.”

  “Lady Velvet,” Horace said, “Allow me to introduce Jack McTierney, private dick.”

  As Jack kissed her fingers with Old World gentility, his eyes appraised her with a nod of appreciation apparently at Horace’s good taste. His Arkansas twang rang like a slide guitar. “I prefer the term ‘old-time gumshoe.’ Dick should be kept private. Pleased to meet you, little lady.” Then a raised eyebrow to Horace, “So?”

  “They’re going to float the idea to Gaston.”

  “Soo-perlative,” Jack said. “A hootenanny is indeed in order.”

  As the night went on, the conversation went from raucous to raunchy, hilarious to flying high, thoughtful to almost existential. Velvet touched Horace many times, her hand warm and gentle. On stage, she was as stunningly beautiful as ever. At the table, she was surprisingly witty, with more game than he had encountered in years. He had had glimpses of this in their past interactions as the layers of defenses slowly peeled away, but experiencing it here in full flourish was not only a hell of a lot of fun but a clear reason for her success in a business that used and discarded women like condoms.

  Fortunately, he was on his game that night, too.

  “What’s your real name?” he said.

  “It’s not a good idea for me to tell customers that.”

  “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  “That’s what my last stalker said.”

  “Do I look like I need to stalk anyone?”

  “He said that, too.”

  “I’m not the kind of guy who gives up.”

  She nodded appreciatively. “I can see that.”

  “Hey, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s cool, but you can ask any girl in here if I’ve ever caused trouble.”

  “I already did. They said you’re a stand-up guy.”

  “Cost me a lot of money in bribes.”

  “All for me?”

  He winked at her. “Yeah, all for you.”

  But she still didn’t tell him her name.

  The weeks melted away as they laughed and drank. Some nights he paid her to dance for him, some nights he didn’t. Some nights more girls joined their little party, contributed some fun and titillation, and then floated away. Some nights Jack joined them and contributed his unique brand of patter, dark and rich and potent, like a good bourbon. And when Jack departed, he kissed every dancer in the place good night, paused in the exit, and gave a bow with panache and aplomb.

  Memories of her floated one into the other, building blocks of trust and appreciation accumulating between them, all of her smiles, the sound of her deep-throated laughter, floating in his head. Across those interactions, she started gravitating closer to him, and when they talked he was conscious of her proximity warming his arm, his leg, but didn’t dare ascribe any importance to it. For enough cash, he could take her into the back room and have her grind on him all night long. But that would be a business transaction. This felt different somehow.

  “I’m thinking about quitting,” she announced one night.

  “Why?” The sip of coffee sent a jolt across his palate and into his brain.

  “I’m too old.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Customers like the young ones.” She leaned back in the diner booth, and her gaze traveled around the room.

  “Not everybody.”

  “Don’t lie to me. I’ve seen you.”

  “I’ve been a dirty old man for a solid decade. I figure I get better with age.”

  Her expression turned bitter. “Women just get old. Until we become invisible.” Her voice softened. “Some kid the other day called me grandma. I punched him. Almost got fired.” She sipped at her cocktail to help swallow something else.

  “You might as well tell me your name. If you quit, I won’t know what else to call you.” He said it jokingly, but she still crossed her arms.

  After a pause, she said, “Why me?”

  “‘Why you’ what?”

  “What are you doing here? With me?”

  “I thought it was because we were getting better acquainted. You and ol’ Jack are the closest things I got to friends in this town.”

  “You think I’m going to fuck you?”

  He leaned back in his chair and looked at her, let the question hang between them. “That’s a mighty hostile way to ask if I’m hitting on you.”

  “Are you?”

  “When I do, you’ll know.”

  The following day, he had received a single line of text message, forwarded through the cobwebs and tumbleweeds of his public fan mail interchange.

  MY NAME IS LILLY.

  The day Horace and Gaston signed the contract to fight in the Coliseum preceded the night Lilly sent him into a tailspin.

  Swathed in silk suits instead of armor, Horace and Gaston met in the holo-plastered hallways of Death Match Unlimited. Surrounded by 3-D holograms of pit fighting legends, they stalked toward one another.

  “Now there is the ugliest motherfucker I ever seen, eh?” Gaston called.

  Horace said, “My god, you look like the inside of an elephant’s ass.”

  Gaston’s hairy paw clasped Horace’s like a vise. “You smell like one, eh?”

  “Must be your breath.” They embraced, laughing. “You are still the hairiest sumbitch I ever seen. Now you’re all old and wrinkled, you’re starting to look like a scrotum.”

  Gaston punched him in the breadbasket, a blow that would have likely ruptured the spleen of a normal human. “Fuck you, eh? As long as I don’t look like your scrotum. I come out of retirement for this?”

  Horace’s stomach surged and roiled, and a throbbing ache spread through his left shoulder. He forced a smile. “You can’t get this kind of abuse anywhere else. Fucking good to see you, man. How’s Montreal?”

  “Much safer than the Business.”

  “Still running that gym?”

  “Ah, oui. I stay in shape, don’t have to get killed, and the little ones think I am God. It is a good life.”

  “Hell, I heard they actually allowed you to procreate.”

  “Yah, boy and a girl now, six and eight.”

  Horace scratched his head. “Holy shit, where does the time go?”

  “Into life, mon ami. After all this, you should come to Montreal, see my gym. We teach the young ones together, eh?”

  “Sorry, I don’t speak Pussy.”

  “Yah, you The Hammer. The man who never stay dead, eh? Twenty-seven?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “And five of those belong to me.”

  “Fuck you, I still have you by two.”

  “Maybe not after this, eh?”

  “Yeah, after this I’ll have you by three.”

  While the ink dried on the contracts, Death Match Unlimited booked the swankiest suite in Caesar’s Grand Palace, brought in a fortune in drugs and liquor. Promoters were there. Executives from Death Match Unlimited were there. Marketing people from Regenecorp were there. Local fighters were there. Hookers were there. The hotel supplied a case of Dom Perignon. It was all just like he remembered it. It was like he had never been gone. The hotel suite thrummed with the likes of people with whom he hadn’t rubbed elbows in over a decade.

  Funded by a massive promotional expense account courtesy of Regenecorp, Horace hired Lilly and three other girls from the Titty Twister to perform, along with two male strippers for the high-powered female executives from Regenecorp. Jack and Gaston were hitting it off at the bar while Max made sure none of the drunken businessmen overstepped with the dancers or mistook them for hooker
s. Cash flowed and spirits rose and the party roared deep into the night like a freight train of drunken debauchery, the kind of party attendees would still be talking about in their old age.

  When she was not dancing, Lilly hovered near Horace and allowed him to introduce her to everyone. Throughout that night, a tension between them, like a rubber band, drew them closer. When other men attempted to snare her attention, she simply looked at Horace and gave him a silent smile.

  The whiskey flowed, and finally her slight frame overcame her practiced tolerance for liquor. By this time, the guests had dispersed. Max snored on the couch. Gaston and his bikini-model wife had claimed one of the bedrooms for a “night of wild time away from the kids, eh!” Jack was chatting up one of the female Regenecorp executives, who leaned into him enough to make it clear they were minutes from closing a very carnal deal.

  And then a song came over the sound system, an old country song about love’s impossible timing. “Omigoddancewithme!” Lilly said.

  He took her in his arms right there. Unsteady as he was, he had to support them both. They danced the final half of the song with her cheek against his breast. He couldn’t be sure if she were trembling or if it was just the liquor. When the third verse came, so steeped in yearning for someone far, far away that his own heart began to ache, she said something he couldn’t hear.

  “What?” he said.

  Her enormous brown eyes turned up into his. “We should stop pretending.” Her gaze flicked toward his lips. And there she was, in this perfect moment, the moment he had been dreaming about, the moment he had wanted from the moment he first saw her.

  “You’re the only man who’s ever been this strong for me,” she said, but her words were so slurred together he needed a moment to process them, and in his own addled mind they didn’t entirely make sense.

  “Being strong is what I do,” he said. “But I don’t kiss anybody who’s not gonna remember it the next day.”