Unconventional

Though I couldn’t see him, I had little doubt the asshole was there. He owned the bar, but hardly worked it anymore. More likely he was in the back, doing something nefariously stupid. ‘Interviewing’ a new girl. Counting out money to impress her, as Chase had seen him do a dozen times before.

I scanned the bar left to right, before melting into the nearest chair. The bartender was a woman named Ruth. A little rugged and spent, but not a bad person. She knew me though, unfortunately. So as far as that part of the plan went, the element of surprise was pretty much gone.

“Pint of the dark stuff,” I told her.

She approached me skeptically, and for a good five or ten seconds she did absolutely nothing. Then, after staring me in the eyes with her perma-frown, she grabbed one of the dirty glasses and began pouring.

“Is he here?” I asked.

“He expecting you?” she countered.

“Not that I know of.”

“Then no.”

She shoved the pint my way, just hard enough to spill the foam over my hand. Before I could say anything else she’d already turned and walked off. I watched her go, tilting my beer back far enough that I could keep my eyes still on her.

This is crazy.

It was, sort of. But it was one of those times where it was even crazier to do nothing.

The bar was three-quarters full. Enough people to keep Ruth running around, but not so many that I couldn’t keep everyone in my peripheral vision. The guy at the end of the bar stood up, and I took note of it. The three at the table were still talking amongst themselves, but I noticed they’d stopped drinking.

Ruth poured another four or five drinks. She hit the cash register, made change for someone, then pretended to need bills or something. I saw her turn back and give an almost imperceptible half-nod. Then she pushed through the curtain and disappeared into the back rooms.

Here we go…

I took end-of-the-bar guy first. He’d pulled something that might’ve been a knife, might’ve been a club. Whatever it was, he swung it in the same predictable overhead arc that I’d seen a million times during lockup: the standard bad-guy move. Almost like they taught these assholes the same universal method of attack, before graduating them from Hoodlum University.

Either way, it was a bad idea.

I kicked him hard, right in the solar plexus. So hard he flew backward, pinwheeling into a stack of chairs and dropping whatever he was holding.

I turned away too quick though, and that was my mistake. Because that’s when the second guy — the one two seats down from him — hit me in the side of the head with a punch.

He must’ve been new because I didn’t know him at all.

OW, FUCK!

The good news is it was one of those random ear punches — the ones thrown in haste or panic that never really did any damage. The bad news was it hurt like HELL. For several seconds the only sound in the bar was the high-pitched ringing that invaded my brain, as all the cilia in my ear-canal danced at once. It hurt and stung and drowned out the sounds of struggle at the other end of the bar, but right now there wasn’t much I could do about that.

“GET HIM! GET—”

I grabbed the ear-puncher by his ponytail — what guy wears a fucking ponytail anymore, anyway? — and yanked hard. If there was anything you learned through years of fighting, it was that wherever the head goes… the body always follows.

In this case I pulled him face-first into the bar. It was an old b

ar. A sturdy bar, with plenty of great Scottish history I’m sure. The last thing it deserved was this fuckwad’s face-print, but that’s exactly what it got. That, plus a tooth sticking straight out of the wood… pulp and nerves and all.

Gross.

I whirled, and the three guys at the table were totally gone. Two of them were down already, sprawled across the beer-soaked floor. The third had been flipped straight through a window, next to a trio of college-aged kids holding billiard cues and wearing almost comical expression of shock and surprise.

That left Grant, who should’ve stayed outside. The big, square-shouldered asshole who should’ve probably just disappeared into the summer night, but instead came roaring back inside with his two ham-hock fists clenched.

Poor Grant. He was capped at the knees before he even knew what hit him.

At this point half the bar was scrambling for cover, and the other half was cheering. A few people left. Some of the locals rushed forward to help some of the downed combatants, but they moved slowly and carefully while looking over both shoulders.