No Man's Land (John Puller 4)

Chapter

31

THE LINES WERE long again, but this time there were no disruptions. What had happened the night before seemed to have reverberated among those who frequented the Grunt.

Rogers saw Karl leave at around one-thirty, followed by Helen Myers at two.

Karl had waved to him. Myers had not.

At three the bar was empty and clean enough for the staff to head home. Rogers offered to lock up and set the alarm.

Finally, he was the last person in the place.

He had earlier noted the CCTV cameras. They were all around the bar area, and also posted outside.

But they were not, he had also noted, stationed at the stairs leading up to the VIP room. Nor were there any cameras on that level.

Someone didn’t want a record of those heading up there, and he wondered why.

He took the stairs two at a time, jiggling the set of keys in his pocket. He arrived on the upstairs landing and looked around. There was only one door, although the room it accessed seemed to run the length of the corridor.

He assumed that this might have been the living quarters of whoever had owned this building before it had become a bar.

He tried the door. It was locked.

He tried the keys in his pocket. The third one did the charm.

He opened the door and stepped into the room, closing it behind him. He didn’t have a flashlight and didn’t need one. His eyes were capable of seeing amazingly well in the darkness. He moved around the room, which was comfortably furnished.

It was actually more than one room. There was another room leading off it, separated by another doorway.

He opened this door and stared at the large bed. It was neatly made now. He figured it would not be so neat when Quentin and his ladies were here.

So was that what this was all about?

Just a place for Quentin to bed his entourage?

Yet he had been here with other men that night. So did the boys get equal turns between the sheets? Was that how Quentin paid his bonuses to executives at his company?

And why here? Quentin had the beach house not even two hours from here. And he must have a place in town somewhere. So why come to a room above a bar and spend a big sum each month for the privilege?

He made a search of the room and turned up exactly nothing. And Rogers knew how to search.

He closed the door behind him and locked it. Then he left the bar after setting the alarm and locking the exterior door securely behind him.

He had taken three steps down the alley leading to where he had parked his van when he saw them up ahead.

The players from the night before.

He turned around and looked behind him.

More big bodies had filled his rear flank.

The big black guy stepped forward, a malicious grin on his face.

“Told you we’d be back, asshole. And I keep my word.”

Rogers looked to the man’s left and saw the fellow whose wrist he’d broken. Next to him were the other two men he’d kicked the shit out of. One of them looked like he’d had his jaw wired.

Rogers looked back at the black guy, who had taken another long step forward. “Do you really want to do this?” he asked calmly.

“You got somewhere to go?” snarled the man.

“Actually, I do. So why don’t you and I go one-on-one? I win. I walk. It’ll save a lot of time.”

The black guy stiffened and looked around at the men he’d brought with him. “I saw you were some kind of ninja, fuckface. That’s why I brought reinforcements.”

Rogers looked at the man with the broken wrist and the guy with the wired jaw. “If you come at me again, I will kill both of you.”

The two men looked amused until they caught the expression on Rogers’s face.

The black guy, perhaps sensing they were losing the upper hand, pulled something from his pocket. It was a knife.

“That’s not going to change the outcome,” said Rogers. “You just brought the weapon that I’ll use to kill you.”

“You really think a lot of yourself, dude. There’s six of us. Count ’em.”

“There’s really only four, because these two”—he pointed at the two injured men—“aren’t going to be part of it.”

“You think you know ’em.”

“I can read a face,” replied Rogers.

“Still four to one. And we all came ready.”

Rogers watched as one man took out a knife, one a chain, and another a baseball bat from behind his back.

Rogers sized up the situation. One of them might get a lucky strike in and put him down. It was fortunate none had brought a gun. He might lose. But he was probably going to win. The one thing he knew, though, was that he was going to fight.

“Trust me,” he said to the black guy. “It won’t feel like four to one in a couple of minutes. And I’ll save you for last.”

“Right. In case you didn’t notice, we’re all big and a lot younger than you.”

“Well, you were bigger and younger than me last night too. How did that work out for you?”

“Your ass got lucky.”

“Nobody’s that lucky.”

“Hell, we live for violence.”

“Not the kind of violence you’re going to see from me.”

“You’re full of shit!”

“Then let’s get this started.”

Rogers rubbed his head. He knew that once the fighting really started, he was not going to be able to control himself. The muscles in his arms, legs, and shoulders knotted. He was ready to strike. He would have to leave his job at the bar after this. He had no other choice.

He took a breath, let it out evenly. His nerves calmed, his heartbeat slowed, his blood flow grew steady. He popped his neck and was just about to deliver his first kill stroke of the night when a car’s beams cut through the darkness.

They all watched as a police cruiser rolled to a stop. A moment later they got hit with a spotlight mounted on the side of the car.

A voice on a PA said, “What the hell is going on here?”

The black guy called out, “Nothing, Officer, we were just hanging out. But now we’re heading on.”

“Then move on. Now!”

The cruiser waited while the others hustled out the far end of the alley. The black guy looked back menacingly at Rogers.

Rogers was walking past the cruiser when the passenger window came down.

“What was all that about?” asked the police officer.

“I’m the bouncer at the Grunt. That was about some punks not getting to drink beer and wanting someone to take it out on. Namely me.”

“Okay, I get that. Well, lucky for you we came along.”

Lucky for them, thought Rogers.