Part 3 (1/2)
So they did know who I was.
And they had been following me.
I waited for a moment longer, listening, then pushed open the door. The shock on their faces was apparent, but immediately stifled by looks of contrived disinterest. I went ambling up to the biggest of them, smiling my best smile, trying to look small and friendly and harmless.
But I wasn't feeling harmless.
Maybe these two characters were the tail end of the CIA's security leak.
Maybe my ident.i.ty as one of Stormin' Norman Fizer's troubleshooters was no secret after all.
The big guy with the gold chains had a sharp, angular face with black feral eyes and a mustache that had enjoyed a lifetime of vanity and expensive wax. The smaller one, the anchorman, stood behind him, his shoulder to me-afraid to ignore my entrance completely. He wore a burnt-orange blazer which said ”TV 1” on the lapel.
”Geez,” I said, ”are you guys really gonna put my picture on television?” I was still moving toward the big guy, the one who had kicked the dog.
”No habla,” he said.
But his eyes told me that he had understood.
”I saw you aiming that camera at me, and I just wanted to ask what time I'm gonna be on, 'cause I sure don't want to miss it.”
”No habla!”
The big guy was still backing up, but he didn't look frightened. If anything, his face showed contempt.
The bright-blue news camera with its shoulder brace rested against the metal booth which contained the stool, and I stood between the camera and the two Cubans. The urinal was behind them, and the big guy looked as if he was tired of backing up anyway. He might have been an inch taller than me, but I had the weight.
And either way, it didn't matter.
Still bearing my stupid smile, I reached down deliberately and hefted the camera up with my left hand.
”This sure is some fancy setup.”
”Get your hands off that!”
It was the big guy with the gold chains.
”Well, you sure do learn English fast,” I said innocently. He took a step toward me, and I stopped him with a glare. I began to fiddle with the b.u.t.terfly screws on the side of the camera, talking all the while. ”You know when you two first p.i.s.sed me off?”
They said nothing.
”You first p.i.s.sed me off when you were filming me down at the fuel docks and didn't even have the courtesy to try and interview me first.”
One of the b.u.t.terfly screws went twisting across the floor.
”Hey, dammit, there's film in there!”
I cut the big guy off. ”I mean, why would you two want my picture and no sound to go with it?”
”I don't know what your problem is, mister, but if you expose that film we're going to the police!”
I ignored him, still working on the second screw. ”And do you know when you really p.i.s.sed me off? It was when you kicked that poor stray dog. I just can't tell you how mad it makes me to see a grown man kick some poor defenseless animal.
”But do you know what your mistake was?” The final screw came off, and in one swift motion, I jerked the film ca.s.sette out, kicked the john door open, and tossed the film into the stool. ”Your big mistake, cabrn, was that that dog wasn't defenseless. Because I've just appointed myself as his honorary bodyguard.”
The big guy with the gold chains was better than I thought he'd be.
I expected him to shove me. Or take a big roundhouse swing at me.
That's what the inexperienced ones usually do. They're reluctant to fight, or they want to immediately go for a knockout like the hero of a western movie does it.
But this guy, obviously, was not what you would call inexperienced.
He faked a big right hand, and when I leaned away from it he drove his left foot up in a snapping upper-cut kick.
Luckily, I got most of it with my shoulder.
The anchorman acted like he wanted to get behind me-maybe just to escape, or maybe to try and get a crack at the back of my head.
I couldn't wait to find out. I c.o.c.ked my left fist back, looking at the big cameraman all the while, then let the anchorman have a full-and completely unexpected-right to the solar plexus, that vulnerable center of nerve endings and tissue located below the soft veeing of the rib cage.
He went down with a loud oomph, kicking his legs wildly like a cartoon character overcome with laughter.
”What the h.e.l.l is this all about?” The big guy's Spanish accent was much stronger with emotion now. He eyed his friend nervously, reluctant to take his attention completely off me. ”It was just a G.o.ddam dog.”
”Maybe. Maybe not. Why were you filming me?”
”I wasn't filming you.”
I slapped him with forehand and backhand across the face, backing him up to the urinal. ”Not polite to lie,” I said evenly.
His face was red with slapping, and his forehead was white, leached of blood. ”Okay,” he said. ”Okay. I'll tell you.”
Waiting for him to explain, I relaxed. A stupid thing to do. I was off guard just enough so that his next snapping kick caught me full in the kidney and sent me wheeling against the wall.
He was on me in a second, choosing to go with some nasty infighting. He was big and tough and strong. But not strong enough. You never want to wrestle shoulder to shoulder with someone who spent his boyhood working the double trapeze.
It's just not healthy.
I got my fingers wrapped around his biceps, squeezing, swinging him back and forth at will. In any fight there comes a moment-long before the fight has ended, usually-when one man realizes that he is overmatched and bound to lose.
In the ring, the victim of the sudden insight sets about not trying to win, but only to lose more slowly.
In a street fight, he tries to get the h.e.l.l away.
And that's what the big cameraman tried now. He twisted away from me, took a long, lurching step toward the door, then came to an abrupt, ripping halt when I grabbed him by the back of his silk s.h.i.+rt.