Donnybrook: A Novel (16 page)

McGill doubled over. His right hand fumbled for something at his belt. Ned followed up with a left hook into McGill’s skull. Dropped him to one knee. McGill pulled a piece of black steel half the size of a road flare from his side. Flung his wrist away from his body and the steel extended into a baton. He swung it into Ned’s left shin. Worked it up Ned’s thigh. Stood up. Rattled Ned’s ribs, jabbed his kidney.

Ned huffed, raised both hands to shield his head. McGill branded Ned’s forearms, shoulders, and skull with the metal ASP baton.

Ned screamed, “Motherfucker!” and tried to curl into a protective ball.

McGill panted, stabbed the ASP up and into Ned’s stomach, not breaking the skin but taking the rest of Ned’s air, and he hissed, “I’d have taken you in long ago. If you wasn’t as crooked as me.”

Liz’s vision kept blurring and clearing. She’d watched the ASP pelt Ned’s body like hail on a tin roof. Had felt the tension of Goat’s hands loosen. When her vision cleared again, she stomped his feet. Pulled her hands free. Came at McGill from behind. Pushed him into Walkup. Grabbed her rucksack from the table and McGill’s .38. Turned around to McGill, who raised the baton with madness in his eyes. He hollered, “Fucking cunt!”

Liz fingered the trigger. Told McGill, “Any man hit a woman deserves double in payback.”

Ned’s body burned with welts and cherry bruises as he stood up, pushed past Liz, and planted a low right uppercut into McGill’s gut. McGill dropped the ASP and hit the barn floor like water breaking from a pregnant woman in contraction.

Walkup and Goat were already on the floor, hands laced over and covering their heads. Then the walkie-talkie on the table buzzed with static, and a man’s inflamed voice said, “McGill? McGill? We got a runner dragging ole Cut down the entrance, done busted through the damn gate!”

Liz looked to Ned and asked, “Now what?”

Ned said, “We best get while we still can.”

18

Fu sat in the Jeep’s passenger seat meditating on needles puncturing skin. Tethered bodies. Inhales and exhales of pleading. Breaking a man’s will. Loyalty. He watched Whalen follow yet another piece of greasy bar trash into the house, his pistol pressed into his back.

Cramp asked Whalen, “What’s up with you and the fish-eyes in the Jeep, some kind of fetish thing?”

Whalen tapped the pistol against Cramp’s skull, reminded him, “Shut the fuck up.”

Entering the open door, they found the living room devoid of humans. Gnawed strips of duct tape were scattered across the floor. The interior reeked of soured sweat and sweet honey.

From behind, Whalen felt metal press into his back. A voice followed. “Drop the gun.”

Whalen kept his pistol in Cramp’s back. “Go ’head, shoot me. I’ll separate this old boy’s insides.”

The voice told Whalen, “Don’t make me no difference.”

Cramp recognized the voice. Was worried, said, “Come on, Pete. He’s looking for Lang and some guy named Angus.”

Pete said, “Lang done been here with some man whose face is all uneven. Guess that was Angus.”

Whalen questioned, “What about Ned?”

Pete said, “Ned is long gone with some crazy piece of tail. Left us high. Just like Lang and the guy with the uneven face. Now drop the damn gun.”

Whalen said, “Fuck you.”

Cramp pleaded, “Come on, Pete. He just wants this Angus fella. Where’d they go?”

Pete ignored Cramp, laughed. “Smells like pork tenderloin to me. You a police, ain’t you?”

From the hallway a motor hummed. Dodge came rolling down the carpet in his electric wheelchair with Elbow walking behind him holding his privates. Dodge hollered, “The hell is going on in my house?” He held an AR-15 assault rifle across his shot leg, looking like a half-robot killing machine, the blood now dried black down his shin. He lifted the rifle up, said, “Don’t wanna answer me?”

Without warning, he opened fire in a sweeping motion across the living room. Elbow squeezed his crotch and screamed, “Fuck you!,” pogo-ing deliriously around the room. Whalen ducked, turned his body into Pete. Shouldered him out the open door. Into the yard, onto the ground. Back in the house, Cramp’s body opened up with bullets like a pond with rocks breaking its surface. He hit the floor bubbling blood.

In the yard, Whalen and Pete grunted and struggled for each other’s weapons. Whalen saw that Pete held a screwdriver, not a gun, and bared his teeth. Bent his wrist against Pete’s grip. Forced the Glock’s barrel down into Pete’s jaw. Pushed Pete’s screwdriver into the other side of his face.

The gunfire ceased. From the house, Dodge cursed. “Son of a bitch jammed up!”

Cramp lay jerking on the living room floor. Looked up at Dodge and gargled, “You shot me, you son of a bitch, you shot me.”

Elbow hopped behind Dodge, said, “What you get for bringing strangers to our home.”

Outside, Pete lay struggling against Whalen’s fifty-year-old strength, his cheek feeling the gun indent it. Spittle webbed like molten taffy when he opened his mouth, saying, “Don’t shhh—”

Pete’s hands lost their grip when the Glock turned his cheek into a burn, the bullet opening up his skin enough for part of himself to pebble down his jaw. Whalen rolled off Pete. Pete rolled the opposite direction, hands to his face, screaming, “Shit! Shit!”

Whalen got to his knees. Then his feet. His left arm dangled at his side while his right held the Glock up by his ear. His eardrums were shattered from the gunfire.

He watched Pete stagger up and limp toward a sheet-metal garage. Whalen clasped his head three times, trying to get the black-and-white static out of his mind. He lowered the pistol from his ear, aimed it at Pete. Felt something pelt and warm the back of his thigh. His calf. Then his left hand opened up like a firecracker exploding.

Whalen dropped to one knee. Spun in pain to face the open door, where Dodge sat recessed within the house, his mouth agape, brass falling from the AR-15’s side chamber. Whalen raised his Glock. Closed one eye. Split Elbow’s kneecap. Lined Dodge in his crosshairs. And returned the same heated jerk.

*   *   *

The metal gate V’ed in its center. Busted the Tahoe’s headlights and grill. Ramped up over the hood and cab, scratching and scraping metal all the way. Angus kept the gas floored, the engine screaming just like the man whose arm he kept pinned inside the truck.

The man’s feet and legs cleaved over the rough curving road, dove up and down with dips and ruts. Angus steered into a curve with his right hand, swerved to within inches of a tree. Released the man’s arm. Listened to him grunt and thud into the timber.

Lang, adrenaline-eyed, sat in the passenger’s seat and said, “Damn, you might get killed, but you make it worth every second.”

The road straightened out into a field of cars. Trucks. Tents. Smoke. People scattered like cockroaches on a crumb pilgrimage. In the distance sat a barn colored black and gray, same as the shack Angus had driven past. Outhouses sat off from everyone, painted identical to the barn and the shack. In the center of the field sat a large square ring lined with barbed wire from top to bottom. A man stood to the side of it on a wooden platform, announcing through a bullhorn the numbers of the next twenty fighters who elbowed and nudged through the waiting others. Onlookers cheered.

Lang said, “They must be starting another round of the ’Brook.”

Angus drove around the mass of vehicles that lined the field and asked, “The shit does this Ned drive?”

Lang said, “Beat-to-hell Chevy, last I saw. Orange bed rusted up with a blue-white front end. You best park this beast ’fore they get your ass.”

Angus knew that he had a small window of time, that the men at the gate had radioed ahead. They’d be on the lookout for the busted-up Tahoe. He parked it between a Ranger and a Chevette. Left the keys as he clambered out, the sawed-off in his right hand. Jerked Lang from the passenger’s side. They walked among rows of cars with men and women lifting bottles and cans, their faces smeared with chicken grease and barbequed venison. Angus noticed men with rifles and walkie-talkies out in the far corners of the field. They were making their way into the crowd of bodies.

Angus wanted vengeance at least as much as the meth. He told Lang, “You see Ned, nod. Mouth his description. All I want is him, my spineless sister, and the dope. You do some dumb shit, I unload both barrels into your skull.”

Lang hated Ned as much Angus. Wanted to see him bleed for robbing him and Pete at the bar a few months back. For leaving Pete taped up with them two sadist brothers. But Lang wanted something for all the trouble Angus had brought him, especially for his busted-up bar. He said, “Sure, I’ll point him out—for a price. And why don’t you unbind this belt from my wrists? Fucking arms is numb.”

Angus tapped both barrels down on Lang’s neck with one hand. His other hand dug into Lang’s arm, and he said, “You’re in no spot to barter any deals or get them wrists released. Make toward the ring, distance ourselves from the truck, and I tell you what, I’ll let you keep on breathing.”

The doors of the black-and-gray barn swung open. Ned limped out holding his shoulder. Liz held a gun in one hand. Rucksack slung up over her shoulder. Lang spotted them. “Look! Up over at the barn! There goes Ned and your mangle-headed sister.”

Angus spun Lang to the ground and pushed off through the boozers, joint huffers, bourbon chasers, and crank sniffers. Lang squirmed on the earth, watched Angus disappear as he hollered, “What the shit, man! Unbind my fucking wrists!”

To Angus’s right, the man with the bullhorn bayed, “FIGHT!”

In the ring, men slapped fist and knees into one another’s bones. Traded gasps of air for knuckles and shins. Skulls cracked. Ribs gave. Skin peeled. Men bled.

Angus cleared the bodies of belligerence and discontent, watched Ned and Liz run through the field toward a line of cedar. He followed with vengeance flowing free as creek water in his bloodstream.

Hauling ass down the entrance road came a roaring, jacked-up red Ford. It slowed, its occupants searching the rows of parked cars for the busted-up Tahoe. Till the driver stopped. Three men from the shack got out. One brought a walkie-talkie to his mouth, the others peered into the Tahoe’s windows and anxiously kicked the gravel.

With guns in tow, a pack of McGill’s men led leashed hounds through the crowd of onlookers toward the Tahoe. Let the hounds get a scent.

And like the next round of the Donnybrook, the hunt was on.

*   *   *

Jarhead’s eyes burned from the smoke of onlookers’ cigarettes and narcotics. He fanned a hand in front of his face.

Purcell asked, “They ways getting to you?”

“Worst thing about making a living with your hands, you’re always surrounded by lives being carved out by abuse. It’s how they survive.”

Purcell bared five fingers down on Jarhead’s shoulder, said, “But not you. You’re surviving with your natural-born abilities. Making good out of the decaying class, something your real father never accomplished, though he tried. Thing is, if you win this you still can’t save the swarm that is coming for you and your family. But you can find others like yourself and fight for change.”

Jarhead asked, “The shit you talking about? How would you know anything about my real father?”

Purcell smiled and said, “I know lots. You’ll see.”

Somewhere in the distance a truck rumbled. Dogs bawled. In the ring men flattened their knuckles against one another’s flesh. Jarhead turned his attention up to the barn. Watched the female with the steady step who’d found the wrong end of the beer bottle, the man who’d won the first round of the ’Brook, and he asked Purcell, “What about them two running from the barn?”

Purcell looked to the barn. Turned back to Jarhead, smiled, and said, “Believe they abilities will soon be omitted.”

*   *   *

Sweat cropped Whalen’s forehead. Blood warmed his lips. Bullet holes bored open his legs. His arms lay motionless at his sides—left hand chopped of several feelers, right hand holding his pistol—with the hard earth cushioning his spine.

The Jeep’s door creaked open. Footsteps made their way to Whalen. Fu looked at him through cracked glass. He’d meditated on how he’d make Whalen bleed after they got to the Donnybrook. Found Angus. Liz. Got Mr. Zhong’s money. It wouldn’t have been with bullets. He glanced back at the Jeep. How would he get to the Donnybrook and collect Mr. Zhong’s debt? He’d no idea where he was.

Fu kneeled down, ran his hand over the fingertip-sized bullet holes in Whalen’s left shoulder. His body was warm. Chest barely rising.

Behind Fu, Pete stepped from the rusted and warped garage in his boxers and work boots, sticky with dirt, insects circling his frame. He’d a nicked crowbar in his right hand. His other pressed a motor-oil-stained rag into his bullet-burnt cheek. He sucked mucus and said, “You that rotten piece of pork’s partner?”

Fu turned around, approached Pete, who questioned, “The shit you think you gonna do, gook, whoop my ass?”

Swinging the crowbar toward Fu’s ribs, Pete felt fast, powerful. He was slow. Fu parted the air with his left hand, hooked Pete’s right wrist. Cupped and controlled the crowbar away from his body. At the same time, the fingertips of Fu’s right hand drove up under Pete’s jaw, the palm turned away from Pete. Fu’s fingertips pressed into the soft flesh beneath Pete’s chin. Hooked the ridged jawbone. Pushed up. Pulled and unhinged Pete’s jaw. The crowbar hit the ground. Followed by Pete’s knees. His mouth hung agape with shock. Unable to form speech. Only, “Uhh! Uhh!”

Pete’s hands tried to touch his jaw, press it back into place. But the pain was too much.

Fu laughed, told Pete, “You must learn respect for others.”

Inside the house, Elbow limped from the bedroom where he’d dragged himself to take cover when Whalen returned fire. Separated his cap. Now the house sat silent as he snuck up the hallway and into the living room. Walls were filled with marble-sized holes. Wood paneling was splintered, and drywall chalked everything. Cotton sprouted from his greasy couch. The television sat shattered. Cramp lay silent, without movement, on the floor.

Elbow jack-legged toward his brother Dodge. Dodge’s head slumped to his right shoulder. Drool stringing down his bullet-riddled chest. His eyes, like his chest, were unmoving, and Elbow whispered, “No, no, please, no.”