Bookman's promise

Carl began putting things away: the tape player in its case, the notes and cassettes in their cardboard box. Dante got up from his chair and came around the table. I had less than twenty seconds to make my move. If you wait long enough for something to get better, it doesn’t, but it happens to you anyway.

I slipped around the bookcase toward the office door. Dante’s radar, if he had it, was off tonight: he had turned toward the far wall, looking up at a clock that I could now see said quarter to five. Dawn must be breaking, I thought irrelevantly. All over town people are getting up, taking showers, getting dressed, making love. That’s what all the normal people are doing. In those two seconds I saw a parade of women from my life: Rita McKinley…Trish Aan-dahl…Erin. The ones I had and the ones I hadn’t.

I had to get his gun: my top priority. He wore it inside his coat, well back on the left side. That’s how I remembered it and I hoped I was right.

Carl came through the door and walked right past me. I couldn’t see it but I knew he’d be carrying Koko’s box and I had to get that too before he had a chance to run with it. The gun and the box, with no time-outs in between for a Tennessee waltz with Dante.

It took Dante hours to clear the door. In real time he was just two steps behind Carl, I was standing to his right, and in that half second I think he saw me. If he did, his reaction was lost between darkness and disbelief. He never broke stride till I hit him. I threw the hardest right I had, a jawbreaker. He was still standing as my hand frisked along his belt for the gun. He tried to lurch forward with his hands up and I got him on the other side with a good left. I jerked his gun free and it slipped, clattering on the floor as he went down. I let his face say hello to my kneecap in his free fall and I pivoted and kicked the gun away and ripped the box out of Carl’s hand.

“Hello, asshole,” I said seductively. “Welcome to hell.”

Carl made a pitiful whimpering noise. “W-wait a minute,” he croaked.

“Y-you w-wait a minute. Here’s something to suck on while you wait.” I hit him in the mouth and he joined Dante on the floor.

I shivered. That was way too easy.

Then I heard the car door slam. This would be Dante Jr., the one named Harlow coming back from wherever he’d gone, just when they were about to give up on him. I felt a wild surge of crazy elation as I stepped up to meet him.

He opened the door. I could see by the moonlight that he was carrying three giant Styrofoam coffee cups in a little cardboard tray.

“Hi, Harlow, make mine black,” I said, and I clobbered him.

Coffee flew everywhere. Its first stop was on Harlow’s face, but he never felt it.

I stood trembling. “Sons of bitches.”

Dante groaned. I turned on the light and saw him trying to get to his feet. I threw the gunnysack over his head and kicked his legs out from under him, banging his head on the floor.

Prudence told me to get the hell out of there. I had what I’d come for but the elation was gone. There hadn’t been much satisfaction in the love taps I’d given them, not after what they’d done to me. Besides, I had a blood enemy now and I should at least try to impress him.

I leaned over him. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure. Cliff Janeway from Denver. We haven’t been introduced, but I’m the poor, shivering bastard you scared half to death in here yesterday. And you would be the rough-and-tough Mr. Dante.”

He tried to roll over again and I kicked him hard enough to break his hip. “Don’t do that, Dante. Not unless you want a lot more pain than you pricks gave me.”

I leaned over and talked to him through the burlap. “I’ll bet you’re thinking right now how much fun it’ll be when you kill me. Big mistake if you are, because two things will happen if you try it. First, / will kill you if I ever see your face again. I will kill you the minute I see you, in a dark alley or a Pizza Hut or in a crowd at Rockefeller Center.”

I cocked the gun and put it against his head. “How do you like this? Do you like the feel of it?”

I cracked him on the temple, hard enough to sting. “Just in case you do manage to kill me, here’s the other thing you can look forward to. A pal of mine—a fellow I won’t name but he’s way tougher than I am—has already been put on your case. If anything happens to me—anything, Dante—your ass is grass. If I get a hangnail and get hit by a truck while I’m standing in the street trying to chew it, you can assume the fetal position right then and kiss your ass goodbye. You’ll be dead in twenty-four hours.”

I breathed down at him. “You’d better hope I live a good, long life, Elmer.”

I stuck the gun in my belt, grabbed a handful of burlap, and hauled him to his feet. “That goes for Koko as well.”

Suddenly in a new fit of rage I ripped off the gunnysack and got him with a brutal open-hander that slammed him