Everybody looked at everybody. No one said anything.
Lester cracked his gum. Then Rabb said, “So it looks like I got you and you got me. That’s a tie, you fat bastard. And that’s the way it’ll end. But I tell you one time: I’ll pitch and you broadcast, but you come near me or my wife or my kid and I will kill you.”
Lester said, “You can’t kill shit.”
Rabb kept looking at Maynard. “And keep that goddamn freak away from me,” he said, “or I’ll kill him too.”
Lester moved away from the wall, the slouch gone. He shrugged into his tae kwon do stance like a man putting on armor…
The little boy said, “Momma,” not very loud, but with tears in it.
Marty said, “Get him out of here, Linda.” And the woman and the boy backed away toward the bedroom. Maynard’s face was red and sweaty.
“Hey, kid,” Lester said, “your momma’s a whore.”
Rabb swung a looping left hand that Lester shucked off his forearm. He planted his left foot and swung his right around in a complete circle so that the back of his heel caught Rabb in the right side, at the kidneys. The kick had turned Lester all the way around. But he spun back forward like an unwinding spring. He was good. The kick staggered Rabb but didn’t put him down. The next one would, and if it didn’t, Lester would really hurt him. Maybe he already had. A kick like that will rupture a kidney.
Linda Rabb said, “Spenser.” And grabbed hold of her husband, both arms around him. “Stop it, Marty,” she said, “stop it.” The boy pressed against her leg and his father’s.
Marty Rabb dragged his wife and son with him as he started back toward Lester. Lester was back in his stance, blowing a big bubble and chewing it back in again. He was about three feet to my left. I took one step and sucker- punched him in the neck, behind the ear. He fell down, his legs folding under him at the knees so that he sank to the floor like a penitent in prayer.
“Marty,” I said, “get your wife and kid out of here. You don’t want the kid seeing this. Look at him.”
The kid was in a huddle of terror against his mother’s leg. Marty reached down and picked him up, and with his other arm tight around Linda Rabb, he hustled them into the bedroom.
“I will say to you what Rabb did, you great sack of guts,” I said. “You and your clotheshorse stay away from Rabb as long as you live or I will put you both in the hospital.”
Lester came off the floor at me, but he was wobbly. He tried the kick again, but it was too slow. I leaned away from it. I moved in behind the kick and drove a left at his stomach.
He blocked it and hit me in the solar plexus. I tensed for it, but it still made me numb. A good punch turning the fist over as it came, but there wasn’t as much steam as there should have been behind it, and I was inside now, up against him. I had weight on him, maybe fifteen pounds, and I was stronger.
As long as I stayed up against him, I could neutralize his quickness and I could outmuscle him. I rammed him against the wall. My chin was locked over his shoulder, and I hit him in the stomach with both fists. I hurt him. He grunted. He hammered on my back with both fists, but I had a lot of muscle layer to protect back there. Twenty years of working on the lats and the lateral obliques. I got hold of his shirtfront with both hands and pulled him away from the wall and slammed him back up against it. His hand whiplashed back and banged on the wall. It was plasterboard and it broke through. I slammed him again and he sagged. I brought my left fist up over his arms and hit him on the side of the face, at the temple, with the side of my clenched fist. Don’t want to break the knuckles. A kind of pressure was building in me, and I saw everything indistinctly. I slammed him on the wall and then stepped back and hit him left, left, right, in the face.
I could barely see his face now, white and disembodied in front of me. I hit it again. He started to sag, I got hold of his collar with my left hand and pulled him up and hit him with my right. He sagged heavier, and I jammed him against the wall with my left and hammered him with my right. His face was no longer white. It was bloody, and it bobbled limply when I hit him. I could feel my whole self surging up into my fist as I held him and hit him. The rhythm of the punches thundered in my head, and I couldn’t hear anything else. I was vaguely aware of someone pulling at me and I brushed him away with my right hand. Then I could hear voices. I kept punching. Then I could hear Linda Rabb’s voice. The pounding in my head modified a little.
“Stop it, Spenser. Stop it, Spenser. You’re killing him.
Stop it.”
Someone had hold of my arm, and it was Marty Rabb, and Lester’s face was a bloody mess, unconscious in front of me. Maynard was sitting openmouthed on the floor, blood trickling from his nose. It must have been him I brushed away.
“Stop it, stop it, stop it.” Linda Rabb had hold of my left arm and was trying to pry my hand loose from Lester’s shirtfront. I opened the fingers and stepped away, and Lester slid to the floor. Maynard slid over to him without getting up and with a handkerchief began to wipe the blood from Lester’s face. I could see Lester’s chest rising and falling as he breathed. I noticed I was breathing heavy too. Marty and Linda Rabb both stood in front of me, the kid holding Linda’s hand. Tears were running down his cheeks and his eyes were wide with fright, but he was quiet.
“Jesus, Spenser,” Rabb said. “What happened? You were crazy.”
I was sweating now, as if a fever had broken. I shook my head. “A lot of strain,” I said. “We’ve all had a lot of strain.
I’m sorry the kid saw it.”
Maynard had gone to the bathroom and come back with wet towels and was cleaning Lester up and putting a cold compress on his forehead. “Pay attention to what happened, Bucky boy,” I said. “Don’t irritate me.”
Lester moved a little. His lips were swollen and one eye was closed. Maynard kept washing his face with the damp towel.
“It’s okay, Lester,” he said. “It’s okay.”
Lester sat up and pushed the towel away. “Help me up,” he mumbled.
