One of the four men was squat, with big hands, longish black hair, and a fat neck.
'You Spenser?' he said to me.
'We gonna fight?' I said.
'Not for long,' the squat man said.
He put out a hard left. I checked it with my right and stepped around it as I blocked it with my left. I slid my left hand down, caught his wrist, pulled it toward me, and drove my right forearm against his elbow. He grunted with pain. I drove my forearm into his elbow again, harder, and felt the elbow break. He screamed. Someone hit me in the back of the head. I spun and hit him with the side of my clenched left fist, and continued turning, into a right cross that put the second guy down. I glanced at Z in time to see him bob under a big right hand from a tall kid with a gelled Mohawk and a weight lifter's build. Z turned his right shoulder into the bodybuilder's chest and drove a right upper cut up into the bodybuilder's chin that looked like it might loosen the guy's head. Mohawk took a step back, and Z hit him with a left hook just as the fourth guy put an arm around Z's neck. Mohawk took two more steps backward and fell down. The fourth guy, too, was an obvious bodybuilder, with his head shaved for scariness. Z dropped his chin and turned his head, which prevented Baldy from getting his forearm on Z's windpipe. Then Z quite thoughtfully located Baldy's feet and stomped his right heel down hard on Baldy's toes. Discouraged, Baldy let go, and Z introduced a move we hadn't taught him. He grabbed the guy by the throat with his left hand, and by the crotch with his right, lifted him chest-high, and slammed him to the ground. He wasn't out, but he didn't get up. The guy I had put down with a right cross had gotten to his hands and knees, and, like me, was watching Z. He decided to stay down as well. Mohawk was out. And the squat guy with the broken elbow was hunched up in pain and not threatening anybody.
'You boys local?' I said.
'You broke my fucking arm,' the squat man said.
'I know,' I said. 'Hospital right across the river got an emergency room. You guys local?'
Nobody spoke. I bent over the guy whom Z had bodyslammed.
'Where you from?' I said.
He mumbled, 'Charlestown.'
I nodded.
'Who hired you?'
He looked at the squat man.
'Bull,' he mumbled.
I nodded.
'Bull,' I said. 'You were the contractor on this. Who hired you?'
Bull shook his head.
'Soon as you tell me, we're outta here,' I said. 'And you can get to the hospital.'
Bull shook his head.
'Or,' I said, 'I could break the other one.'
Bull stood with his head down, trying to find a place that didn't hurt to put his left arm.
'Guy named Silver,' he said.
'Hospital's right at the head of the Charles,' I said. 'You'll see it when you get out of the stadium. Go west on either side of the river.'
Then I turned to Z and held up my hand; he gave me a high-five.
'What about our intervals?' he said.
'I think we've done them,' I said.
40
Z AND I WENT to the bar in Grill 23 for a victory drink.
I had a Dewar's and soda. He had Maker's Mark on the rocks.
'You have learned well, grasshopper,' I said.
Z nodded. I sipped my scotch. He looked at his bourbon.
'Where'd you get the bodyslam?' I said.
'Television,' Z said. 'WWF.'
'I suggest you lose it,' I said.
'Worked like a charm today,' Z said.
'Did,' I said. 'But the guy was a little quicker, or knew a little more, he'd have had time and opportunity to get a firm hold on your windpipe.'
'What instead?' Z said.
'Stay on top of him. 'Specially a guy as big and strong as you are. Bombard him with more than he can prevent.'
Z nodded. I had a little more scotch.
