“You’re what my granny would call a hoodooer,” I slurred. My companion nodded.
“Well said. How is your dear grandmother these days? Don’t hear much from her since you ‘helped’ her all those years ago, eh, hero?”
I roared and launched myself across the table at the son of a bitch. The table tumbled over as I fell. Bottles shattered everywhere. I was on the floor with all the other broken things, trying to get back up. The pretty bartender was gone; I was alone. I had been alone the whole time.
“Okay, big spender, time to call you a cab.” Thick hands lifted me off the floor and to my feet.
“Letgoame,” I said, articulately, and tried to pull away. It didn’t work. The guy holding me was a good six inches taller than me and outweighed me by maybe eighty pounds. He had a hardness behind his eyes that told me the smile fixed on his face was a lie. If I pushed, he would beat the hell out of me. “You have any idea who you’re fuhkin’ with?” I said.
“Look, friend,” the bouncer said, walking me out of the closed section, “Let’s just go outside and talk about this, okay?”
“Fuhyou,” I said and took a swing at him. “I’m fuhkin’ Laythm Ballard, you muther fuhker!” It connected, but there wasn’t anything behind it. I might as well have slapped him with a bar rag. I tried to put together a spell, some kind of spell, death spell? Fire-fall? My concentration was like mercury, and my energies were as scattered as any other broken-down old drunk’s would have been. The bouncer snapped off two quick, tight jabs at me. He wasn’t just a meathead that stood at the door and checked ID; he had training. There were bright lights popping behind my eyes, and I was falling. Then there was movement after some time in the dark. A female voice was near my ear.
“Who did he say he was?”
“Nobody, just an old, rich drunk,” I heard the bouncer telling the girl, “celebrating his birthday a little too hard. He was back there talking to himself for the last half hour.”
There was a hole in my memory after that. My next awareness was the smell of garbage. I climbed to my knees and looked. I was in an alley, next to a Dumpster overflowing with kitchen trash. I had no idea where I was or how much time had passed. I slid back down, and my face hit the sticky asphalt. I slept.
Someone was turning me over. The man’s face was square and bland in its ugliness. He had short, thinning blond hair. He wore an expensive suit with his cheap haircut.
“It’s him,” square-face said to someone. He had a British accent.
“Fuck off,” I said. It was still dark, and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. Blondie grabbed me by my shirt and hauled me to my feet. I drove a right into his jaw, and this time it had a little something behind it. He staggered back, shaking his head. I was in another alley filled with Dumpsters. I had no clue where I was. There was a black SUV, a Mercedes-Benz, idling with its lights on. Square-face’s companion stood by the car; he held his arms behind his back. He was black, taller than me, and dressed better than his partner. He wore the expensive clothes better than Square-face too. He had his black hair cut very short, almost military fashion, and he had a neatly trimmed goatee. His eyes were hazel, and his features were fine, with slightly pointed ears, a slender nose, and good cheekbones.
“There’s no need for that, Mr. Ballard,” Cheekbones said. It’s been my experience that when someone says that, there’s absolutely a fucking need for whatever “that” is. In this case, I threw a shaky upper cut at Square-face. He blocked it and planted a solid one in my gut. I dropped to my hands and knees and vomited on his Testoni shoes.
“Shit, mate!” Square-face snapped a kick at my face, which my booze-drowned brain registered as a Hapkido kick, in the instant prior to me blacking out.
“You sure this is the guy?” a voice asked. There was a reply and more talking, but I slid back into anesthetized slumber, bordering on poisoned coma.
Time passed. My face ached. My jaw ached. My ribs ached. My brain spun in the darkness of my skull. I smelled my own stale vomit and piss. I was placed in a comfortable seat and belted in. Cool air blew on my face. I slept. I awoke and asked for water through swollen lips to match my swollen eyes.
“Fuck you,” a familiar British voice said. “Legend, my ass. This tosser’s a fucking bum.”
“You’re just mad about your shoes,” another voice without the English accent said, and I laughed.
Then, at some future point on the other side of dizzy, nauseous blackness, a cool glass was placed to my lips.
“Drink slowly,” a voice that wasn’t Square-face said. The tiny sliver of my brain that had avoided the deep fryer figured it for Cheekbones. I drank the cold water, swallowed, and then slept again. Time passed. I dreamed. I was talking to the little dead girl. She had lost her doll in a blood-painted maze. I wandered with her and tried to help her find it. The maze never gave up the doll or offered a way out.
I awoke to being carried by my two well-dressed keepers off some kind of airplane and deposited in the back of a limo.
“Where we going, fellas?” I muttered. Neither of them answered me. I sunk into the leather seats and sighed. “This thing have a bar?” I asked Cheekbones. If he answered me, I didn’t hear it before I slept again.
THREE
Afternoon sunlight
