The leader hesitates.
“I will break your bones. Do you understand me?” Tom says. “You and your buddies. I could kill you with my bare hands, but I won’t. I’ll just use them to hurt you. Am I clear? Do you understand what I’m saying to you? This is your last warning. Get out of my face.”
“Man, what’s he saying?” the blond says, behind the leader. “I can’t hear a fuckin’ word.”
The cap-wearer drains his beer. “Man, just give the old dude a smack, will ya? This ain’t no fun, I’m getting bored of it.”
Old? Tom is thirty. He’s affronted by this more than anything else.
The leader looks far less sure of himself than he did when he first came into the bar. He can’t back down, though. Not now. He takes strength from the encouragement of his friends, knows that they have his back, that they have the strength in numbers. There are three of them, and only one of Tom.
Fired back up, his former alarm forgotten, he steps closer to Tom. Leans down on the table, gets up in his face. Puts a hand upon his shoulder.
Tom reacts without thinking. Before the leader can say whatever idiotic sentiments he has in his head, Tom grabs the hand upon him, wraps his fingers around the thumb, wrenches it back. It cracks, the thumb snapping. Before the leader can register this pain, before he can cry out, with his other hand Tom grabs him by the back of the head, slams his face down into the table. His nose bursts. He crumples to the floor.
The other two take a step back, caught off guard by the sudden taking out of their fearless leader. They don’t hesitate long, though. The cap-wearer attacks first, swinging his bottle.
Tom is already out of the booth. He ducks it, comes up in front of the blond at the same time he’s raised a leg to kick him away, create some separation. His boot catches the blond in the solar plexus, staggers him, knocks the air from his lungs. While the blond tries to keep his footing, Tom turns, blocks another swing of the cap-wearer’s bottle, then kicks him in the side of the knee, blows it out of joint. The cap-wearer goes down on that leg. As his dislocated knee hits the ground, he screams. Tom twists his arm still clutching at the bottle; his wrist crunches; he drops it. It hits the ground with a thud, rolls away. Before that has happened, Tom has punched him in the jaw, knocked him out.
The blond is behind him, coming up fast. Tom can hear his footsteps, his still ragged breathing. He spins, elbow raised and out, the point of it making contact with the bridge of the blond’s nose. Blood bursts from it. He falls to his knees, then flat on his face.
The three are down.
Tom is instantly filled with regret.
He’s supposed to be keeping a low profile. He shouldn’t be engaging in anything like this. It doesn’t matter that he tried to ignore them. That he gave them every opportunity to just walk away. They didn’t take it, and it came to this. He should have done better. He should have got up and walked away. Walked right out of the bar and back to his hotel.
It’s his father’s fault, really. The advice he ingrained in both Tom and his brother when they were young. Never back down. Never walk away from a fight. Even if you know you’re gonna get your ass kicked, never walk away. Make sure they know they’ve been in a fight. Make sure they know they’re never gonna mess with you again.
It’s so deep in him it’s hard to shake.
The bartender has come over. “Damn, son,” he says. “You done a number on those assholes.” He looks down at them, wide-eyed. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” Tom says, stepping over the blond.
The other men in the bar are all looking at him, awed by his efforts.
“Wait there, son,” the bartender says. “You can’t just leave. We gotta call the police, tell them what happened here.”
“You tell them,” Tom says. “I gotta go.”
Before the bartender can say anything else, Tom is already at the door, then out onto the street. He crosses the road, rounds a building to get out of sight, then runs back to his hotel.
3
Up in his room, packing his bag, Tom is still cursing himself. Should know better. Shouldn’t be provoked so easily, especially not by a bunch of drunken asshole college boys.
It’s time to leave town. To pack his bags, get in his car, and head for the state line, out of Arizona. The bartender will call the police, just like he said he would. The cops will want to know about the man who beat up those boys. They’ll get a description, try to track him down. They manage to track him down, then it’s game over. The CIA will be on this town like a rash, picking him up, taking him back for their own brand of justice.
Tom travels light. There isn’t much to pack. His rucksack contains a few items of clothing, most of which have never left the bag. There’s a Beretta and a KA-BAR kept near the top, within easy reach. He carries burner phones, too. It takes him a moment to realize one of them is ringing.
He picks it up, looks at it. It’s the one his father has the number for, and only his father. He answers. “I can’t talk right now. Give me a couple of hours. I’ll call you back.”
“Ain’t gonna keep a couple of hours,” his father says. Jeffrey Rollins speaks quick, to make sure his son can’t hang up on him. “You need to come here, right now, as quick
