Quinn and I exchanged looks again.
“You carve that in your head when you turned twenty?” asked Quinn.
Double X frowned. “It’s my nickname. On the circuit.”
“The circuit,” I said.
Double X sighed. “Hello-o, the UFW circuit? Ultimate Fighting Warriors?”
“Oh, that circuit,” I said.
I took another gimpy step toward him. He shifted his weight into a fighting stance and said, “I’m the former heavyweight world champion.” He said that part with a healthy measure of pride. “How nice for you,” I said. “Maybe we can talk about it after I see Mr. Unger. Would you be a good little warrior and take us to him?” Double X sneered.
I’ve had tough guys sneer at me lots of times, but I was pretty sure not many had sneered at Quinn. I glanced at my monster. He didn’t appear to be offended.
Addressing me, but pointing at Augustus, Double X said, “I don’t know your boyfriend, Mr. Ass Face, but I know who you are. You’re the guy who kidnapped Monica Childers.”
Quinn said, “Ass Face?”
To me, Double X said, “You’re pretty tough when it comes to assaulting skinny, middle-aged women, but in me you’ll find an unbeatable foe.”
I said, “They teach you to talk like that in the UHF?”
“That’s UFW, asshole.” He appraised me as if he were sniffng an onion. “You got some size on you, and you may have kicked some untrained butt in your day, but you can’t fathom the stuff I’ve seen. You wouldn’t last thirty seconds in the quad.”
“Quad?”
“That’s right. They stick you in a cage with a world contender and you don’t walk out until one of you is basically dead.”
He let that comment sit in the air a minute, then added, “You guys are going to stay right here till I say you can move.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Mr. Unger’s secretary is at this very moment talking to a member of organized crime about you. You guys are already dead; you just don’t know it yet.”
A good martial artist will always attack your weakness, and Double X didn’t disappoint, rushing me the way I knew he would, leading with his right leg to sweep my gimpy leg out from under me.
Unfortunately for Double X, I didn’t have a gimpy leg, and I easily moved inside his kick before it could do any damage. Double X suddenly found himself in a strange position, slightly off -balance, vulnerable, his leg still rising toward a target that wasn’t there.
Before he had a chance to regroup, I punched the former quad cage heavyweight champion of the world in the neck, with full leverage behind the blow. I followed it up with a left hook to the other side of his neck, and his eyes went white. He tried to fall, but I caught his Adam’s apple between my thumb and index knuckle and crushed it until his mouth formed a perfect O shape. When I released my grip, Double X fell in a heap and grabbed his throat. He made an attempt to speak, but the effort proved too great. He rolled onto his side, and his legs began twitching involuntarily, like a sleeping dog dreaming about chasing a rabbit.
I looked at Quinn. “Just before I crushed his larynx, he patted my shoulder several times. Why do you suppose he did that?”
“I think he was tapping out. It’s what they do in the quad cage when they’ve had enough.”
“Oh. He should have said.”
I stepped over him and went through the door from which Double X had appeared a moment earlier.
Quinn found Double X’s gun and put it in his duffel. Then he grabbed Double X by the collar and dragged him and his twitchy legs through the door and down the hall until he saw me enter Chris Unger’s suite.
First thing I noticed going in, Chris Unger was at his desk, his back to the windows. Three client chairs faced him. The first was occupied by Chris’s brother, Garrett. The second chair was empty. Sitting in the third chair was my favorite crime boss, Sal Bonadello.
Sal nodded in my direction and said, “Hey, this is—whatcha call—serendipity. We was just talking about you!”
I recognized Sal’s bodyguard, leaning against the far wall.
“I guess Joe said it’s okay to bring Big Bad.”
Sal nodded. “I was takin’ a leak just before you got here. Takin’ a leak always makes me think of Joe. So I called him.”
Big Bad had his hand inside his jacket.
“You still use the 357?” I asked.
Without changing the expression on his face, Big Bad glanced at Sal through reptilian eyes. Sal said, “It’s okay; they’re with me.”
Both Ungers gave him a look. Then they looked at each other. Garrett seemed more nervous than his older brother.
All eyes suddenly turned to the doorway as Quinn entered, dragging Double X behind him. Double X continued
