“Maybe I don’t trust him yet.”
“Stu’s a stand-up guy,” Clem said. “You think I’m gonna recommend some jerk-off’s gonna waste your time?”
“I’ll trust him when I feel like trusting him.”
Clem reached for the radio dial.
“Don’t.”
Clem sat back again. There were only a handful of cars left in the restaurant lot. Three hours now they’d been sitting here watching people coming out of Luigi’s looking pleased with themselves. Clem was getting more and more hyper, obviously, but Zig didn’t mind sitting it out. He was sure Max was behind the San Francisco job. Old guy, young guy, two associates. And he’d heard Max’s theories about dinnertime robbery back in Ossining.
“Finally,” Clem said.
“Looks like they’ve been into the vino pretty good.”
“Bald guy’s Pookie. Other guy’s Roscoe.”
The kid had to practically lever Max into their car, the old guy was so busy holding forth. He boomed and blustered and cackled, even as the kid was getting into the driver’s side. The other two got into separate cars.
“Three cars, three Tauruses,” Clem said. “Musta got a volume discount.”
“Staying in separate places too, I bet,” Zig said. “That’s smart.”
“So which one we gonna take down?”
“I like Baldy.”
“A fine evening,” Max said when they were moving. “Sumptuous meal. Good service. See, lad, these are the good things the diligent life will bring your way. The rewards of application far outweigh talent. The productive man wants for nothing.”
“Last week you said there was no meritocracy.”
“Oh, plague me not with your last week this and your previously that.”
“You’re always contradicting yourself.”
“Last week I was talking of the theatre. Not real life.”
“Hey, look!”
They were stopped at a traffic light. In the parking lot beside them a man was screaming at a girl. Owen rolled down his window.
“Ask yourself this question, missy,” the man yelled. “Just ask yourself what kind of woman do you want to be? Do you want to be the good woman, whose worth is above rubies? Or do you want to be some no-account whore of Babylon?” The man grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him.
“Do my eyes deceive me,” Max said, “or is that not Sabrina?”
The man slapped her across the face, and the report echoed off the surrounding buildings.
Owen was out of the car before he even thought about it.
The man had her by the hair and was slapping her repeatedly across the face.
Owen was wishing he knew a few Jet Li moves.
Sabrina twisted this way and that, trying to escape. The man yanked her closer, and spoke as if to the multitude.
“‘The loose woman is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.’ Is that the kind of woman you want to be? I am not gonna sit by and watch it happen, Sabrina.”
Owen launched himself from ten feet away and hit the man mid-chest-too high to knock him over, with the result that Owen fell to the ground.
“Get away from me, boy, or I will bust your sorry ass, and that’s a promise.”
“Bill,” Sabrina said through gritted teeth, “I am not your property.”
“And you don’t owe me nothin’, I suppose. Did I or did I not get you out of one heap of trouble?” The man gave her hair another yank.
“Ow! Yes!”
“Did I or did I not share with you all my worldly goods?”
“Leave her alone,” Owen said, picking himself up. He wished the parking lot wasn’t so deserted. Nothing around but empty cars and stacks of junked parking meters.
“Let me go,” Sabrina said. “You bastard, let me go.”
“Did I or did I not take you down to Cancun?” The man called Bill clutched Sabrina’s hair with one hand. “Boy, take care that ye come not between a man and his wife. That phrase mean anything to you?”
“I’m not your wife.” Sabrina kicked at his shin ineffectively.
“Doesn’t matter if she’s your wife, girlfriend or sister,” Owen said. “You don’t get to hit her.”
“Boy, you’d best get shed of the idea you can do anything about it.”
Owen kicked him hard in the behind.
The man let go of the girl and faced him. He was short, almost square, with a considerable paunch but arms that looked like he could press three hundred easy.
“You go wait in the car,” Owen said to Sabrina. “We’ll take you home.”
“Home? Who do you think she lives with, peckerwood?”
“Don’t mess with him,” Sabrina said to Owen. “Really. You’re making a mistake.”
“Oh, he’s already made it,” the man said. “This boy’s neck-deep in the mistake hole.”
A swift jab caught Owen’s cheek and it felt like a train hitting him. He went down on one knee, praying that Max would run this T-Rex over.
“You want more of the same, just get up, Yankee Doodle.”
Owen got to his feet and hurled himself at the man, trying to get in close enough to avoid those fists. A right hook glanced off his ear. Using the one kick he had learned from a judo website, Owen swept the man’s legs out from under him and sent him sprawling. He jumped on him, but the guy flipped him off as easily as a bull.
Before Owen could organize himself, three jabs sent him staggering backward. He raised his arms in defence, but a haymaker caught him in the ear, spinning him around. A right hook, and Owen felt the inside of his cheek split and blood flow into his throat. He was on his knees with no memory of how he got there. A blurry Max seemed to be moving in the blurry background. Please, he prayed, fire a blank or something.
“Stay down,” Sabrina said. “Just stay down.”
“Leave her alone,” Owen tried to say, but the words came out in red bubbles.
“Looky here, boy, you are in no position to give orders or even make suggestions. Take the girl’s advice and stay down.”
Owen hauled himself to his feet, the cars in the lot wheeling around him. He took a swing, but the man just dipped his head to one side and Owen nearly fell.
“Boy, you don’t learn, do you?”
A fist caught Owen in the stomach and lifted him off his feet. He went down hard, stones and glass biting into his skin. Sabrina was yelling, the guy was yelling, the world wobbled on its axis. It was probably only ten seconds, but it felt like ten minutes before he managed to pull in a lungful of air. Tears blurred his vision.
He raised himself to his knees and promptly threw up.
“Leave him alone, Bill,” the girl was saying. “He’s half your size. He was just trying to help.”
“Kid, do yourself a favour and stay down.”
I’m on my feet, Owen realized. Jesus H. Christ, I’m on my feet again.
“For cryin’ out loud, kid. You gotta be dumber than mud.”
Owen jabbed and missed. He was already falling, so the answering punch missed his cheek and caught him in the forehead. He hit the pavement hard.
He tried to get up again, swaying badly. The man, double-wide chunk of beef that he was, looked dismayed. Max loomed up behind him. Where did he get hold of that parking meter, Owen was wondering as it came whistling around and caught the guy smack in the side of the head. He went down like an imploded building.
“Hit my boy, you pre-hominid? While I live, no one hurts my boy and gets away with it.”
Max checked to make sure the man was still breathing, then bundled Owen and Sabrina into the back seat of the car.
“The heart of a lion,” he said as he plunged into the traffic. “My boy has the heart of the lion. Couldn’t have
