The Patrolman - 37 (1/2)

 

 

37.

 

 

 

Nobody moved. The three men in front stood with their feet apart and hands held wide and ready. They didn't want to move, not right away. The guy behind them, blocking the door, didn't move either. He was waiting for a signal.

The first to move is always the ringleader.

And this one looked like he’d been waiting for an excuse.

'You like to hurt girls, pendejos?'

A big corn-fed twenty-something with a thick mustache and eyebrows stepped forward. He was a couple of heads taller than Lacey. With broad shoulders and an exposed chest, he didn't look to be trifled with. Yes, he was the ringleader. The other two fell in behind him.

Lacey glanced over his shoulder. The guy behind them stirred, but hadn't moved yet.

'We're Los Angeles police officers,' said Carruthers. He took his badge out of his breast jacket pocket and held it for them all to see.

If Carruthers expected that to improve their situation, it didn't.

The girl disappeared into the other section of the building.

It grew so quiet that Lacey coughed to break the silence. These men were all Mexican, Latino, or Chicano. All were young, and all wore zoot suits. He examined them. The guy behind moved under a shadow so Lacey couldn't make him out. These were the youth L.A.P.D. had singled out. Now, Downtown and East Los Angeles were baying for their blood. On this lucky night, two lone police officers had followed them into their own bar.

Their bar.

The kind of place where a badge carried risk.

The ringleader flexed his fingers under the brass knuckles. They looked heavy. They looked dirty.

Lacey took stock of Carruthers. He was a New Yorker. He could fight dirty. As for him, well, Lacey had served in the infantry. American infantrymen learned the brutal tactics of the British Special Operations Executive. They called it gutter fighting.

If these boys had brought weapons to a fistfight, Lacey and Carruthers had every right to hit back twice as hard.

The one moving in behind them worried him most. The others were carrying brass knuckles and a pool cue. This one could be carrying anything.

Never back down, Lacey thought.

The big guy was round and heavy. He wouldn't have much stamina compared to the others. He would come in charging. Swinging wild blows with his brass knuckles. He would be hoping that one would connect with Carruthers' jaw and put him down on the ground. Yes, Lacey thought. He had the physical build of a linebacker. He would be a guy to put them on the ground.

So he would start swinging.

That was Lacey's best guess.

And he was right.

The guy exploded from between the chairs and charged, head low. Straight for Carruthers. Carruthers rushed to meet him in the middle of the floor. The guy straightened, put his guard up, and took blows to both sides of his ribs. For an average-sized person, that would be enough to wind and put them down on the ground.

Arms closed around him, wrestling him like an alligator. Fine, Lacey thought. They had decided, and today, they were all fighting dirty. The grab pinned his arms. The guy at the door had sneaked up on him.  The other two came for him.

With his arms out of action, the only things moving were his head and legs. Looking down, he started by raising his right leg. He paused and brought his heel crashing down on the guy's right foot. Small and soft bones popped when his heel connected with the floor. Lacey stuck his neck out, forward, and arched back in a reverse headbutt. He smashed into the guy's nose, breaking it.

The two in front hesitated.

Lacey brought his heel down on the guy's foot once again. His grip softened, but he didn't let go of his arms. The only thing left to do was grab his balls and twist. That got the desired effect. The guy screamed and let go. But Lacey didn't, he turned to his right, following the guy, his balls still crushed in his right fist.

The guy had come over all pale. Lacey let go of his balls, leaned back on his left foot, and drove his knee between the guy's legs. He went down like a sack of potatoes, wheezing and crying.

Lacey returned his attention to the other two. Vomit splattered on the wooden floor. Now they were second-guessing themselves, and he could use that to his advantage.

Before they realized that there were two of them and only one of him, he struck. He lunged forward. Clasping his hand over the tattooed guy's face, he used his momentum to drive them backward. The guy hadn't even registered what had happened. They rushed back a few paces before he decided to end it by sweeping the guy's legs out from under him. The floor rushed up to meet him. His head bounced off the wood with a crack.

For good measure, he served the tattooed guy with a solid kick to the ribs. The damage wasn't quite as bad as the guy by the door, but it was enough to keep him down for at least the next few minutes.

Over the tables, Carruthers was fighting a losing battle. He kept his guard up, but he was dancing around like a boxer. Landing some solid blows but pulling his punches. He would be getting tired. The ringleader was twenty years younger than him and built like a linebacker. He needed help.

  Lacey turned in time to see the thick end of a pool cue glance him a blow on the chin. His head snapped around, and he cursed. The stick struck him between the shoulder blades. It hurt, not as much as the mouth shot. He spat in the guy's face and took his pool cue in both hands.

'Georgie.'

Carruthers ducked under one of the ringleader's hooks. He followed up with two quick lefts of his own. Right into the ribs. He saw Lacey and said, 'Throw it.'     

He popped it up through the air.

Carruthers caught it with both hands and brained the guy across the jaw, the same blow Lacey had received.

His guy came back for more. But Lacey dropped him with an elbow to the jaw. That sweet spot. Between the corner of the jaw and the bottom of the ear. The side-to-side displacement was all the more effective than the front-to-back. Knockout territory. The pool cue guy, now missing his pool cue, was unconscious before he hit the floor.

Before Lacey could help Carruthers, the guy by the door was back for him and wielding a flick knife. He vaulted a table, holding the blade out in front of him.

Lacey didn't like it. He didn't like the look of the knife with its serrated edge either. He hurled a glass Coke bottle at him. It bounced off his forehead. Then Lacey followed up with a quick, one, two, three combo. The three, being a left hook, used that side-to-side displacement and dropped him to the floor. He booted him in the face. The head rose off the floor a foot before slamming back down, unconscious.

He took a moment to catch his breath. Carruthers was landing some terrific shots, a born fighter. But he wasn't fighting dirty. Not as dirty as how Jake Lacey was.

Carruthers held up the pool cue to protect himself. But the big ringleader drove his arms down and snapped the thing in two. He jabbed one into the guy's shoulder, and he spun around. Reeling in pain. He turned to see the dirty wood legs of a barstool charging toward him.

Lacey pinned the ringleader to the wall. The top two chair legs over his shoulders and the bottom two under his armpits. The guy was broad, so the hit surprised him. Still, the guy was a beast. It took him every ounce of his own bodyweight to lean forward and keep the ringleader pinned to the wall.

Carruthers looked shaken.

'Hit him,' Lacey cried.

Carruthers rubbed his knuckles and drew his left arm back.

The ringleader's face rippled from the blow, a tooth shot out of his mouth, but it hadn't knocked him out.

Carruthers hit him again and again.

Each blow was like a hammer hitting a nail into a wall.

But the ringleader was made from cast iron.

'Georgie,' Lacey said.

The ringleader had brought his hands up to his shoulders and started to lift the chair legs up and back. He planted his feet.

Lacey kicked at his legs, flailing. Trying to knock him off balance.

Carruthers went on punching.

The tattooed guy was now on his knees and struggling to get up.

'Georgie.'

Lacey was losing his grip.

The ringleader had his strength back. He got hold of the chair legs and tossed the bar stool wide across the room.

He grabbed Lacey by the jacket and started to lift him.

Carruthers turned sideways and bent his knees. He drove all his weight up and forward off his back foot and through his shoulder straight into the big guy's face.

The ringleader dropped Lacey and bounced around, stunned, staggering backward on stiff legs.

Lacey wiped blood from his nose.

It was Carruthers who finished him off. He stamped the guy once in the shin, and the guy toppled over. He came to rest six feet from the wall he had been pinned against. His legs wide apart, like a capital letter A.

There was blood on his face.

He had a broken nose.

Carruthers had put the ringleader down.