He was talking to Tony.
I stood up and Tony fooled me. I expected him to lead with a straight right. It was the punch that knocked me down the first time when he had surprise in his favour. I stuck out a quick left jab and tucked my head inside my shoulder to avoid his right. Tony swung a left hook and it landed high on my right cheek before I could block it. Tony didn’t need the element of surprise. I fell down again.
After a few seconds I sat up. My head was ringing.
I said, “How’d you guys get in here?”
“Two queers and a dog let us in,” Nash said. “Get up.”
“Hospitable, didn’t you find?” I said, not moving. “The queers and the dog?”
Nash said, “Tony, this guy doesn’t quit with the chatter and stand up, put your boots to his knees.”
I held my sitting position on the floor.
Tony scrunched his face into a little-boy look.
“I dunno, Mr. Nash,” he said.
“You nuts?” Nash said. He bristled in his chair. My chair. “Give the guy your foot and let’s do the job here.”
“I ain’t no kick-boxer,” Tony said. His voice had a wounded sound.
“You ain’t Rocky Graziano either,” Nash said.
“Get up, Crang,” Tony said to me.
I said from the floor, “Safer down here.”
“Kick him,” Nash said.
“Shit, Mr. Nash, I box guys,” Tony said. “Kicking people’s for somebody had no training.”
“Good point, Tony,” I said. “Kicking isn’t legit.”
“Shut up,” Nash said to me. To Tony he said, “Stick your shoes in the man. Make him hurt.”
“Jesus, Mr. Nash,” Tony said.
He turned to his left, addressing the plea to Nash in the chair. Tony’s attention was diverted from me. So was Nash’s. I reached for a leg of the footstool with my right hand and pushed off the floor with my left. My head was light and buzzing, but my legs and arms felt able to do their stuff. I lifted from the floor and swung the footstool at Tony’s head. He turned toward me at the moment I swung, and the stool came at his chin like an uppercut.
The stool made a cracking sound when it connected with Tony’s jaw. Tony looked shocked. His straw hat rose off his head and spun three loops in the air. Tony stopped looking shocked. His eyes shut and he fell against the small table beside the chair that Nash was sitting in. Tony landed on the floor. The table tipped over and came to rest on his shoulders. He didn’t notice. Tony was out cold. He wouldn’t be fretting over the morality of punching versus kicking in the immediate future.
The impact with Tony’s jaw had snapped the footstool in two pieces. The larger piece flew across the room and thumped into a row of hardcover American novels on a shelf. I held the other piece in my hand, one leg of the stool. Not much of a weapon. I dropped it.
Nash had his left hand on the arm of the chair and was pulling himself forward while his right hand reached behind him. The man was going for the gun that spread people’s brains on walls. Forewarned is forearmed. Nash’s gun was tucked in a holster at the small of his back. The motion of reaching for it flipped up his suit jacket. I leaned over Nash’s shoulders and yanked the jacket above his head. My yank lifted his hand away from the holster. The hand came up empty.
“Fucking asshole,” Nash said. It was a businesslike mutter.
I pulled until the jacket bent Nash’s head level with his knees. A wallet fell to the floor from his inside pocket. I gave the jacket one more tug. It didn’t tear. Good tailoring. Nash’s head under the jacket developed resistance. It held firm a foot from the floor and began to rise up. He was strong, Solly the Snozz, and as his head and shoulders rose, his right hand was returning to the gun.
I threw a short punch with my left hand at where I thought Nash’s face was located beneath the jacket. The punch caught his skull and stung my hand more than it rocked his head. Nash grunted and his right hand kept moving for the gun.
Nash chopped at my legs with his left hand. I grabbed it and twisted the wrist. It was as thick and rubbery as a bologna. My twist slipped in its flesh.
His right hand found the gun. I dropped his left wrist. He brought the gun out of its holster. I raised my left knee. Nash’s head was still covered by his jacket. He reached up to shake it off with his left hand. The gun came around Nash’s body. I pushed forward with my knee. Nash had the gun pointed to the left, moving toward my stomach. His head came free of the jacket. My knee was aimed at his right hand and I lunged hard. My knee caught his hand and the gun and pinned them both against the arm of the chair. Solly made a noise like it hurt.
“Drop the goddamn gun,” I said. My voice sounded loud. It wasn’t natural to scream in one’s own living room.
My knee pressed deep into Nash’s hand. He dropped the goddamn gun. I picked it up and stepped away from the chair into the centre of the room.
Sol Nash looked at me with the almost-black eyes.
“I got a message for you,” he said. His suit jacket was rumpled, his black hair mussed, and his right hand looked red and sore. His sangfroid seemed to be intact.
I said, “CN Telegraph’s still in business.”
I had a firm grip on the gun and pointed it at Nash’s chest. The gun didn’t feel right. My acquaintance with handguns was limited to holding them in court while I examined and cross-examined witnesses. The guns were trial exhibits that the police had allegedly taken from clients of mine who were facing armed-robbery charges. I’d never pulled a trigger in anger or out of any other compelling motive. Sol Nash’s gun, the one in my hand, seemed without the heft of the weapon that Tony Flanagan had described the day before. I put a tighter grip on it.
“Message is,” Nash said, “Mr. Grimaldi says you should butt out. Permanent, he means.”
“For that you need Tony’s fists?”
“Make sure you get the idea.”
“Maybe Grimaldi didn’t get my idea,” I said. “I put a transaction to him this morning of mutual benefit to all parties.”
“You tried to squeeze him,” Nash said. “Thing like that, Mr. Grimaldi don’t take from nobody. You especially, guy like you.”
Nash waved a hand as if something unpleasant had come to the notice of his ample nostrils.
“A guy like who?” I said.
“Guy doesn’t show respect,” Nash said. “Comes to a man’s house, no appointment, nothing, man’s brother’s visiting, and shit, you’re looking to jam Mr. Grimaldi.”
Nash crossed his legs in the chair, as casual as if the gun in my hand was part of the furniture.
“Reason Mr. Grimaldi sent me,” he said, “you forget everything you said about a deal. None of that bullshit, and Mr. Grimaldi wants the papers you said you took out of the office.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll slam you.”
“That didn’t work right here this afternoon.”
“Slam you when you’re not looking. Professional.”
“Without Tony?”
Nash turned his flat gaze on the floor. Tony’s chest heaved and little bubbles of saliva floated out of his slightly opened mouth. Eyes shut, fists clenched, he was as immobile as the end table that lay across his shoulders.
“Kid was a good driver,” Nash said.
I