Short Ride to Nowhere by Tom Piccirilli Read Free Book Online Page B

as the tension between him and the man grew.   He knew it was somehow his fault, but he didn’t know what he was doing wrong.   Everything right from the moment he’d met the cops had been askew, he’d handled everybody wrong, but there was no way to correct it now.   He had to see it through to the end.  
    The guy started to raise his hands.   It was like there was a crowd around them, cheering them on, wanting blood.   Managers, money on the line, Vegas odds, promises to keep, sons at home watching the television.   The roar of the crowd got louder and louder.   Introductions were made, rules explained, no below the belt, now shake hands and go to your corner and wait for the sound of the bell.   You lived your entire life with a movie soundtrack playing, with an audience perched behind your eyes.  
    “Are you her father?” he asked.
    “Who are you, fucker?”
    “I told you, my name’s Jenks.”
    “You still haven’t told me shit.   What do you want?”
    “Are you her father?   Her husband?   Boyfriend?”
    The crowd roared.   They wanted blood.   They were drunk, pouring the beer back, even the announcers sounded wasted.   The card had been weak tonight, the featherweight outmatched, the champion welterweight taking out his opponent in the first minute of the second round.   The odds were in the shitter. Vegas was losing its shirt.   Something had to turn around.   Now, the main event.  
    The guy flexed his shoulders, loosening up.   Cracked his neck, his hands trembling at his sides.   He was plugging in to his hate, his pain.   “I’m Mikey.   I’m her son.”
    “Look, there’s no reason to–” Jenks said, but it was already way too late.  
    And it had been since the moment he stepped up and knocked.   Somewhere he’d been hoping for this just as badly as the other guy.   One voice in the crowd seemed to slice through all the din.  
    A woman shrieking, Kill da bum.  
    Mikey turned his head as if he could hear it too, and his hands rose and balled into fists and he let out a growl that had in it all the agony he’d suffered today, yesterday, maybe his entire life.   The tiny knives that flicked against your skin, the hardly heard insults, the decimated fantasies, the missed opportunities and nyeah nyeahs of beautiful girls belittling smiles as they ripped down the boulevard with the slicks and hustlers and rich boys.   You never got over anything.   You never put aside any affront.   Every barb stayed under your saddle.   You collected your skinned knees and your skinned elbows and your skinned chins and gathered them one by one in a closet, and at the end of one year or ten or thirty you had fifty bodies worth of torment.  
    Your father never did this.   Your brothers never did this.   Your friends, all of them except Hale, didn’t do this.   So how did it happen to you?  
    Ask Mikey.   He’s in the same boat.   He’s waltzing into the ring and throwing a left hook now, catching you flush on the cheek because, Christ, your hands aren’t even up.   Where’s the rage now?   The sports’ columnists are typing out the story, flashbulbs are going off, everyone’s expecting something special from you today, kid, but it looks like the syndicate paid you off to take a dive.  
    Kill da bum, she screams again.   The mayor’s in the audience with a hooker in each arm.
    “Mikey, there’s no reason to–”
    As if hearing his name is going to make a difference to him now.   Of course it won’t.   It can’t.   It’s not his name.   Not his secret name, which is the only one he can hear right now.   Who knows what it might be.   Captain Power maybe.   Lord Wellus of Planet Fromfox.   Jungle Kid.   We all have our secret selves waiting to burst through.  
    Get your hands up.   Defend yourself.   Draw the blade.   Cram it into his gut.   Your mind is loud.   You’re on your way to the Tombs or maybe Sojourner.   It happened to Hale.   What