Jack Wakes Up (28 page)

Freeman produces a roll of duct tape from somewhere in his pants and rips off a strip that he puts over the guy’s mouth. Then he flips him over and runs the duct tape quickly around his 238

hands and feet. Jack’s having a hard time hiding how impressed he is with all this precision, actually says, “Wow.”

Junius just winks at Jack, once, and points down the hall toward a door not twenty feet away.

From farther inside the club, Jack hears the music, Sir Mix-A-Lot doing “Baby’s Got Back”—a song that’s sure to accompany a special performance on stage. Freeman closes the door behind them and makes sure it locks.

Wondering where the Czechs are, Jack stops for a moment, thinking, but Junius is already headed down the hall.

They come to a door and Junius puts his head against it. After listening for a few seconds, he points at it and whispers, “They in there.”

“OK.” Jack nods. “Do this.”

Junius and Freeman exchange a glance, and that’s when Freeman kicks the door open, loud and hard. Junius jumps into the opening, yelling, “Boo!” After a quick look to see the scene inside, Jack follows Freeman into the room.

What they come into is a big play den for Tony and some of his boys. It’s something of an extension to the club: there’s a big glass window on the back wall that you can see the girls on stage through, the other side of a two-way mirror—Jack realizes—the lights dim enough inside the room to keep it reflective on the other side. Tony sits behind a big desk off on the right-hand side with a significant pile of blow, about the size of a softball, and a small mountain of white pills that must be ecstasy piled up in front of him. He starts nodding when Junius walks in and then laughs when he sees Jack. He reaches up to the back of his head and straightens his pony tail, pulling it tight. “Jack Palms,” he says. “This is fucking hilarious. Call this your next movie, right?”

“I’ll get you as the big star,” Jack says.

Tony laughs. “But this ain’t no play acting here.” He looks around the room. “And I don’t see any stunt doubles to protect you, you fuck.”

In the middle of the room, two of Tony’s bouncers in black shirts have been playing pool with one of the clean-cut, slick bouncers from The Mirage. Now they stop and stand, holding their pool cues and looking at Jack and the other visitors. Two of them are the ones who beat Jack up when he got under Tony’s skin a few nights ago, The Surfer and a black guy with a shaved head that reflects the ceiling lights. These two smile especially wide smiles at him. The other one is the asshole from outside The Mirage, the one who wouldn’t answer Jack’s question, one of the clean-cut professionals.

The shiny Bald Head says, “We’re glad to see you back here, Jackie.”

Another guy leans against the pool table, smoking. He’s got on khaki pants and a light blue polo shirt. He looks at Jack with pure contempt. He’s hard to place without the uniform, but Jack remembers his face from somewhere he’s been with Hopkins, maybe from the Hall of Justice.

Beyond the pool table, on the left, is a sectional leather couch with Maxine stretched across one part, lying back with her wrist on her forehead. She sees them come in, doesn’t make a move to sit up or change position. “Jack,” she says, smiling. “What a dumbass.”

The bald Russian with the beard sits bolt upright on another section of the couch, smoking a long cigarette out of a plastic holder. He’s got his other arm draped over the back of the couch, an automatic resting on one of his thighs. The way he looks, the gun seems like the furthest thing from his mind. He touches his moustache with the first fingers of his cigarette hand as if he’s considering the situation.

“No, movie man,” Tony says, “No stunt doubles here.”

Jack says, “Right. Just you, your stooges, a cop, and a Russian mobster.”

Junius steps farther into the room, waving the gun around to make sure everyone sees it.

Tony stands up, clapping his hands. “That is very good, Junior. Nice work with the flashing of your thing there. How are you with the business end?”

Junius points his gun straight ahead, between two of Tony’s guys, The Surfer and the Bald Head, and lets off a few shots into the wood side of the pool table. They both jump back, but the 241

cop stays put. The Professional throws his cue down on the floor. On stage, the stripper keeps dancing, kicking her legs high, the music bumping through the wall.

“Fuck!” Tony says. “That’s a three thousand dollar table, you fuck! What are you thinking?”

Junius holds the gun up, makes a show of blowing off the barrel. “I was just checking to see I could shoot this thing.” He holds the gun out away from his body as if he’s looking it over, and then levels its barrel at Tony. “I’d say I can.”

Tony raises his hands lackadaisically, as if he’s just playing along with a game. “So what is it you boys want? Would you like a share of my coke? Do you want to buy some X? Or,” he looks at Junius, “Do you want to know where I get it now? Because I think that you must already know.”

Jack nods at the guy in khakis and the polo shirt. “Maybe we want to know how you got to be so comfortable with the force here.”

Tony laughs. “That’s right. You haven’t officially met our friend, Officer O’Malley. Sorry I didn’t do the introduce.”

“Man, fuck.” Still aiming the gun at Tony, Junius turns to Freeman. “What is the deal with this guy?”

Freeman cracks his knuckles, starts toward the little man.

“Ah ah hah.” Tony waves his finger at Freeman, turns his chin an inch toward the Russian, who now has his gun in his hand, the barrel leveled at Freeman’s head. The guy’s twenty feet from Freeman and the desk, but his gun has a laser sight on it that shows where he’s pointing, even from this far away. Whether Freeman knows it or not, he now has a single bright red dot in the middle of his forehead.

“Man, fuck,” Junius says. He turns his gun toward the Russian. “You better put that down.”

“Really,” the Russian says, still pointing at Freeman. “Had I better?” He raises his eyebrows.

Jack feels the tension in the room rise a few levels. There’s a moment when he thinks Junius considers blasting the Russian, blowing him away, wondering whether Freeman would live 242

through it. But it seems there’d be a chain reaction, that somehow the Russian would pull the trigger—at least that’s the decision Junius makes; he doesn’t do anything.

“Oh, carnage in here,” Tony says, stepping around the desk. “Wouldn’t that be awful?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Junius turns to hold his gun on Tony and as he does, in the moment of that move, the Russian turns his gun onto him, shines the light across his eyes and then trains it on his chest, over his heart. Junius looks down and sees the bright dot. “Shit,” he says, still holding his gun on Tony.

Jack steps forward toward the Russian. “I just want to talk for a minute here. Let’s all keep calm.”

Now Maxine sits up. “You’re doing the talking? Why don’t you just shut up, Jack?” She’s slurring a little, must have been drinking since she arrived. Jack sees an empty glass in front of her on the coffee table.

Tony clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Oh,” he says, nodding toward one shoulder. “A lover’s quarrel?”

The cop, O’Malley, drops his cigarette on the floor and grinds it out. “This is a nice party you got here, Tony, but I think I should be going. Don’t want to interrupt any family business.” He steps forward as if to start walking out.

Tony shakes his head. “Why would you leave now, Joe? This is the perfect place for you to be. You just witnessed a breaking and entering. Maybe you’ll even get to make some arrests.

Hmm?”

The Surfer taps the cop on the shoulder with the thin end of his pool cue, making sure he realizes that Tony’s demanding, not offering.

“This shit’s getting ugly,” Freeman says. He takes a quick step to his side, moving surprisingly fast for a man his size—showing he still has some NFL speed—and reaches out to backhand Tony across the face, knocking him into a cabinet behind his desk. Tony’s fall breaks 243

the glass front of the piece, and he drops to the floor. He scrambles up fast and then looks at his hand, holds it up with blood running down the side of his wrist.

“Ahh,” Tony says. “Will you look at that?”

Jack realizes he’s probably fully coked out of his mind.

Freeman raises his hands, but the Russian says, “Don’t!” loud enough to stop him before he can move on Tony again.

“Can you please waste these fucks right now?” Tony asks the Russian.

The Russian tilts his head, as if considering this possibility. Then he shakes just the middle of his face—just his mouth and nose—holding his head still. “No. Not quite yet.” He looks at Freeman. “Though one of those is certainly enough. OK, friend?”

Freeman backs a step away from Tony.

“Very well,” the Russian says. “Now here’s what I’d like to know.” He takes a long time making a very pronounced move to fix his gaze on Jack. Then he raises his eyebrows. “Where are your Eastern-European friends? I believe I have some business with them.”

Jack looks away from the Russian; something about the way his eyebrows rise up on his bald head—it almost looks like they’ve become his hairline, gone beyond his forehead—creeps Jack out. He looks out of the two-way mirror and sees a big-busted stripper wrap her arms around her back and undo the tie of her top. She’s bringing the ends around, when suddenly she stops, screams and drops out of sight below the bottom edge of the mirror.

Jack hears a gunshot, and a second outside in the main room: shots from handguns.

He turns back to the Russian, who’s got his gun still on Junius but his attention in the direction of the mirror. Jack says, “I’d say that’s them outside now.”

From outside in the club, Jack hears the spray of an automatic weapon followed by a scream.

The Russian looks at Jack, expectant. Jack shakes his head. “That is not them.”

The spray of the automatic comes again, and Jack hears glass breaking, shouting, a chandelier falling and crashing to the floor. Women are screaming in the larger part of the club.

Tony looks like an animal that’s just gone on full alert: his eyes opened wide and his back straight to raise his ears higher. He points at his bouncers, and they start for a separate door out the back of the room, behind the pool table, just to the right side of the two-way mirror. As they start to move, the shots come again, and the mirror shatters. Shards of glass burst into the room and onto the pool table. The three of them hit the deck as glass showers them in crystals. Then big pieces of the glass fall from the top and bottom of the frame, some breaking on the way down, some smashing against the floor. The cop is crouched low, almost under the table.

From a crouch—Jack ducked at the sound of the automatic tearing through the mirror—he notices that the others are down as well, but that the Russian still sits with his gun trained on Junius. The music in the exterior of the club blasts into the room for a few beats of something and then stops altogether. For a moment, they’re surrounded by silence.

“Motherfuckers!” Tony says. “What the fuck is happening out there?”

Then, from the other side of the wall, Jack hears, “Puta madre! Maricon! Come out here Vitelli!”

Tony waves at his boys to go see what’s happening on the other side of the wall. They get up slowly, brushing the glass off their clothes, looking at him like he’s the insane bastard he is.

But then slowly they start toward the door. Just then the little annoying guy, The Talker, comes in through the back door, the one Jack and Junius came in. He trips and falls on the floor as he comes into the room, and then pulls himself up to a sitting position. There’s blood covering his leg and half of his body.

“Who’s out there?” Tony demands. He’s crawled behind the desk for protection, but stands up to see his little manager, hear his report.

“Mexicans, Mr. Vitelli. There are Mexicans with fucking Uzis out there!”

Jack looks at Junius, who’s looking back at him. They both nod in agreement, and then they both say it at the same time, not loud, but they know the word when they see it mouthed:

“Colombians!”

Again, Tony waves at his boys. “Get out there!” He throws a set of keys across the room and points at a large gun cabinet next to the door. “Get yourselves some fucking artillery!” The Surfer picks the keys up off the floor and starts to open the cabinet.

Jack looks at Junius to see his lead, but Junius is watching this all happen, just like Jack is.

He’s pointing the gun around the room at Tony’s guys and at Tony, but never staying on one target for long. He slowly backs toward the wall.

Then Jack feels a punch in the back of his neck, and he turns to see Maxine falling onto him, swinging wildly. Before he can move, she’s on top of him, her weight taking them both to the floor. Once they’re down, Jack’s able to roll her off of him. He pushes her away and slides back from her kicks. She’s got her hands and feet flying; where she was a tough woman before, now she’s just a drunk trying to kick and punch blindly. Jack grabs her wrists and wards off her feet with the other hand, pushing her away. Then he stands and keeps backing up.

“Fuck you, Jack Palms,” she screams, sitting up.

“What did you guys do to her?” Jack looks at Tony, but he’s watching his men head back towards the far door. Now holding shotguns, they move toward the door slowly, and then The Professional breaks through it, fires off two shots and falls back in. Jack’s watching The Surfer, hoping he’ll go through the door next and catch a few shots in the chest. Then The Surfer and The Pro push their way out, followed by more shooting, and the spray of the machine gun comes again. Jack’s hoping it finds them both between the eyes.

Jack takes another step back and walks into the Russian, still watching Maxine to make sure she doesn’t make any more crazy moves. “Excuse me,” the Russian says, pushing Jack to the side. He has his gun trained on the door behind the pool table, following the bouncers’

movements out into the club. Junius is doing the same, watching with his gun ready.

Maxine starts to get up, and Jack holds out his hands in front of him, his arms straight.