WIN, Coben, Harlan [ebook and pdf reader .txt] 📗

But not Big T.

Marvel A-Lister drops his handsome face into his hands. Swagg Daddy throws his arms around me.

“We won, Win!” Swagg shouts. Then, thinking better of it: “Or should I say, ‘We win, Win!’”

I frown at him. My frown tells him I expect better.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Swagg says.

I barely hear him. The roar is beyond deafening. He leans in closer.

“My party is going to be lit!”

He runs out and joins the celebration. En masse, the crowd charges the court with him, exuberant, rejoicing. They swallow Swagg from my view. Several slap me on the back as they pass. They encourage me to join, but I do not.

I look again for Teddy Lyons, but he is gone.

Not for long though.

*  *  *

Two hours later, I see Teddy Lyons again. He is strutting toward me.

Here is my dilemma.

I am going to “put a hurting,” as they say, on Big T. There is no way around that. I’m still not sure how much of one, but the damage to his physical health will be severe.

That’s not my dilemma.

My dilemma involves the how.

No, I’m not worried about getting caught. This part has been planned out. Big T received an invitation to Swagg Daddy’s blowout. He is entering through what he believes is a VIP entrance. It is not. In fact, it is not even the location of the party. Loud music blasts from down the corridor, but it is just for show.

It is only Big T and I in this warehouse.

I wear gloves. I have weaponry on me—I always do—though it will not be needed.

Big T is drawing closer to me, so let’s get back to my dilemma:

Do I strike him without warning—or do I give him what some might consider a sporting chance?

This isn’t about morality or fair play or any of that. It matters to me none what the general populace would label this. I have been in many scrapes in my day. When you do battle, rules rapidly become null and void. Bite, kick, throw sand, use a weapon, whatever it takes. Real fights are about survival. There are no prizes or praise for sportsmanship. There is a victor. There is a loser. The end. It doesn’t matter whether you “cheat.”

In short, I have no qualms about simply striking this odious creature when he’s not ready. I am not afraid to take—again to use common vernacular—a “cheap shot.” In fact, that had been my plan all along: Jump him when he’s not ready. Use a bat or a knife or the butt of my gun. Finish it.

So why the dilemma now?

Because I don’t think breaking bones is enough here. I want to break the man’s spirit too. If tough-guy Big T were to lose a purportedly fair fight to little ol’ me—I am older, much slighter, far prettier (it’s true), the very visual dictionary definition of “effete”—it would be humiliating.

I want that for Big T.

He is only a few steps away. I make my decision and step out to block his path. Big T pulls up and scowls. He stares at me a moment. I smile at him. He smiles back.

“I know you,” he says.

“Do tell.”

“You were at the game tonight. Sitting courtside.”

“Guilty,” I say.

He sticks out his huge mitt of a hand for me to shake. “Teddy Lyons. Everyone calls me Big T.”

I don’t shake the hand. I stare at it, as though it plopped out of a dog’s anus. Big T waits a second, standing there frozen, before he takes the hand back as though it’s a small child that needs comforting.

I smile at him again. He clears his throat.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he begins.

“I won’t, no.”

“What?”

“You’re a little slow, aren’t you, Teddy?” I sigh. “No, I won’t excuse you. There is no excuse for you. Are you with me now?”

The scowl slowly returns to his face. “You got a problem?”

“Hmm. Which comeback to go with?”

“Huh?”

“I could say, ‘No, YOU got a problem’ or ‘Me? Not a care in the world’—something like that—but really, none of those snappy rejoinders are calling to me.”

Big T looks perplexed. Part of him wants to simply shove me aside. Part of him remembers that I was sitting in Celebrity Row and thus I might be someone important.

“Uh,” Big T says, “I’m going to the party now.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s no party here.”

“When you say there’s no party—”

“The party is two blocks away,” I say.

He puts his mitts on his hips. Coach pose. “What the hell is this?”

“I had them send you the wrong address. The music? It’s just for show. The security guard who let you in by the VIP entrance? He works for me and vanished the moment you walked through that door.”

Big T blinks twice. Then he steps closer to me. I don’t back up even an inch.

“What’s going on?” he asks me.

“I’m going to kick your ass, Teddy.”

Oh, how his smile widens now. “You?” His chest is the approximate size of a squash court’s front wall. He moves in closer now, looming over me, staring down with the confidence of a big, powerful man who, because of his size, has never experienced combat or even been challenged. This is Big T’s amateurish, go-to move—crowd his opponent with his bulk and then watch them wither.

I don’t wither, of course. I crane my neck and meet his gaze. And now, for the first time, I see doubt start to cloud his expression.

I don’t wait.

Crowding me like this was a mistake. It makes my first move short and easy. I place all five of my fingertips on my right hand together, forming something of an arrowhead, and dart-strike his throat. A gurgling sound emerges. At the same time, I sidekick low, leading with my instep, connecting directly on the side of his right knee which, I know from research, has undergone two ACL surgeries.

I hear a crack.

Big T goes down like an oak.

I lift my leg and strike him hard with my heel.

He cries out.

I strike him again.

He cries out.

I strike him again.

Silence.

I will spare