Page 6 of Dodge

His friends rose.

Both Rudy and Marlowe barked, “No!” They sat.

Now came the C word, snarled out.

She stepped back to let him rip off his lumberjack shirt. He too had a tee on underneath and, for that matter, his chest was noteworthy, though probably not as muscular as it had once been.

He plunged forward, swinging wildly.

She zipped away, back and sideways. She’d memorized the position of the tables.

Footwork, always footwork ...

A high feint and, when his arms went up, she sent a forceful jab into the left portion of his gut. He grunted.

Rudy was clearly an enforcer but one who enforced with threats and guns and pipes. Never his fists, it was obvious. He hadn’t been in a fight for a while, maybe he’d never been in a real one. Probably it was all push and shove and sneer and insult, like on the schoolyard. And watch all the boxing and mixed martial arts videos you want, you’ll never learn a single thing from the tube.

His meaty paw caught her on the shoulder. It had mass and she staggered back. The blow ached; it didn’t sting. In boxing the difference was significant.

He reminded her of a prison guard who’d thought her bulk and muscle were all she needed to put Marlowe down. They’d gone at it for a while, the blows furious, until Marlowe had gotten bored and finished with a series of lightning jabs. Ten minutes of battle and she wasn’t the least winded, even though those were the days when she smoked.

Enjoying his shoulder success, Rudy tried it again. Could he possibly be surprised when, expecting it, she dodged and delivered a left hook to his jaw? Spit flew. Arms sagged.

When defenses are down, never, ever wait.

A combination uppercut and jabs to the abdomen.

It wasn’t enough to incapacitate a big man, so she escaped out of reach quickly.

“Jesus.” In fury, he pounced, trying some kind of weird Chuck Norris move. She easily stepped aside and Rudy backed up fast when she crouched again and swayed left and right, ready to strike.

He had strength but no strategy in a sport where strategy was vital.

Her blows concentrated on the face and solar plexus—the only two targets that would do any good. Hitting him elsewhere was like slugging a side of meat, wasting energy.

The one thing she had to be careful of—where he could do some damage—was grabbing her shirt, controlling her movement, and swinging at her face or getting her in a choke hold. He tried this several times. There was no rule that prohibited grabbing and choking. No rules at all, other than hers: they couldn’t shoot each other.

But she managed to avoid the groping claws.

His unfocused bounding and flailing were taking their toll. Rudy was now breathing hard and the lunges were slower. His behavior fit the pattern she was oh-so-familiar with: a man, twice her size, getting beaten by a “girl.” He was embarrassed and furious, two emotions that have no business in a fight. They gave birth to an even worse liability: desperation.

Then, thinking once more of the urgency of her mission here in Upper Falls, she decided it was time.

Marlowe eased in, quarter turned to the right and when he tried to grab her—now a laughably predictable maneuver—she swiveled and came back with a roundhouse right to his nose.

Two back-to-back left and right jabs into the gut. Without the slick surface of gloves hitting skin, bare-knuckle fights were largely silent. This particular assault was punctuated only with his noisy grunts.

Rudy went down to his knees and Marlowe bounded back once more, though this time it was solely to avoid getting puked on. All things considered, the blows had been tame—she didn’t want to rupture anything—but when they joined the whiskey the result was inevitable.

The utter silence that followed his retching was broken by words behind her.

“Well, that didn’t last long.”

The man stood in the back of the room. He’d emerged from a doorway. He was wearing a nice suit, a rich navy-blue one, and a light-pink dress shirt, open at the collar. Oxford shoes, brown. He was about fifty, squat and fat. Hair red, face round and freckled. He didn’t get outside much either.

She went to the bar, pulled her jacket back on. “Water.”

“Ice?”

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