The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(61)

“Besides,” he drawled, “I got a retirement fund and a brand-new Cadillac to pay for.”

I turned to Simms. He wasn’t the same man who’d tried to shake me down my first day behind bars. His one good eye had a thousand-yard stare and he twitched like a caged animal, over two hundred pounds of muscle and barely constrained rage.

I hadn’t stood a chance against him the first time we fought. And this time, if he got me on the floor, no guards were coming to my rescue. So don’t let him, I thought. No matter what happens, can’t let him turn this into a ground fight.

His right eye, that was the key. Whatever had happened in his debut fight, that ragged line of stitches meant he was good as blind on one side. If I could get on his right and stay there, I might have a fighting chance.

The guards picked out our weapons for the bout. A baseball bat came rolling toward me, jolting to a stop against my shoe. Barbed wire wrapped the length of the stout wooden shaft, spikes caked with dried blood.

Simms got a machete.

The air horn blared and the crowd cheered, and I snatched up the bat. Simms barreled at me, roaring like a bull, swinging the machete wild and fast. I darted left, aiming for his blind spot, and brought up the bat with both hands to knock the blade aside. His beefy fist cracked against my cheekbone like a pile driver, sending me crashing to the concrete and seeing stars. No time to recover: I rolled, fast, as the machete swooped down and chopped into the floor with a thundering clang.

I came up in a crouch on his blind side, pulled back, and swung the bat two-handed with everything I had. Simms howled as his kneecap shattered like a porcelain plate. He fell as I rose. No time for thought, no hesitation, I just gritted my teeth and whipped the bat around and slammed it against the back of his skull.

Simms lay sprawled at my feet, face to the concrete. Panting, spent, I unclenched my fingers. The bat tumbled from my hand and clattered onto the killing floor. Applause and cheers washed over me, but I could barely hear it over the ringing in my ears. Everything was a million miles away. Everything but Simms.

Lancaster frowned and nodded to a guard. The guard crouched at Simms’s side, putting his fingers to the big man’s neck. He shook his head at Lancaster and stepped back.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the warden announced, “the fight’s not over yet! Our friend Simms is still breathing. What weapon will Faust use for his finishing move? Will he make it fast, or slow? C’mon, give him some encouragement, folks!”

I stood transfixed by the frenzied cheering. Paralyzed. Cold blood trickled down my cheek from a stinging gash. I could barely remember how I’d gotten it.

“Fight’s not done until only one man’s breathing,” Lancaster told me, growling into the microphone. “Time for the money shot, Faust. Give these people what they paid for. How many people have you killed? This is just one more body.”

“No,” I said, and the crowd fell into a confused hush.

I looked to the audience, seething.

“Forget it,” I shouted. “I don’t kill for fun. I’m sure as hell not going to kill for your fun. You want him dead? Do it yourself.”

Now the applause turned into scattered boos and jeering. The warden calmed them down with a reassuring wave of his hand.

“Folks, folks, it’s all good. Our new contender just doesn’t know how this works yet. Lemme clarify for him.”

Lancaster raised his hand high and snapped his fingers. I followed his gaze down to my chest.

A neon-green pinpoint hovered over my heart.

“The rules are, kill or be killed,” Lancaster told me, “no exceptions. You’ve got thirty seconds. If Mr. Simms is not dead at the end of those thirty seconds, well…I’m afraid my sniper in the guard tower will have to invoke the ‘sudden death’ playoff rule.”

He glanced at his watch.

“And the clock starts…now.”





33.




You can go your entire life believing you have principles. Believing there are lines you’d never cross, deeds you’d never commit, even at the cost of your own life. And if you’re lucky, nobody will ever put those principles to the test.

I picked up the bat.

Lancaster was right. I had plenty of blood on my hands, and while I’d love to pretend I’d only pulled the trigger in self-defense, that’d be a dirty lie. All these years, though, I’d held myself up by one fragile string, one solitary rule I kept sacred: I’d never killed anybody who didn’t have it coming to them. Criminals like me and monsters like me, sure, they were fair game. People who willingly lived the life and knew the risks. But not civilians. And never innocents.

Simms might not be what most people would call “innocent,” but in my book he was. He hadn’t asked to be a part of this, hadn’t signed up for these bastards’ sick game. They’d put a weapon in his hand and forced him to fight, and only the luck of the draw put him facedown on the blood-slick concrete instead of me.

“Twenty seconds,” Lancaster said, eyeing his watch.

When you don’t adhere to many principles in life, you guard the ones you do have. They’re the only things that let you look yourself in the mirror in the morning, that let you pretend, every once in a while, that you’re a good person deep down inside.

“Fifteen seconds,” Lancaster purred into the microphone. “Son, you’d best get to it.”