Fatal Justice (Jack Lamburt #1)(24)



What if another of their “associates” was already on the way up here?

I could just wait in the bushes until they made a move on Mary Sue, but that was risky. I could miss them, or someone else might see me beating the hell out of them and tossing them in the bed of my truck for their final ride.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fatty get out of his chair, pick up his beer, and walk towards me. He passed right by and headed to the men’s room. With his beer? I guessed that he was the nontrusting type. Probably had to be that way to survive in his racket. Either that, or he’d been roofed before. The male rape scene from the movie Deliverance popped into my head and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Then all hell broke loose.





26





Her timing was impeccable, perfected over decades of daily practice. Fatty huffed his way down the bar, his tough guy chest stuck out, and Frances nailed him. I’m talking the grand pooh-bah of ass-grabbing finger probes that would have made a proctologist blush. Fat Boy jumped so high I thought he would hit his head on the smoke eater hanging from the ceiling. He didn’t, but he did spill his beer all over his fancy shirt. I was laughing so hard I almost choked on mine.

One man’s funny isn’t necessarily another’s. Fatty whipped around so fast, his arms extended, and whacked poor Frances in the shoulder, knocking her off her barstool and sending her rolling to the floor. He finished his violent pirouette with a profanity-laced rant that even Ralphie’s dad would admire.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, you stupid little cunt!”

The silence that followed was deafening. Everyone in the place stopped what they were doing. Beers were paused midway to mouths, kisses interrupted, the cook’s finger hovered over the bell, Debbie stopped in midstride. Even the jukebox stopped. Every set of eyes in the place was daggered at Fatty. For a second the tension was so thick that my hand went to my Glock. I caught myself and pretend to scratch an itch in my side, looking down to conceal my smile. I’d seen the wrath of the Summit Savages before, and this was not going to be pretty.

Punches, kicks, elbows and beer bottles all rained down on Fatty as every patron in the place, except me of course, decided to teach the fat New York City asshole a lesson. Turned out that, despite all of Frances’s faults, she had a lot of friends in Summit.

Some of the more humorous ones had even made a shield out of a cast-iron skillet. It had a big red sign on it that read “Frances’s Skillet—100% Success Rate” and was meant to be tied around the rear of one’s waist when you had to venture past her to use the restroom. It hung on the wall behind the bar, right next to the clock. Too bad Fatty didn’t know enough to ask Debbie if he could use it.

While Debbie and Mary Sue helped Frances up and led her away from the melee, every one of her friends voiced their displeasure at Fatty and how he’d treated a long-upstanding citizen of Summit.

Now I knew better than anybody that we had our share of, let’s just say, “imperfect” men, who’d done way worse than Fatty. But that didn’t matter. They’d witnessed one of their own being abused in their house, and there was no tolerating that. Civic pride and all.

Within seconds, Fatty was on his hands and knees, trying to cover up and crawl away from the onslaught of what was now profanity-laced kicks to his ribs and thighs with sharp-toed cowboy boots.

But to no avail. All he succeeded in doing was giving the fellows who couldn’t reach him a clean shot at him when he managed to crawl over to them.

I should have come to his aid, but no freakin’ way was I stopping this show.

Skinny Boy had different ideas, and he came running over, swinging a chair to try and get the mob off the mobster. He was met with a blackjack from the off-duty corrections officer from the shock treatment facility. The same guy who had been sitting on my stool, trying to make time with my Debbie.

I had to admit, despite his puke-ugly face and portly body, he had good aim. Must have had a lot of practice. He nailed him dead center back of the head and dropped him like a sack of potatoes. Some of the patrons who hadn’t had their lesson-teaching quota satisfied with Fatty turned to Skinny Boy, and I felt like I was watching a replay.

I smiled, downed my beer, and ran out the door.





27





I found their SUV in the parking lot and tried the door. It was unlocked. Jeez, this was perfect. I couldn’t have orchestrated this any better if I’d had a ten-thousand-dollar budget and two months to plan it. I climbed in the backseat and looked out the tinted windows. The smell of the interior reminded me of Ostrich Boy. Must have been his cologne.

A few minutes later I saw Fatty and Skinny being tossed into the parking lot, followed by cursing, some “don’t ever come back here again,” and a few more kicks for good measure. I felt a pride in my town that I hadn’t known existed in me, and I couldn’t help but grin as I lay down across the backseat and waited for Curly and Moe to go on their final ride.

It took ten or so minutes, but they finally made it close enough to the vehicle that I could hear their groaning and expletive-laced mumbling. I raised my head and peeked out the window a few times to check on their progress, and it was like watching paint dry. Skinny, the less injured of the two, was helping Fatty crawl across the gravel at a pace so slow that I started nodding off.

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