Killer of Giants

than six feet away, Raj bobbed neck deep in the water, his arm tight around Kyle’s throat, dragging him toward the shore. Kyle twisted and turned like a fish on a hook, too weak and out of breath to put up a fight.

  Wading in behind them, I watched the reflection of their twisted faces wobbling on the dark water. Raj breathed fast and shallow as he crawled onto the shore, his clothes clinging like a second skin. Around him, rocks glistened, and so did the bottles and garbage spread across the shoreline. My shoes touched solid ground, and Raj gripped Kyle’s arms and dragged him across the mud. Heavy rain gushed over them as a flash of distant lightning lit up Raj’s drawn and rigid face.

  Raj dropped onto Kyle, straddling his chest, and pinned him with his knees. He drew his fist back and swung it at Kyle’s face with the full weight of his body.

  Crack.

  Kyle flinched and let out a cough.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Raj grabbed a handful of Kyle’s hair and lifted his head off the rocks, leaning nose to nose with him. “Why won’t you leave us alone?” He threw Kyle’s head back onto the rocks with a sickening thud.

  A weak moan escaped Kyle’s lips.

  I crawled out of the water, fingers and toes numb, and staggered toward them. Blood and water gleamed on the rocks near Kyle’s head. I kneeled over him. “What were you going to do to us?”

  His eyes opened, no emotion, no hint of what was going on in his demented mind. He gazed straight through me, and then his eyes flicked to Raj. A moment later, his eyelids drifted shut.

  “Wake up!” Raj shook him.

  I leaned close to Kyle’s face, listening to his breathing, and turned to Raj. “How hard did you hit him?”

  “I barely even… he hit me with the gun!” Raj slapped Kyle twice on one cheek and again on the other. “Wake up, asshole! Shit, I think he’s dead.”

  As a seventeen-year-old I felt pretty grown up, but this was at least the third time this week I’d wondered what a responsible adult would do. “Let’s get back to the car. We can use Allie’s phone to call–”

  A raspy growl came from Kyle’s throat and he opened his eyes wide. He bucked his hips and lifted his arms, and Raj dropped onto his chest, trying to pin him down. With a grunt, Kyle lifted Raj and heaved him onto the rocks.

  I leapt to my feet and pulled Raj up.

  Rolling onto his side, Kyle grabbed a baseball-sized rock and climbed to his feet. Staggering and swaying, he started toward us with the rock held high.

  Raj and I stepped back toward the shore until the water lapped at our shoes. Usually we wouldn’t stand a chance against Kyle, but in his weak state we might be able to take him down if we worked together, even if for just long enough to get a head start back to the car. I tapped Raj’s arm, and he turned and sprinted for the jetty.

  I ran after him, my soggy shoes splashing and slipping in the mud. “No! Not the jetty.” Less than twenty feet behind me, shoes squished on mud, gaining speed with each step. I kept my head down as I ran, bracing for an incoming rock. One after the other, we leapt onto the jetty, our shoes creaking and shuddering the planks as we raced out over the water. At the last bollard, Raj clambered over the edge and dropped into the dinghy. With the frenzy of a trapped animal, he wrenched at the starter cord and the motor chugged, fired, and died.

  Kyle lunged at me and swung the rock at my face. I stepped back, losing my footing on the edge of the jetty, dropped over the side, and crashed ass-first onto the dinghy floor. Raj pulled his foot out from under me, wrenched an oar from its bracket, and swung it up at Kyle.

  Thud.

  Kyle’s rock hit the bench seat next to me. I climbed to my knees and yanked the starter cord. The motor let out a weak chug, sputtered, and went quiet.

  “Again!” Raj thrust the oar repeatedly at Kyle, narrowly missing him each time. “Leave… us… alone… you goddamned… piece of shit!”

  I wrenched the starter cord again. A cloud of smoke belched from the exhaust and the engine chugged into life. I twisted the grip on the throttle, and the dinghy inched forward. The vibrations from the engine pulsed up my arm as I eased the dinghy’s nose away from the jetty. I gave the motor more gas, churning the water behind us, and Raj tossed the oar overboard and wiped his hands.

  Gusts of wind buffeted us, and the rain stung as it lashed our faces. Behind us, Kyle stood motionless on the jetty, fading into a dark silhouette. I revved the engine and the jetty disappeared into the inky blackness of the night.

  17. A Disturbing De-Negotiation

  The late afternoon air blew crisp and cold, whipping at our faces and blowing leaves around the sidewalk. From across the street, it was hard to tell whether the lights were on inside Valeshnikov’s Gym.

  Gordie stood slumped on his crutches and let the toe of his cast rest on a stray brick. “This is pointless – Drac’s not going to give back the money. Let’s get out of here.”

  My skin prickled with adrenaline. “This isn’t about getting the money. I want him to do what we paid him for.”

  When we’d eventually met back with Allie and Gordie last night, it was an understatement to say Gordie didn’t take the news well. He was expecting Drac to not show, but hearing that Kyle tried to kidnap us on a dinghy gave him a serious case of the heebie-jeebies.

  Breathing deep, Gordie sucked air through his teeth. “If we go in there and complain, what do you think he’s gonna do? Serve us cupcakes and tea?”

  Raj pulled his hands from his pockets and swung his fists through the air, ducking and weaving clumsily like a drunk picking a fight. “I’m not afraid of him. Did I tell you how I beat the ever-loving sweet bejeezus outta Kyle last night? I wouldn’t have had to if Chris could remember to keep his damn phone quiet.”

  That was the three hundredth time Raj had reminded me since we left Stony Creek Lake. I patted my empty pockets. “It won’t happen again. My phone’s shot. Literally.” I smiled at Gordie, but he didn’t smile back.

  Raj gazed down at his hands. “Last night I was scared as balls, but then Kyle got a taste of what he’d been dishing out and he didn’t like it. If we can get Drac on Board, we got this, and there ain’t a damn thing Kyle can do about it.” He leaned back and high kicked the air. “He should be scared. Last night I used my martial arts skills to take him down, and I wasn’t even Asian.”

  “Actually you were,” Gordie said. “And still are, given you’re from India.”

  “I was born in Detroit.”

  Gordie’s mouth opened and then closed. “I didn't… I mean–”

  “You racist.” Raj shook his head. “Chris, did you know Gordo's a racist?”

  “Enough you two,” I said. A shadow crossed the window inside Valeshnikov’s. I put my hand on Raj’s shoulder. “Come on, Bruce Lee. Let’s get on with it then.”

  Crossing the empty street, we moved slow so Gordie could keep up at hobble pace. I stepped onto the sidewalk in front of Valeshnikov’s and eased open the door.

  Inside, Drac was almost floating above the boxing ring mat as he launched a machine-gun-like barrage of kicks and punches at one of the old guys. The full-body padding did nothing for the frail gray-haired man as he edged back into the ropes with each brutal blow and then buckled over. Drac pounced on him, launching frenzied punches and kicks into his legs, stomach, and head.

  Gordie’s breathing turned to short, asthmatic wheezes. I stepped closer, knowing if I hesitated I’d lose my nerve. Gordie and Raj followed.

  My heart thumped double time as I whispered, “Let me do the talking.”

  “Oh,” Gordie said. “I was hoping I’d get to enrage the steroid-abusing kickboxer.”

  In the ring, Drac pinned the old guy against the ropes, hammering him in fast forward with both fists and repeatedly launching his knee into his gut. The old guy lifted his arms to protect his face, and with a strained moan, buckled sideways and received one final organ-crushing kick to his chest as he collapsed onto the mat.

  Raj swallowed. “What does he do
to people who aren’t his friends?”

  With his opponent looking lifeless, Drac lifted the rope and climbed out of the ring. He removed his gloves and wiped the snot and sweat from his nose as he strutted to a table littered with Russian liquor bottles and cartons of cigarettes. He splashed some vodka into a shot glass, tipped his head back, and threw it down his throat. With a wipe of his towel through his hair, he hocked a loogie onto the carpet.

  “Seriously… can’t we leave now?” Gordie asked.

  Drac’s gaze fell on us and he stopped dead. “My little comrades.” He lifted a cell phone on the table, thumbed at the screen, and pressed it to his ear. He muttered something into the phone, touched the screen, and slipped it into his pocket.

  There were only two ways this could go – no point waiting to find out. I took a deep breath to steady my voice. “You didn’t show last night.”

  Drac glanced over his shoulder at the guy laid out in the ring and nodded at me. “We go office.” He lifted a pack of cigarettes from the table and strutted toward the rear of the gym.

  “No good will come from going back there,” Gordie whispered. “Can we just leave… please?”

  Raj waved for me to follow, and I started across the carpet.

  Ahead, Drac lit a cigarette and disappeared through a door at the far wall. I continued toward him, and Raj and Gordie followed close behind.

  We stepped through the doorway into a dim bathroom with barely enough space for the four of us to stand in a