The Professional

Chapter 36

I WASN’T SURE WHO HAD TOLD what lies to accomplish it. But we were all assembled when Hawk brought Gary Eisenhower into Chet Jackson’s office. Chet was at his desk. Tony was in a chair across from Chet, with Junior and Ty-Bop leaning against the wall in the back of the room; Beth sat on the couch near him. Zel and Boo leaned on the wall near Chet, looking at Junior and Ty-Bop. I stood near the door.

When he got inside the room, Gary paused and looked around.

“Hot damn,” he said, and walked across the room and sat beside Beth on the couch.

“’S happening, Beth?” he said, and patted her on the thigh.

She smiled brightly.

“Okay,” Chet said. “You put this together, Tony. Talk to us.” Tony looked around the office.

“Lotta firepower in here,” he said.

Chet nodded.

“Hawk,” Tony said. “Spenser. My friends, your goons. Lotta force.”

I could tell that Boo felt dissed by being called a goon. But he didn’t speak. Zel seemed uninterested.

“So?” Chet said.

“I hope there’s no need for force,” Tony said.

“To do what?” Chet said.

“To resolve our problem.”

“Our problem? What problem do you and me have?” Chet said.

Tony looked around the room. He took out a cigar, trimmed it, lit it, got it going, took in some smoke, and exhaled.

“We don’t have to get too explicit here,” he said. “But you and I do business in the same territory, and we got an agreement in place that allows us to do that without, you know, rubbing up against each other.”

Chet nodded without saying anything.

“That gonna end,” Tony said, “’less you straighten out your love life.”

“My love life,” Chet said.

Tony took an inhale on his cigar and took it from his mouth, held it up in front of him, and exhaled so that he looked at the glowing end of the cigar through the smoke.

“Specifically, Mr., ah, Eisenhower,” Tony said. “I want him left alone.”

“What the hell do you care?” Chet said.

“Don’t matter why,” Tony said. “Only matter that I do.”

“And if I tell you to go to hell?” Chet said.

“You’re out of business,” Tony said.

Everyone was quiet. Beth looked bright-eyed and excited as she watched the back-and-forth between her husband and Tony Marcus. Gary Eisenhower looked sort of amused, but he nearly always looked amused. Maybe because he was always amused. The damned cigar kept being a cigar.

“You think you can put me out of business?” Chet said.

“I know I can,” Tony said. “And so do you.”

Chet nodded slowly.

“You and Spenser rig this deal?” Chet said.

“Don’t matter who rigged it,” Tony said. “It rigged. Take it or leave it.”

“He a friend of yours?” Chet said.

I knew he was stalling while he tried to think it through.

“He sent me up once,” Tony said. “So no, we ain’t friends. But he done me some favors, too.”

Everyone was quiet.

Then Boo said, “Mr. Jackson, you want me to take one of these clowns apart, you just say so.”

Tony turned and looked at him with mild amusement. Zel shook his head sadly and stepped away from Boo, his gaze fixed on Ty-Bop, who was still nodding to whatever music he was hearing in the spheres, but he was as focused on Zel, and Zel was on him.

“Boo took too many to the head,” Zel said, “when he was fighting.”

“Screw you, Zel,” Boo said. “We ain’t hired to let people push our boss around.”

Beth’s eyes seemed even brighter, and I noticed her tongue moving along her lower lip again. Tony was incredulous.

“You think you gonna take Junior apart?” Tony said, tilting his head in Junior’s direction. It was an easy tilt, because Junior occupied most of the room.

“Anybody in the room,” Boo said.

His eyes still steady on Ty-Bop, Zel shook his head sadly.

“Boo,” he said softly.

“You heard me,” Boo said.

Behind his desk, Chet looked blankly at the scene. He very likely had no idea what he was supposed to do.

Boo was staring at Junior.

“How ’bout you, boy? You want to try me?”

Junior looked at Tony. Tony nodded. Junior smiled.

I said, “How ’bout me, Boo?”

And he turned toward me.

“You, wiseass?” he said. “Be a pleasure.”

I slipped out of my jacket. Boo came at me in his fighter’s stance. He threw a left hook to start, and I saw right away why his face was so marked up. He dropped his hands when he punched. I blocked his hook with my right and put a hard jab onto his nose. It didn’t faze him. He kept coming. He faked a left and tried an overhand right. I took it on my forearm and nailed him with a right cross, and he went down. He got right back up, but his eyes were a little unfocused, and his hands were at his waist. I hit him with my right forearm and then torqued back and hit him with the side of my right fist. He went down again. He tried to get up and made it to his knees, and wobbled there on all fours. Zel squatted beside him.

“Nine, ten, and out,” he said to Boo. “Fight’s over.”

Boo stayed where he was, his head hanging. Some stubborn vestige of pride that he wouldn’t let go and be flat on the floor. Zel stayed with him.

“Come on, big guy,” Zel said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Boo made a faint gesture with his head that was probably an affirmative, and Zel got an arm around him and helped him up. Boo was more out than in, but his feet moved.

As they passed, Zel said to me, “Thanks.”

I nodded.

And they went out.

“So much for your muscle,” Tony said.

Chet nodded.

“I thought he was tougher than that,” Chet said.

“He was,” I said.

“Probably been beating up loan-shark deadbeats too much,” Gary said, and grinned. “Or guys like me.”

Beth was staring at me silently. Her face was a little flushed. Her tongue was still on her lower lip, but it wasn’t moving.

“What about it, Chet?” Tony said.

Chet looked at me and back at Tony. Then he looked at Beth.

“Okay,” he said. “I lay off Gary Boy.”

“Right choice,” Tony said.

“But”-Chet turned to Beth-“it stops here. I am not going to be your patsy.”

“Meaning?” Beth said.

“You drop Gary Boy here, or I’ll throw you out without a dime.”

“You’d divorce me?”

“I would.”

She looked at Gary.

“You got no case,” Gary said. “He wouldn’t have to give you anything.”

“And if I give him up?” she said to Chet.

“And keep your knees together,” Chet said. “We walk into the sunset together.”

“That’s my choice?”

Chet looked at her as if they were alone in the room.

“I love you,” Chet said. “But I can’t be out of business. If I was, you’d leave me anyway, soon as the money ran out.”

“You think that of me?” Beth said.

“I know it of you,” Chet said. “But it’s okay. I knew it when I married you. I made the deal. I’ll live with it. But I’m not giving up both you and the money.”

Beth looked at Tony Marcus.

“This man can actually put you out of business?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “He can.”

Beth looked at Gary.

“What should I do?”

“I was you,” Gary said, “I’d dump me and go for the dough.”

Beth nodded.

“Okay,” she said.

Tony grinned and stood up.

“Our work here is done,” he said.