Page 342 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection

He keeps swinging at me and I keep dancing back along the construction wall. He probably weighs about what I do, and he clearly doesn’t have any training, but if he lands one of these wild punches, he can still hurt me. I also really don’t want to hit him bare-knuckled if I can avoid it. Without tape and gloves, hitting him hard enough to put him down is going to hurt like hell. I’m already feeling it in my left hand from that punch to Black Mask One’s eye and that was a comparatively soft target. I need my damn hands.

I kick at him, hoping to sweep his knee like I kept sweeping Mac’s, but Skinhead Kevin’s bouncing around too much for me to drop him on his ass. If I do get him down, I’m kicking him in the fucking head.

Black Mask One rolling to his knees and projectile vomiting all across the sidewalk between us stops Skinhead Kevin in his tracks. Looks like the asshole had pizza for lunch. Man, that stinks. Kevin shies away from stepping through the spew, but I give not one fuck. I’m getting away from these dickheads whether or not I have roll in it. I stomp through the rank sludgeand while Kevin’s still staring at his upchucking buddy, spin on my back leg and slam a flying elbow into Kevin’s throat.

His scream is more garbled but still wouldn’t be out of place at a Beiber concert.

I take stock of the three shitheads to make sure none of them are going to chase after me. Kevin’s on his knees, clutching his throat and gasping. The asshole with the baton is seriously out, sprawled on his back among a pile of cans and glass where he knocked over a recycling bin as he fell. There’s a lot of blood on his face and on the ground near his head. I’m wondering whether I should get close enough to check if he’s still alive. Then he groans and I decide I don’t care. I’m not Florence fucking Nightingale and they weren’t delivering Girl Scout cookies. They were going to hurt me. When Black Mask One starts heaving again, I grab my jacket off the sidewalk and take off around the scaffolding at a jog that will get me away from them fast without laying me up tomorrow.

They came at me half-way between my place and Logan’s, but I don’t hesitate in picking a direction. Mac’s in front of me. My place is behind me. I’m not sure what it says that I feel safer with Mac wherever he is than in my own apartment with my doors locked, but there it is.

I check behind me as I reach the end of the block. The whole fight probably took less than two minutes and people have started moving towards the noise—not that any of them rushed to help me—but no one seems to be following me. The scaffolding obscures my view of the three dickheads, but I can see that one of them’s on his feet and staggering around. By his build, I think it’s Black Mask One. I don’t wait to see if he manages to shake off having his testicles relocated into his stomach and jog across the street without waiting for the light, winning me the usual New York salute of a blaring taxi horn. I flip the taxi off as I jog down the next block.

I can still smell Black Mask One’s puke by the time I get to Logan’s townhouse. Either it’s all over my Docs, or it’s all in my mind. Either way, I feel terrible about trekking it into Logan’s house and I hesitate on the top step. Then I remember that three masked assholes who tried to hurt me are somewhere behind me. I ring the bell and turn to get the door at my back so I can watch the street while I wait.

A guy walking his dog across the street gives me a strange look but keeps going. I hear sirens in the distance but they’re way too far away to be responding to the three, downed dickheads. Without taking my eyes off the street, I prop one foot on a brick planter Emily’s filled with orange and pink flowers and begin unlacing my Docs.

The door cracks open behind me.

“Bren? You can come inside before you take off your shoes.”

“Hon, I got crap all over my Docs. Can you bring me a bucket or something? And ask Mac to come out here?” I don’t want to scare her, but I also don’t want to be on the street alone.

I keep fumbling the knot as I try to undo the laces. I always double knot my Docs, but I don’t usually struggle to get them off. I lift my hand to flex my numb fingers and see it shake.

The door opens behind me again and Mac’s warm hand sweeps up my back. “Step in something nasty, sweetheart?”

I nod.

Mac’s hand settles between my shoulder blades. “Bren? You okay? You’re shaking.”

“Yeah. I—” I have no idea what to say. I was attacked? That makes me sound like a victim. I’m not a fucking victim.

“Sweetheart?” I hear the concern in Mac’s voice before he takes my shoulders and draws me up to face him. He swears. “What happened?”

“Three guys,” I manage.

Mac’s hands run down my arms, squeezing gently. When he reaches my left hand, I flinch. Damn, that really does hurt. He lifts my hand into the light and inspects my knuckles. “We need to get ice on this. I don’t think it’s broken but it sure is swelling,” he says quietly, the concern leaching from his voice. If he’s not concerned maybe I don’t need to be, either. I look up at him but he’s all blurry.

“It’s okay, Bren. I’ve got you. Do you hurt anywhere?”

I shake my head. “My shoes.”

He quirks his eyebrows. “Your shoes hurt?”

I stutter out a laugh. It makes my ribs ache. Did I get hit in the ribs? I didn’t think any of them managed to land a hit, but the muscles of my shoulders and ribs and back are beginning to ache like I’ve taken a pummeling.

“My shoes, puke.”

“Your shoes puked? Those are some talented shoes. I see why they rank above me.” Mac cradles my face in his hands and strokes my cheeks with his thumbs. “Come inside. Don’t worry about your shoes. We’ll take care of it. And this blood. We’ll get you all cleaned up and you can tell me what happened. Nice and slow. Maybe over a cup of hot chocolate, huh?”

That sounds good. I nod.

Mac wraps an arm around my shoulders and steers me inside. I stay off the runner because I really do not want to get puke on Logan’s carpet. His entrance hallway used to have some really old, really ugly pictures on the walls. Then Emily began making little changes here and there, and she replaced the old pictures with a couple of mirrors, which make the hallway feel more spacious. I startle at my reflection in one of the mirrors. I look like a ghost. My skin’s greenish-white. My eyes are huge and staring. There’s blood spattered up the right side of my face, smeared and gummy with sweat along my hairline. I swear none of them hit me. Why am I all bloody?

“Here, here,” Emily says as she rushes back into the hallway with a bucket and a roll of paper towels. She kneels next to me.

“Gross, no,” I object.