Best Served Cold

“Look! We can make a deal!” There was sweat beading Gobba’s face now. “We can work something out!”

“I already did. Don’t have a mountain to hand, I’m afraid.” She slid the hammer from the shelf-a short-hafted lump hammer with a block of heavy steel for a head-and felt her knuckles shift as she closed her gloved hand tight around it. “So I’m going to break you apart with this, instead. Hold him, would you?” Friendly folded Gobba’s right arm and forced it onto the anvil, clawing fingers spread out pale on the dark metal. “You should’ve made sure of me.”

“Orso’ll find out! He’ll find out!”

“Of course he will. When I throw him off his own terrace, if not before.”

“You’ll never do it! He’ll kill you!”

“He already did, remember? It didn’t stick.”

Veins stood out on Gobba’s neck as he struggled, but Friendly had him fast, for all his bulk. “You can’t beat him!”

“Maybe not. I suppose we’ll see. There’s only one thing I can tell you for sure.” She raised the hammer high. “You won’t.”

The head came down on his knuckles with a faintly metallic crunch-once, twice, three times. Each blow jarred her hand, sent pain shooting up her arm. But a lot less pain than shot up Gobba’s. He gasped, yelped, trembled, Friendly’s slack face pressed up against his taut one. Gobba jerked back from the anvil, his hand turning sideways on. Monza felt herself grinning as the hammer hissed down and crushed it flat. The next blow caught his wrist and turned it black.

“Looks worse even than mine did.” She shrugged. “Well. When you pay a debt, it’s only good manners to add some interest. Get the other hand.”

“No!” squealed Gobba, dribbling spit. “No! Think of my children!”

“Think of my brother!”

The hammer smashed his other hand apart. She aimed each blow carefully, taking her time, both eyes on the details. Fingertips. Fingers. Knuckles. Thumb. Palm. Wrist.

“Six and six,” grunted Friendly, over Gobba’s roars of pain.

The blood was surging in Monza’s ears. She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “Eh?”

“Six times, and six times.” He let go of Orso’s bodyguard and stood, brushing his palms together. “With the hammer.”

“And?” she snapped at him, no clue how that mattered.

Gobba was bent over the anvil, legs braced, dragging on the manacles and spraying spit as he tried vainly to shift the great thing with all his strength, blackened hands flopping.

She leaned towards him. “Did I tell you to get up?” The hammer split his kneecap with a sharp bang. He crumpled onto the floor on his back, was dragging in the air to scream when the hammer crunched into his leg again and snapped it back the wrong way.

“Hard work, this.” She winced at a twinge in her shoulder as she dragged her coat off. “But then I’m not as limber as I was.” She rolled her black shirtsleeve up past the long scar on her forearm. “You always did tell me you knew how to make a woman sweat, eh, Gobba? And to think I laughed at you.” She wiped her face on the back of her arm. “Shows you what I know. Unhook him.”

“You sure?” asked Friendly.

“Worried he’ll bite your ankles? Let’s make a chase of it.” The convict shrugged, then leaned down to unlock the cuffs around Gobba’s wrists. Shivers was frowning at her from the darkness. “Something wrong?” she snapped at him.

He stayed silent.

Gobba dragged himself to nowhere through the dirty sawdust with his elbows, broken leg slithering along behind. He made a kind of mindless groan while he did it. Something like the ones she’d made when she lay broken at the foot of the mountain beneath Fontezarmo.

“Huuuurrrrhhhh…”

Monza wasn’t enjoying this half as much as she’d hoped, and it was making her angrier than ever. Something about those groans was intensely annoying. Her hand was pulsing with pain. She forced a smile onto her face and limped after him, pretended to enjoy it more.

“I’ve got to say I’m disappointed. Didn’t Orso always like to boast about what a hard man he had for a bodyguard? I suppose now we’ll find out how hard you really are. Softer than this hammer, I’d-”

Her foot slipped and she yelped as she went over on her ankle, tottered against the brick-lined side of a furnace, put her left hand down to steady herself. It took her a moment to realise the thing was still scalding hot.

“Shit!” Stumbling back the other way like a clown, kicking a bucket and sending dirty water showering up the side of her leg. “Fuck!”

She leaned down over Gobba and lashed petulantly at him with the hammer, suddenly, stupidly angry she’d embarrassed herself. “Bastard! Bastard!” He grunted and gurgled as the steel head thudded into his ribs. He tried to curl up and half-dragged her over on top of him, twisting her leg.

Pain lanced up her hip and made her screech. She dug at the side of his head with the haft of the hammer until she’d torn his ear half-off. Shivers took a step forwards but she’d already wrenched herself free. Gobba blubbered, somehow dragged himself up to sitting, back against a big water butt. His hands had swollen up to twice the size they had been. Purple, flopping mittens.