Guilty Minds

“Isn’t that cheating?” I said. “How about we make this even and you-”

Schmidt assumed a boxer’s stance, his hobbled left leg forward, his right foot back, pivoting. His elbows in, his left hand up by his chin, he threw a right cross directly from his chin to my abdomen.

My adrenaline surged, and in that moment, everything slowed down.

I saw his fist coming at my stomach and I knew I had to relax my abdominal muscles, not tense them. I exhaled sharply through my mouth at the same instant that his fist slammed into my stomach. Schmidt grunted loudly.

The pain was staggering.

Everything went white and sparkly. I gasped. For a long moment I couldn’t breathe. My diaphragm spasmed, paralyzed.

I heard Schmidt chuckle.

When I finally was able to draw air into my lungs, I panted a few times. Then I said, “That all you got?”

But it came out in a high whisper, almost inaudible. Schmidt couldn’t make out what I was trying to say.

He leaned in, close enough that I could smell his rank breath. “Huh?”

I whispered again, “That all you got?”

But it was still hard to understand, and he cocked his head, moving in close, listening, smiling. “Trying to say something, Heller?”

What I did next required every last bit of my remaining strength, and there wasn’t much of it left.

I clenched my teeth, tucked in my chin, stiffened my neck muscles. Leaned back and abruptly snapped my head forward, crashing the crown of my head into his nose.

The crunch was audible.

All of a sudden there was blood everywhere. Blood streamed down his face as if someone had opened a faucet. It was a curtain of blood. He roared with pain and staggered backward, then crashed to the ground, his left leg straight out like a toppled bowling pin.

His hands flew to his face. He screamed, surprisingly high in pitch. Sprawled on the ground, he howled in pain, but I think it was something more than pain. It was humiliation.

Then he drew his Glock and, as he crabbed unsteadily to his feet, he pointed it at me.

The door opened and a second later I heard a voice barking: “Stand down, Schmitty!”

It was Thomas Vogel. He was still wearing his navy suit and red tie, and it looked like he’d freshened up. With his gray-flecked black hair, parted sharply on his left side, and his brushy mustache, he looked officious. He could have been a maître d’ at an expensive restaurant or the manager of a Mercedes dealership. But there was something in his swagger, something about his barrel-chested physique that bespoke the confidence of someone physically imposing, someone who was used to getting his way.

Schmidt lowered his gun at once. His left hand gripped his ruined nose. The blood kept flowing.

“Can I have the room, please?” Vogel said. His voice reverberated, adenoidal and powerful.

He looked at me, shaking his head slightly, while the two men exited, Schmidt trailing blood. Vogel looked amused and maybe a little embarrassed.

When the door closed, he said, “My apologies. I really should send Schmitty to anger-management school.”

I had a headache, and I was still finding it hard to get air in my lungs.

“So you’re Nick Heller,” he said.

“I’d shake your hand but…” I managed to say.

“I know all about you. You’re an interesting guy.”

I took a few shallow breaths, the best I could do.

“A man of paradoxes, I’d say. I’m familiar with your army records. I know what you did at Kunduz. The blood on your hands.” He shook his head again, and I couldn’t tell whether it was with disapproval or admiration.

He was talking about an episode in my past that I never discussed and preferred to forget.

“You do what you have to do,” he said. “You understand that, I can tell.”

“What do you want?”

“Just a little talk. We’re both busy men. We’ll keep this brief.”

“Okay. How about getting these cuffs off me?”

He nodded. “Sure. Soon.” He scuffed the toe of his brown calfskin brogue at the edge of a little creek of blood that was already starting to dry. “You know, in our line of work, there’s the sheep and there’s the shepherds. Guys like us, we’re the shepherds. We take care of the sheep. We protect them and make sure they live quiet, safe lives. Isn’t that really what they pay us for?”

I looked at him and said nothing.

He went on, “You and me, we don’t have an issue here. You may think we do, but we don’t. We’re like Germany and France-mortal enemies during the Second World War, and a few years later they’re trading partners. History of the world.”

“Do you have a point?”

He smiled. “We may do things differently, you and me, but ultimately we’re on the same side. The problem comes when clients-civilians-distract us. Set us against each other. There’s no reason for us to be at each other’s throats.”

“Is that right.”

“Look, Heller, you have your soft targets. We both know that.”

I just looked at him.

“There’s that woman who works for you, Dorothy something. There’s that nephew you’re really close to. The reporter from Slander Sheet. Hell, there’s even your mother, back in Boston. Soft targets.”

“Don’t even think about it, Vogel.”