Weapons of choice

Somebody cannoned into him from the left. But Buster stood six-four in his socks and weighed 198 pounds. Even a little drunk and hungover, his street smarts were more finely tuned than most men's, and he sensed the impact before he felt it. Buster braced himself and drove an elbow into the guy's head. It wasn't a clean hit. His elbow caught a cheekbone, which gave under the impact, but most of the force of the blow was misdirected, unbalancing him a little.

He didn't bother to check on the man he'd just knocked out. Buster was vaguely aware of the body falling away into the threshing machine of arms and legs that now surrounded him. But he was locked into his own narrow world. He slipped the blackjack out of his pocket: eight inches of stitched leather with a solid lead weight sewn into one end. It felt like an extension of his hand. He didn't have a lot of space in the violent, heaving mass of brawlers, but he didn't need much. He began to lay into the crowd around him.

Eddie Mohr could hardly see through the blood and sweat running into his eyes. Somebody had knifed him just outside the bar. It wasn't a deep cut. The blade had glanced off a rib. But between that and the open gash on his forehead, he was starting to lose more blood than he ought to. He knew, from working on the floor with his old man, how that sort of thing could sneak up on a guy. One of the boners at the stockyard had shivved himself with a knife so sharp he didn't feel the cut. He bled to death, standing in a lake of his own blood, boning a yearling calf.

The riot wasn't breaking up, but it was spreading out. Eddie didn't like the way every breath felt like he was sucking in fire. He'd broken a knuckle on somebody's head and was limping from a kick to the back of his knee. It was time to get going. The MPs would be here in force soon, breaking heads with their nightsticks. And if they brought any reinforcements from the Multinationals with them, they'd be carrying those electric batons. He didn't fancy getting one of them stuck in his ass.

He'd lost contact with the other guys. Last he'd seen of Pete Craven the dumb bastard was pounding on a corporal from the engineers. Hundreds of men still fought like that, piled atop each other, gouging, biting, and knocking heads. Nothing like the fights you saw in the movies. He'd fought his way clear by using a trick his old man had taught him. Swinging a bar stool like a club, he'd made as though he was going to brain any bastard who challenged him. When they instinctively threw up their hands, Mohr swung the stool low and fast into their knees, knocking them down like cornstalks. The stool had broken after the fourth time, but by then he was outside.

Smoke and dust, hot ash and the sounds of the riot filled the air.

He felt dizzy and tired.

He started to move off, closing up like a prizefighter and taking a couple of poorly aimed hits on his shoulders and arms. A section of burning wooden sunshade crashed down in front of him. Men jumped away from it, cursing and shouting. Mohr altered his course, heading for a side street that seemed a little quieter.

He turned the corner at a bar called the Black Dog and recognized one of the chiefs from the Leyte Gulf. The guy's face was badly banged up, but he was pretty sure it was Jose Borghino, or Borgu, or something. He was leaned up against a car, obviously in trouble. Mohr started to move toward him when a man in a torn, bloodied suit crashed into him and knocked him to the ground.

He heard somebody call out, "Get away from the car, asshole."

And then a big gun, a.38 or.45, boomed twice, so loud it deafened him.

Half blinded by blood and grit, Mohr looked up as Borghino fell away from the car. His mouth full of dirt, his ears ringing, he was about to scramble up and confront the suit. That guy had to be the shooter. But a white-hot bomb went off inside his head, and he tumbled down into darkness.

Restricted to camp after the riot, Slim Jim Davidson was anxious to hear from Big Itchy. The confinement was driving him nuts. He feared the dumb gangster would be so preoccupied by the destruction of his clubs on Hotel Street that he wouldn't have followed through on the plan to clean out the stateside bookies. Slim Jim was stretched out in his rack, cursing his luck and the suck-ass pattern of his so-called life, when the cry of "Mail call" went up.

Moose Molloy Jr., who was resting on his cot, leapt to his feet.

"C'mon, Slim Jim. Mail's here," he enthused.

"Big fucking deal," said Slim Jim flatly.

"Oh don't be like that. We'll be out of here soon. I even heard they're gonna kick the niggers-sorry, the African Americans-off those ships and let us crew 'em. Wouldn't that be great, Slim Jim? Can you imagine fighting the Japs in one of them babies? They'd never lay a glove on you."

"Yeah?" said Davidson. "They gonna leave the pussy in place? Did you happen to hear that?"

Moose didn't pick up on the sarcasm.